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.

Noble Court, A Piece Of Modern China

     Wherever I've lived, I've looked around and seen my neighbors and reflected on who they are and what part of society they are from.  I suppose that's the bit of sociologist in me.  In my life I've lived in many places and that habit of observance is a part of who I am.
     In August of 2012 I moved to Clifford Estates in Panyu a part of greater Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.  Clifford Estates is a planned city, of sorts, created by Dr. Clifford L.K. Pang, a billionaire, originally from Hong Kong.

     The estates is home to more than 200,000 people living in 35 story high-rise apartments, as well as 3 story townhouses.  Within its boundaries are supermarkets, sports facilities, private schools (including an international school) a private police force, and free bus service throughout.
     What I want to examine in this blog entry is my own living area: Noble Court.  As a teacher we receive free accommodations in a particular high-rise building among five others.
     What I see day in and day out is a large percentage of this population who are retired Chinese.  But, what is peculiar from a western vantage point is a huge number of babies and young children.  The morning light brings these older people to the edge of our large garden pool where tai chi is performed by men and women alike and traditional Chinese music wafts through the air.  Always close by are baby carriages or another grandparent holding the baby or young child.
      In the evening, the same garden pool area is filled with, primarily, elderly women who dance for hours what looks like Chinese line dancing while the men sit close by often with little ones in tow.
     Where do they come from and what is the nature of this enclave of retired Chinese?
     The population of China has been moving from rural China to eastern coastal cities at phenomenal rates.  It has been estimated that in a span of only 5-10 years 250,000,000 Chinese will have left small interior cities, towns, and farm land to come to the large cities for financial opportunities.  This is usually the young adults who, married or not, take jobs and leave their families behind.
     Some of the elderly, as in the case of Noble Court residents, sell their homes and move to the cities in support of their sons or daughters careers, where they become the baby sitters and providers of a solid "home" close by their grown child's work place.
     As I'd talked about in an earlier blog the one child policy is a factor in this move.  This grandchild must be cared for because it will be the support of the elder, eventually.  So, love and attention must be showered on the youngest for the strength and growth of the family unit.  The father or mother might have an apartment at some distance from the grandparents and grandchild.  Their only concern is building a career not to deal with the day to day raising of their child.
     As I'd said about Clifford Estates, there is a private bus service which transports most residents to other points within Clifford and to the bus station and the metro station nearby.  What I hadn't mentioned is the riders of these buses are opposites: the very old and the very young............and foreigners, such as teachers.  These buses are crowded (a friend of mine once called them "sardine buses"....a nice way of saying crowded, very crowded). If you follow general rules of etiquette, you should: 1. offer a seat to the elderly 2. offer a seat to the small child.   In Clifford, you stand a lot.