Discovering colorful culture behind melodies

Editor’s Note

In Tsinghua, there’s no lack of fascinating lectures that broaden students’ horizons, as well as equip them with brand-new perspectives they need to better explore the world we live in. In the #StudyAtTsinghua series, we will feature some of our valuable lectures, one at a time. 

Today, let’s explore Musical Phenomena in Diverse Culture, taught by Luo Wei, Associate Professor of the Art Education Center of Tsinghua. Come and join us to discover the colorful culture behind the spiritual melodies!

First Movement

Encounter

It is a typical class of Luo’s course. With hot colors and dramatic compositions, a painting with the typical Baroque aesthetic style is presented on the screen, making it hard to believe this is a music class. 

As the slides rolled, sculptures, interior decorations, and costumes of the Baroque period came into view one by one, allowing the students to fully experience the overall aesthetic appeal of Western art creation at that time. Then, it became smoother and easier to understand the extreme pursuit of melodic ornamentation in the Baroque period, as well as the intricate three-dimensional spatial relationships between voices in polyphonic weaves during that period.

This is one of the main features of Luo’s Music Phenomena in Diverse Culture, which is also one of the embodiments of “multiple” in the course title. Through visual art categories like painting and architecture, she leads her students into the abstract world of music, to help them better understand the core artistic characteristics, aesthetic concepts, and cultural roots behind different musical forms.

“I expect to guide my students to think about the connections between music and philosophy, humanities, and science, to re-examine the art of music from an interdisciplinary perspective, to better understand the scientific attitudes of different periods, and the cultural perceptions of different races through music, and ultimately to consider the unique meaning of music and indeed all art forms for human life,” said Luo.

Second Movement

Ponder

As a course open to all Tsinghua undergraduates, the students are from various departments and grades, and have different levels of musicianship. The diversity of students’ backgrounds has led to many wonderful collisions of ideas.

Course assignments and group presentations are stages for them to showcase their creativity. Their new dimensions of contemplating the world of music and their in-depth thinking about the various cultural propositions behind it often make deep impressions on Luo.

For example, one student once showed his reflections on the topic of “The relationship between lyrics and melodies.” He created a song called “Words Without Melody” with lyrics full of musical tones, and the elements in the lyrics came from fragments of words that the students usually used to tease about their campus life.

The final presentations at the end of the semester are even more fascinating. Students show different styles of presentations based on their own professional backgrounds, and their own creative thoughts.

A masked pantomime performance with daily instrumental percussion to show the topic of cyber violence, a paper-cutting performance similar to shadow puppets to explore the development of Chinese rock music, and sound synthesis with electronic components to show the evolution of life, among other things. 

During the sixteen weeks of the course, seeds of the world of music are planted, rooted, and sprouted in the hearts of the students, and will continue to ferment and grow in their world of creativity and imagination.

Third Movement

Discover

“Ms. Luo is a teacher who ‘captures the attention of all the students in the classroom as soon as she appears.’ This is certainly due to her warm and open temperament, but moreover, it comes from her rich and profound knowledge of music, and her precise control of the rhythm in class.” That is how a student from the School of Law described Luo.

In her classes, Luo’s sincere and rigorous approach to her profession and her passionate love for music unleash an endless inspiration, attracting her students to wander in the vivid world of music and explore the cultural characteristics of different regions: exploring the romantic stories of knights from Celtic music, understanding the unique geography characteristics of the vast African land from African music, discovering the American society in the 1960s from Bob Dylan’s folk rock......

Luo’s love for traveling and foreign cultures is what helps her to turn a music lecture into a cultural journey. Her years of living abroad when she was young have made her a believer in regional culture, and fascinated by folk music with a strong regional flavor. Traveling to different regions of the world and observing how human beings understand life and express harmony has inspired her to think more openly, rationally, and deeply about music.

“I think folk music is a cultural key that accompanies me around the world, allowing me to understand the various forms of human life, as well as the vibrant cultural forms,” she said.

For Luo Wei, music is a language, as well as an innate ability that permeates human genes. It is not only the transmission of culture, but also the hope of humanity.

Through “Musical Phenomena in Diverse Culture,” she hopes to plant a seed of music for the students, so that the march of life can give them a constant source of nourishment, and that music will become a lifelong friend for them to enrich their independent souls.

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Study at Tsinghua | Discovering colorful culture behind melodies in Tsinghua

Writer: Li Zishuo

Editor: Liu Shutian

Designer: Xia Yifei