Creating Something From Nothing

When you are a music teacher working in China or other places, such as international schools, you often will find yourself with few, if any, materials to work with.  I found this true when I worked on Guam as well.
I would have thought that these schools would accumulate a reasonable sized music library over time, but I was sadly mistaken.
When it came to instrumental arrangements for pop bands I discovered a solution which has served me well for years now.
I create music from "nothing".  Actually the truth is that I create written music from which my bands can play from midi files which are in abundance on line.  These files are digital representations of mostly famous compositions that have been put up on the web for a number of different reasons.
In the case of pop songs, many have been created for the purpose of a backing track from which people can sing or perform with.  Styles are of many types:  classical, pop, country, ethnic, religious, almost anything you might want musically.
My process utilizes a computer software called Sibelius, although there are many commercially produced brands available.
I simply download the midi (most often free) and load it into my Sibelius.  Immediately the song pops open with all the parts that the midi transcriber had created to duplicate the song as you might hear it on a famous recording.
At this point you must examine the piece as fitting with the instrumentation of your group.  Sometimes it might be necessary to re voice parts with the existing instrumentation that you have available.  Sometimes you might have to create parts that are not on the recording.

I will give an example below and how it came about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiSpd3JV1q4

The song is called:  海阔天空 by a group called Beyond.  It was a famous Cantonese song from many years ago.  I asked my students to find a midi of a famous Chinese/Cantonese song that we could perform and they came to me with this one.
I put the midi file into my Sibelius software and it opened with the correct digital information of the main instruments including strings, drums, bass, guitars, pianos and voices.  What did the track lack?  A Guzheng
which was one of our instruments and also the chords for guitars.  I distributed all the other parts and added a track in the key of C because the Guzheng has only do, re, me, sol, la as the notes to play.
I had to write a part which might be played easily using those notes.  I took bits of the piano part and other accompaniment and cut and pasted the Guzheng from the other parts.
For the guitar chords I analysed the song's structure and wrote those chords onto the score where they had not been.
The singers learnt their parts via the original recording and presto; we had our song.

Living In a World Of Smog

     In 2010 I moved to Suzhou, China and immediately was confronted with what must be one of the longest running smog alerts I had ever experiences.  I had lived in LA many years in the past and saw the orange sun (so pretty) but never anything to compare with China's air.
     A few years later I live in Guangzhou and check my China smog meter every day: (This is the website for air quality in China: compliments of the Chinese government)  http://aqicn.org/map/china/ The truth is that I'd rather live oblivious to these conditions, but when you look out the window of your apartment or from work you see a grey haze over everything each day accept perhaps after a good rain.
     What is hard to deal with is when smog seeps into your life and affects you in its most insidious way, while you're sleeping.  You have no way to control this.  Late at night you feel a congestion in your chest and wake to feel your chest being squeezed like a sponge.

     Of course there is the fact that a person should receive a reasonable amount of vigorous exercise to stay in tip top shape.  But, don't hold your breathe.  The weather won't allow it, at least in the way you might expect.  So, people try their best to find ways to exercise inside where there might be a certain amount of filtration through air conditioning units.  But, some people have given up and "live with it".
   

     Chinese pride is something that I never had thought about when it comes to this pollution.  As much as you might hate the pollution, to knock China for its pollution is taken very personally by the Chinese.  You are insulting, in a form, the Chinese way of life, for their striving for a better future for their nation.  It is part of what makes their nation number two in the world as an economy.

     What is true is the fact that car is king in China now and there is no going back, only forward.  Car Crazy China  Cars will only become more common and fresh air, less and less.  That is air in China.

