Why are there fewer and fewer foreign art students?
In recent years, people's enthusiasm for studying art majors is increasing, and art candidates have become an increasingly large group of college entrance examination students. However, the number of domestic art colleges is limited, so it is difficult to accommodate the increasing number of art candidates. It's getting harder and harder to get into domestic art colleges through art exams. In view of this, many art lovers look abroad. Although there are layers of interviews and selections in foreign art examinations, most of them are interest-oriented, paying more attention to students' artistic creativity and enthusiasm for learning, and there are many famous art schools with relatively little competition.
Art study abroad is unique in art, but music study abroad has no sense of existence.
Judging from the current situation of talents in China, the demand for art professionals in China is still in short supply, and the salary level is higher than that of other majors, which is sought after by students and parents. It is worth mentioning that the economic cost of study and further study of art majors has never been low, which can be said to be one of the most expensive categories of all majors. Despite the huge cost, there are still many families in China who have enough economic strength to bear the high cost of studying in the arts.
All kinds of art study institutions, although the names of all kinds of study institutions and education and training institutions all contain the word "art", their main business is art, even if there is occasional music, their business focus is one-sided, and they all tend to the category of art without exception. In the art study abroad market, the original two majors, Meng and Jiao, have made art a one-man show, and the existence of music study abroad is incredibly low.
A company that provides both art study abroad business and music study abroad business revealed: "In the art study abroad market, there are only a handful of institutions that actually offer music study abroad business, and some of them claim to include music business by outsourcing their combined business to overseas teachers. The other part is just to help students do simple music application services, which is the intermediary service in the traditional sense. Due to the particularity of music major, overseas institutions cannot accurately grasp the specific details in the application process, so the application success rate is low. "
According to the statistics of a well-known art institution, music major accounts for a small proportion in the art study abroad market, especially in the art study abroad education and training market, which can only reach 20% of the art study abroad market at most. The most fundamental reason for this phenomenon is the difference in student base. "First of all, in terms of the number of students, there are fewer music students than art students, and the student base cannot be changed through overseas educational institutions. Therefore, it is not surprising that the market share of music study abroad is small. " The president of an art institution said that although the current situation of the music study abroad market is not optimistic, most art study abroad institutions still attach great importance to the development potential of the music study abroad market, and focus on developing the music market by raising resources, docking overseas resources, designing work modes, and integrating teachers.
Music learning needs children's skills, and it is not easy for foreign teachers to intervene.
Because of the differences in professional study, there are always more students in art than in music. There is no age limit for art study. You can start at any time if you are interested. Some art examination training classes in China even slogan of training zero-based students to be admitted to professional art colleges in one year. There are countless training courses of the same type in the market, and there are countless students who have been admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts by attending pre-test training courses. Music learning pays attention to "one minute on stage, ten years off stage". Music learning begins at an early age, and it takes years or decades for people to reach a certain level.
Musical instrument learning generally begins at an early age, because in musical instrument learning, the exercise of finger muscle function is required by age. Once you get older and exceed the best time to learn musical instruments, you will get twice the result with half the effort and fail to achieve good results. Although some musical instruments can become monks halfway, some training institutions even put up eye-catching slogans such as "learn a certain musical instrument in three months and play well-known tracks smoothly", it is difficult to reach a high level of performance in this way, let alone superb skills. Vocal music learning needs to be carried out after the voice change period. Because vocal music requires higher innate voice conditions, the voice conditions after voice change are unpredictable, and a good voice can be met but not sought. Vocal skills can't be practiced. If you practice too much, it will cause irreparable consequences.
Learning musical instruments depends on time accumulation. If you don't play for three days, there will be thorns in your hand. The successful performance of music can not be completed overnight, and students need to pay countless sweat and efforts in this process. It is normal for music students to practice in winter and summer vacations. Regardless of students' creativity and creativity, as far as the cultivation of skills is concerned, learning from an early age and persisting for a long time, from the beginning to the end, are essential elements for music students.
For most art institutions whose main business is studying abroad, the mentoring mode in music learning is one of the main reasons why music has not developed as vigorously as studying abroad. A well-known art education institution said: "The early stage of art learning is teaching in large classes, taking a one-to-many form, and then conducting one-to-one teaching after students reach a certain level and stage. But the teaching method of music is more traditional. No matter vocal music or instrumental music, they all follow famous teachers from childhood, study one by one, and implement VIP teaching with mentoring. Music, a learning method based on the relationship between teachers and students, is difficult to develop on a large scale. For art education institutions studying abroad, it is impossible to open up new market space from the training service. "
In the process of music learning, the number of substitute teachers is limited, and the direct teacher-student relationship between students and each teacher is often as long as several years, which brings a problem to the compilation of portfolio. Students learn from professional teachers since childhood. After a long period of running-in, students have become familiar with the teacher's teaching methods and models. However, the application for studying abroad in music is different from the domestic art test. If professional teachers have no experience in studying abroad, they often don't know the details of portfolio preparation, which is not conducive to applying for studying abroad.
