A thought about R&B music

Since I have studied classical music for so many years, I have to say I like it the most. However, beside classical music, the genre which I particularly enjoy is R&B. R&B is a music genre that combines elements of hip hop, dance, and pop music. It originates from traditional rhythm and blues music, today the term R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music. The reason why I do like R&B music is that it is about soul, and most songs are around heartbreak,love, and life. Although it seems R&B music is all about sad or gloomy, the rhythm of R&B music is extremely relax. None like rap, most people like to relate R&B to rap music, they are actually different. Sometimes rap songs have no thought in lyrics, singers just wanna make them rhymed. Compare with R&B music, it has a lot of thought about life and love. And what is more of making the R&B music interested is that some R&B songs are improvised. The singers just sing what they are thinking in that moment. This is really cool!! Check the song in Dan Ying's blog, I always feel comfortable when I listen to it.

What does music means to me?

I have played the piano for 14 years so far. In these years, I have gone through success, loss and confusion. It could be said that music is becoming a part of my life.

I was born in an ordinary family; my parents were working as writer and artist. Indeed, my mother is a singer in the department, so she has influenced me in music, and I became loving music very much since I was a little kid. At that time, a lot of children were learning piano. At the beginning of learning the piano, my parents need to sit by my side and watch me while I was practicing. I actually did not like to play at first. In my childhood, I was very negative. Sitting down behind the piano and practicing seriously for a few hours was like a nightmare to me. I would like to go outside to play just like the other kids did. If my parents did not persist in forcing me to practice, I think I would already given up for learning the piano.

I made a decision when I was 10 years old. I wanted to be a pianist. At that moment, I did not realize that how much effort I should make. And also my parents should support me if I really want to do piano as my career. Fortunately, I gained a great support from my parents to enter the Shenzhen Arts School.

After finishing my high school study. I clearly know that if I want to be professional, I should be patient and put more effort. I used to think that I was a quiet good pianist and have obtained many honors. However, I finally discovered that there are millions of pianists in the world who are better than me. So, I chose to go to the conservatory to be more professional and international.

My last piano teacher Professor Dan used to say that music reminds him that he is still alive. I believe that I will get to his level some day in the future.

Some ideas of Qi Zhang's performance

Zhang Qi, she is actually study from the same teacher with my high school classmate, who is now studying in Shanghai Conservatory of Music. For understand better about Zhang Qi, I asked my classmate some questions about her. To be frank, I thought she was a teenage girl when I saw the video at first. She is 26 years old, and everybody thinks she is awesome. All right, let’s work this out musically. The piece she played on the video is called "The Love for Three Oranges", an orchestral suite by Prokofiev. I would not talk about technique, because her technique is extremely perfect. Therefore, I am going to explore this piece. This is an orchestral music, so we need to realize the instrumentation. Zhang Qi’s performance represented that she totally understood vocal principle in each instrument, for instance, if you listen carefully, you may find out she used different techniques to express both different sounds between brass and woodwind. In addition, her tonal handling was very in place. This made her sounds very close to an orchestral. Thus I think she is absolutely a genius.

Journal writing 2

what makes a successful musician

The most important skill to have if you wish to become successful with anything, inclulding music, is Attitude. An old Chinese proverb once said, 90% of the journey towards success is over once you have stepped outside your front door.

Furthermore, practicing is also very important. Practise= Success! Yes it sounds hard, but it is very easy. As long as you have enough patience, and love your instrument as well.

What's more, opportunities, which for artists are equally important. If you are working extremely hard, but have the lack of opportunity. You won't succeed as well.

Journal writing 1

Why i opted for an overseas education

Nowadays, more and more people choose to study abroad. In their opinion, the foreign education is more scientific than domestic. In this case, I got few private views on it, and I'll explore some ones here.

First of all, the information in modern society is already developed, you can find in the media or the Internet to learn all the developed countries informations, and fully imagine how's foreign life going as well. This imagination, however is totally different with you actually live abroad. Foreign study life will greatly broaden your horizons, to exercise the ability of independent thinking and help you to get more comprehensive understanding of human nature and social perspective.

Furthermore, foreign universities offering a wide range of majors, which means you are able to choose whatever the major you want to learn. In addition, some majors are still "blank" in my country, on the other hand, domestic same profession could not be approval abroad.

Finally, I think that studying abroad can get more opportunities to succeed.