Car Crazy China

     When I arrived in China in October of 2010 I was whisked from the Shanghai airport to Suzhou in the middle of the night.  I couldn't see much other than freeways that kept going and going, much like the US mainland system of highways.  But, what were the drivers like?  It was dark and few drivers on the road at 1 am in the morning.
     The first experience of something "different" from my past experiences occurred when I road the bus the first day or work.  The bus picked up its passengers as any form of conveyance, but then I learned the driver's abilities.
     The bus sped off at a quick rate, even faster than the automobiles around it.  As time went by, day by day, I learned the nature of the bus drivers of this route (there were more than one).
     When approaching a red light the bus would reduce its speed but not stop. The cars at the light in front of our bus would need to begin their acceleration process meanwhile our bus sped up and passed the cars from either left or right.  What was very disturbing to me was when the bus driver did this maneuver in the left turn lane, bypassing the cars from the left side.  I had only seen this type of maneuver in movies.  Here was a professional driver (with a busload of workers) overtaking the slower moving autos as a common practice.  Whew!I think this guy learned to drive in the air force, perhaps in a dogfight.

     I now live in a secure community in Guangzhou, China.  Since my arrival in Suzhou in late 2010 and today a lot has happened in this country.  When you go to the shopping centers, take an airplane, or simply turn on the TV you see car commercials.  Reading these two articles attached you will see that number have grown from 13 million units to 35 million units in three years!  China's Car Units 2010  China's Car Units 2013
     What does this mean?  Traffic, and also badly trained drivers who are dying to get out on the road.  Cars are now the true form of status symbol.  Nothing beats this.
     Back to driving;  how do they drive?  Badly and more than that, ignoring others, and what we in the west think of as "common sense".
     My living circumstance is to be surrounded by cars within Clifford Estates.  Cars are parked everywhere, even where they should not be.  Ticketing of wrong doers is beyond the thought of police.  There are just too many infractions to deal with.  So, they do not ticket anyone.  People back out directly into oncoming traffic without a thought.  It is expected that these things happen.  But, again, don't forget the numbers which are growing exponentially, more than triple the sales of three years ago.
     The future is open to more and more vehicles, more and more exhaust, more and more accidents.  China is car crazy!

     When the United States was in its automobile expansion times, in the middle of the 20th century, Detroit was booming and everyone knew every car model and we all waited for the early fall for the new car models to come out.
     That same thing is now true of China.  People, who before were ignorant of car makes, are now checking everything out for their car purchase.  Cars are truly a status item and having one represents a person's growing affluent.  Keeping up with the Jones' is the word of the day, except perhaps it's not Jones, it's Zhang.
     Chinese car craziness is only beginning.  The numbers that I mentioned above are only a matter of a small fraction of the 1.3 billion people who live in China.  This blog entry will be out of date in the near future.

Chinese Retirement System and the One Child System

     For people in the United States and many western countries socialized retirement came into being in the 20th century and caused a revolution in the way families dealt with retirement.  Traditionally, worldwide, it had been the family's responsibility to take care of the elderly.
     But, for places such as the United States social security came into being in the 20th century, and became a partial support and, in some cases, the only support for the most elderly in the society.  Money was taken from all and put into the system with the result of a cushion of cash to rely on when retirement was at hand.
     It was quite surprising to me, when I arrived in China that I found that this "communist" country had no such system in place.  Instead, this country of 1.3 billion people still relies upon the children to support them when retirement comes.  There is no social security.
     In their system, the normal scenario is for the eldest child to be the primary support of the parents and even grandparents living either in or near the oldest male.

     So, what happens in the new China?  The new China includes a new and important wrinkle.  We must remember that in the past, families were made up of a reasonable number of sons and daughters who would share in keeping the retired parents and grandparents comfortable.  Today China has a policy of one child per family with penalties for people who exceed that one child limit.
      China's One Child Policy Scrutinized

     So, the result of this system is a reliance upon ONE CHILD to do what had been a shared responsibility by a family of siblings.  This has created a stressed out society which is more than normally focused on making more and more money than had been the norm in the past because they are now the sole support for an upside-down pyramid of parents and grandparents above them.  In this society parents expect and demand the continuation of the traditional system of the support of the elderly.
     There are also other factors which feed into this growing problem such as a major migration of the population from rural areas to the mega-cities.  These issues will be talked about in upcoming blog entries.

I welcome comments to this and any blogs.  Please join in discussing and feel free to share to other internet outlets.