If teachers are changed to teach, the teaching methods and training methods will be different, which will lead to students' inadaptability in learning. Forced replacement is not conducive to the future development of students. An art education institution revealed: "It is obviously inappropriate to intervene in the middle to interrupt the consistent teaching situation. Even if overseas teachers are replaced, teaching integration cannot be realized in a short time. If the guidance time is less than one year, students' music skills will not be significantly improved. "
Some professionals said that the temporary replacement of teachers' portfolios did make some students go abroad successfully, but it was a hungry choice and behavior of the study abroad industry. Even if it is successful, students will certainly encounter obstacles in their follow-up study. This way of looking at short-term interests without considering long-term development is not desirable.
Prepare music collection: national musical instruments and western musical instruments have their own difficulties.
The application for studying abroad in music and art is almost the same, and all of them need to provide language scores, GPA and portfolio. In foreign countries, the institutions offering music disciplines are basically the same as those in China, that is, college music colleges and department music colleges. The first kind of college is an independent unit, an institution in itself, not affiliated to any professional college of any university. However, the conservatory of music, which is dominated by departments, is actually a music department in a comprehensive university. The setting of foreign music disciplines can be roughly divided into the following categories: musicology and music theory; Music performances, including various vocal music, instrumental music and percussion music; Music education; Theory of composition and composition technology; Music technology.
In China, music students mainly focus on music performance, music education and musicology, and students also take the lead in considering these three majors when applying for studying abroad. Applicants majoring in music performance are required to provide a collection of works, that is, audio and video recordings of students' performances. After a detailed understanding of the requirements of the applicant, the students reached an agreement with the teacher on the performance tracks, and then recorded them through video technology. The Conservatory of Music has many detailed requirements on the length, sound quality, picture clarity, plane position, file format and size of students' works. The specific details of the music collection, such as video environment, lighting, clothing, piano, sound effects, camera model, post-editing, etc., are also different and need post-editing. Portfolio is a direct way for students applying for music performance to show their professional skills and artistic talents, and it is the top priority of music application. The performance process is uninterrupted and irreplaceable, and everything depends on strength.
Music education majors also need to prepare a portfolio, but in the recording of the portfolio, students teach related courses as teachers, mainly to show their teaching experience and teaching strength. In the teaching process, in addition to the control of course links, the design of teaching language and the benign interaction with students, music demonstrations are also carried out. It is the aim of music education major to show the teaching content with high quality while completing all the teaching links.
Musicology or music theory majors mainly study music history, ethnomusicology and other related knowledge. Music learning has risen to the theoretical level, requiring students to understand a wide range of music knowledge and have unique opinions and ideas on music. Therefore, when submitting an application, you don't need to prepare a portfolio, you just need to provide relevant music theory papers as application materials. The paper needs in-depth research to reach a higher academic level.
After studying abroad, you only need to prepare materials step by step, but music students have to face a dilemma. China has a long history. In the long river of 5,000 years of civilization, China has produced many unique national musical instruments, and there are not a few students who study China's national musical instruments. However, such students face an embarrassing situation when applying. Because they are all national musical instruments, foreign conservatories of music have no relevant performance majors. Although foreign universities have hired some folk music masters as music teachers in recent years and set up corresponding majors, compared with western musical instruments, there are still fewer subjects. Therefore, once the students who study national musical instrument performance and national musical instrument education decide to go abroad, it means that they need to face the problem of professional conversion. Because both foreign music performance and music education need to master a major, students majoring in folk music have to settle for the second best and choose musicology. But even at this point, students majoring in music theory still have a hard way to apply for the exam, because they have to read a lot of western music literature, which is nothing more than a complicated and arduous task for students who have studied China music since childhood.
An art study abroad institution revealed: "At present, in the limited music study abroad market, students studying piano and vocal music account for 80%, and the remaining musical instruments and branches account for the remaining 20%. Among the limited musical instrument students, students of western musical instruments account for the vast majority. " As the origin and birthplace of western musical instruments, the performance and teaching level of western musical instruments in western countries has always been superior to that of China. Music originates from life and thought. Only when you are familiar with the western way of thinking can you naturally understand the charm of western music. The improvement of techniques can be studied and practiced diligently, but the understanding of music can only be better displayed if it is nurtured in local conditions and customs from an early age. The level of domestic students majoring in music performance often fails to meet the performance requirements of foreign music colleges, so even if they plan to study abroad, most students will choose music education majors with slightly lower requirements on performance techniques and music theory majors that only need to provide papers.
Ignoring language ability in cultural learning is the biggest test.
There is such a situation in music education in China. Most students with strong professionalism and superb skills come from conservatories of music. They are called "academic students". Most of these students have entered the middle school attached to the Conservatory of Music since childhood to receive systematic and advanced music education and learn correct playing techniques. Students have put too much energy into the study of music skills and professional knowledge since childhood, and the study time of cultural knowledge is limited. Physics, chemistry and biology have not been offered in the middle school attached to the Conservatory of Music since junior high school. Students can only choose liberal arts exams in the college entrance examination, and the start time of other disciplines in the school is also very short. Due to the young age of students and the "contempt" of cultural knowledge in the general environment, students generally think that the study of cultural knowledge is not important, and what's more, they completely give up the study of cultural knowledge. This kind of students have perfect professional skills, and in the process of applying for studying abroad, the preparation pressure of the portfolio is relatively small. However, due to putting too much energy into practice, once you decide to study abroad, your language ability will become a "roadblock" on your way to study abroad.
The language achievement requirements of foreign universities have a higher threshold for students majoring in performance in music colleges. Although it is customary to lower the language requirements for studying in art, the language test scores must reach a certain level. However, even so, it is quite difficult for students of professional conservatories. Many institutions studying abroad have realized that studying abroad with music is a very typical subject in art study and even in the whole study abroad market. Some people in art learning institutions said frankly, "This may be caused by the music education system in China. The scores of cultural courses in the national art test are far lower than those in other subjects, and students don't pay enough attention to learning, so language has always been the weakness of further studies, not to mention passing high-level language tests such as IELTS, TOEFL and GRE. There are few musicians with outstanding professional level and cultural quality. Once we meet such a rare seedling, we will attach great importance to it. "
China students learn English from childhood, and the first choice for studying abroad is naturally English-speaking countries. However, as the birthplace and promotion of classical music, European countries, especially Germany, France and Italy, are the hometowns of countless famous musicians. For students who like studying and playing classical music, European countries are ideal holy places, but most of them use their own languages. Although some countries and colleges use English as their learning language, they still need to learn small languages to study in these countries.
In view of the learning mode of studying abroad in music, some art training institutions are considering launching a mode: "We plan to launch a music study abroad section for young students, select students who have the intention to study abroad in music from the early stage of study, and then take full responsibility for students' music study, conduct a long-term training, formulate a teaching plan combining macro and micro, and arrange various learning projects according to the time plan, such as competitions, performances, study tours, etc. So as to cultivate students' cultural quality and accomplishment. However, the cost of this learning method is very high, and the feasibility of operation remains to be discussed.
Lack of music study abroad consultants makes career planning difficult.
The general purpose of recruiting overseas study consultants for overseas study institutions is returnees who graduated from prestigious schools or professionals who have worked for more than five to ten years, and the music study industry is no exception. After all, people who have studied abroad will be more aware of the requirements of the application process, take as few detours as possible, and improve the application chances. A study abroad institution said: "At present, the number of senior professional consultants in the music study abroad market is relatively small. The career planning of most music students after returning to China is either to teach music courses in colleges and universities, to join music groups to perform collectively, or to join the ranks of musicians. Few musicians enter the study abroad industry, and even fewer senior consultants are familiar with the music study abroad market. "
For domestic parents, the success of studying abroad is only a link in the realization of life planning, and will eventually return to employment. As we all know, art study has always been the most expensive subject in studying abroad, and spending a lot of money on art study is not a small investment. However, the salary of music returnees after returning to China does not have much advantage over other industries, and many parents will consider the cost performance of studying abroad. Someone has done statistics. 20 15 among the ten most difficult majors in China, music performance has always been on the list. Faced with this reality, many parents and students are in a dilemma and don't know where to go.
Compared with art, career planning of music learning is more difficult. Art is closely integrated with real life, with strong practicability and a large number of people in social demand. Music is the enjoyment of hearing and has timeliness. Although music plays an important role in social life and people's lives are inseparable from music, the direct application of music in daily life is mostly playing and teaching, and the combination with other industries remains to be discussed. Music talents are often concentrated in these two sub-majors, and the pressure of employment competition is even greater. "From the perspective of students' future career planning, it is necessary to adjust and integrate students' majors. We try to expand the career choices of music students in various ways to a certain extent, not just in performance and teaching. " The art study abroad institution told the reporter of Studying Abroad.
Music has always advocated interdisciplinary learning, but few people have succeeded. For students majoring in music, if they don't overcome many difficulties such as cultural lessons and language ability, studying abroad will become a distant dream.