The One Child Classroom

     I came to teacher in China in the fall of 2010.  As a teacher in an international school I had a mix of many children from throughout the world.  That is the nature of international schools.  There was a mix of ethnic groups quite different from most US classrooms at least where I had done my initial training.
     As is true of all teaching, discovering who the students are and how they behave and interact is a deciding factor in approaches or tactics to dealing with students.  Getting to know your pupil is the key to discipline and how to dispense knowledge.  What is their prior knowledge?  From that point learning occurs.
     Ethnicity was one factor.  But, what I hadn't thought about, was the family makeup.
     The group of people, which has the most profound affect upon any person's life, is the family unit.  Whether you might be speaking of children playing together, learning in school, funding for college, or whatever steps in life a person might take, the number of siblings, including their order, affects how they act and react to life's circumstances.
     Where am I going with this?  China's "One Child Policy"!  China's One Child Policy/ Invisible Children

     In 1978 and continuing to present day the Chinese government started a course of population restriction for an understandable reason; over-population.  China currently has a population of 1.3 billion people. China's Population counter

     What significance does this have?  The vast majority of children in China are only children.  This has a profound affect upon all aspects of their lives.  Of course, this also has a profound affect upon social life in Chinese life and schools.  The result is a classroom full of only children.
     If you have ever thought about an only child the first thing which comes to mind is that all the family's resources are focused on one person.  One person!  The older generation, which had many siblings prior to the policy, are all devoting their love, affection, and resources into the future of that one individual.
     What affect might that have?  The word "spoiled" comes to mind first and foremost, spoiled in many ways.  It's an upside-down pyramid of flow into one individual.  Father, mother, aunts, uncles, grandparents all watching the every move of this "one child".

Grandfather and grandmother caring for their grandchild

     Back to the classroom.  The student enters the class as any child might but with one major difference; where there might have been a helicopter mom or dad before this, there is a whole squadron of helicopter relatives who are hovering over this child's development.
     Let's get away from this for a moment and talk about learning within a family, prior to the classroom.  I believe that the first learning that any person gets is within the family unit itself.  There are lessons to be learned through the interplay of parents to children and children to children.  These sorts of "real life experiences" and interplay are the child's first exposures to the world. Loving, caring, arguments, good and bad, are all a part of a person's growth and how they might deal with issues beyond the borders of the family. Without this early learning in the home, the classroom becomes the real starting point for many of these behaviors to develop.    http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/200907/the-adolescent-only-child

     So, when I came across my first full classroom of one child students, which was during this year, I saw students with curious personality traits.  Although I am generalizing here for sake of illustration, this is what I saw:  students who were mature in many ways beyond their years due to their being around adults for most of the time and cultured due to their parents' input.  These were also students who, socially, were very child-like, or late bloomers.

     Other ramifications of the One Child System will be discussed in future blogs as this one quirky edict has made its mark in many, many parts of Chinese society.
    

Love Of Music in China

     When you wake up in the morning and you are lucky enough to live in a place where the birds still sing at daybreak you know that God has provided the inspiration of music around us, through his creatures.  Sorry to say in many parts of the world that natural music has disappeared.  But, man, in his simplest form, a creature of God, expresses himself through song for the sheer love of the sound he can create.
Noble Court, Clifford Estates, Panyu, Guangzhou, China
     I live in Clifford Estates, Panyu district, Guangzhou, China.  I look out my window each morning to a green forest on a hill opposite my apartment's 16th floor.  In the stillness of the morning from spring to late autumn I am blessed with the natural sounds mentioned above.  In my time in Suzhou, China I was blessed with the sound of buses and cars beneath my balcony.  But, here?  I wake to the sounds of birds, frogs, and on hot days the whirr of cicadas (or their Chinese equivalent.....probably speaking Mandarin).
     This atmosphere is the natural music which I spoke of, which inspires us.
     This morning as I sat on my balcony I heard the distant beauty of a Chinese woman singing.  Because of the distance I couldn't make out the words, but the song was classical in nature almost like a Christian hymn of my early days.  But, this song was sung solo.  No piano, no organ, just the beauty of a mature woman's voice drifting across the air in the same way as the birds were doing.  She was lending her voice to the mixture as another ingredient in God's symphony.  She wasn't being drowned out by motors, or loud speakers but simply singing for "the love of music".

Leaving Guam for Suzhou, China

What is it that makes people do extreme things?  Sometimes life gives us few options.  We work as hard as we can to stay in the status quo.  The status quo is safe.  We know it....it's happened before and we can have it go on and on.

But, God doesn't always allow us to keep doing the things we want.  Sometimes we try and try and try to fix problems but it just can't be fixed.  If that occurs then maybe it's time to walk away and start something new. 

You've reached the top in your particular job and still what was good in the past is somehow not accepted by those who are around you.  You can beat up on yourself and take it, or you can say, "that's enough" and start in a new direction.

That's what happened for me.  I worked at a school in Guam, thought of as the best on Guam, and perhaps it was, at one time.  But, people from the outside, who had no idea about the traditions of the school and further, did not respect those traditions came in and started chopping off heads.

I was NOT one of those who had their head chopped off.  I was a cooperative man who could adapt to new ways, if necessary.  But, the decline in the school had already been set in motion.  So, my friends disappeared in quick fashion.  Of 60 teachers, 26 disappeared, either forced out or sympathetic to their co-workers' plights.  The following year the school's student population fell and with it the income to the school.

By the end of the second year of this new administration the school was now  monetarily driving on fumes.   One day in the spring of the new administration's second year I accidentally found in the trash, next to the copy machine, notes that the headmaster would be using for the board meeting.  He had been given the job, by the board, of eliminating those teachers who had been found to be superfluous.

But, the layoffs did not happen.  This new administration's third school year began with all 60 teacher in place.  Within one month "financial austerity" was declared to the assembled teachers by the headmaster and immediately 7 teachers were laid off.  This was too much for me, especially since I had been privy to the memo from the springtime which stated that the headmaster must act.  But, he had waited until the school year began and then had laid these teachers off.  I felt this was beyond cruel to have taken someones signed contract and throw it away one month into the new school year.  For me this was writing on the wall.  I needed to find a job that would meet the same income standards that I'd had at this school, and do it NOW.

Most of my friends, who had left, but who had taught at this school had gone to international schools in the Asian area.  This seemed like the best possibility for me also.  I had been checking international school hiring websites for the past few months and had found a job opening at a school in Suzhou, China where a friend of mine had previously worked.  That's what I needed!  This would be a natural departure.  

So, it was time to prepare for going to China.....a lifelong interest of mine.
I had always been curious about China since I was a child.  My parents had a travel encyclopedia which I had pored over and China had been of special interest.  Asia was so much different from what I had seen growing up in Portland, Oregon.

Dave Janssen's Music Online
 "Hafa Adai" in the classroom, Spring 2010

My beginnings with Suzhou Singapore International School were from a listing that I'd seen for an elementary music specialist position which I'd seen listed in early September of 2010.  This was a lucky break for me because usually international schools advertised in December and January prior to the beginning of the school year.  So, this was an opportunity that I was lucky to have found.

As a part of being hired I had talked to the elementary principal, a director of PYP (a system of study in many international schools), an elementary music teacher already in place, and the head of the arts department.  The interview was done by telephone which surprised me.  I thought they might use Skype in a face to face conversation.  


24 hours later I received word that I had been successful in my interview and my move began in earnest.


I needed to pass all my important papers to the human resources department so that they could begin the process of my Chinese work visa.  This was one of the most important aspects of moving to China.  For me,  I had not been hired in the normal fashion so the school did not have adequate time to get my work visa, which usually takes a few months.  The principal wanted me there immediately so they were going to us other ways to start me out.


As it turned out the music teacher that I replaced had come to the school the first day of school, turned, and left without returning.  So, the second music teacher had been under a double work load for the past month and a half and wanted out of that circumstance as quickly as possible.


The solution for the school was to land me in Hong Kong, get a 30 day tourist visa, and then make my way to Suzhou in haste.  What this meant was that I would have to leave the country after 30 days of work at Suzhou, to return again to Hong Kong to obtain my work visa.  But, that will be written of in a future instalments, at length.