Hong Kong music education
Beyond the Grades
Essays on Hong Kong’s music exam economy, what schools reward and how to teach music in a room that speaks more than one language.
The ABRSM cash cow
A family can buy an exam entry, book the lessons that lead up to it, and begin paying toward the next grade before anyone asks what the student wants to play. The cash cow is a repeatable transaction for confirming progress in an art that rarely progresses in straight lines.
Read the essayThe exam economy
Inside Hong Kong classrooms
- Hong Kong already wrote creativity into the curriculum
- A Hong Kong flat is part of the lesson
- The erhu doesn’t need to audition for the piano
- School music for kids who will never choose DSE Music
- Five ways in, depending on the music
- The recording is sometimes the score
- Sight-reading is a tool. Give students a reason to use it.
Teaching across languages
- When Dad wants a grade and the kid wants a band
- A translated music lesson still needs a shared clock
- A child shouldn’t have to translate their own music lesson
- How to translate “warmer” into something a musician can play
- The chord chart that survived a language barrier
- Two lines of feedback a caption can actually carry
- Cantonese at home, English in the DAW
- What a music workshop can do with a room full of accents
Read Beyond the Score on Real Conversation Guide, or Check names and numbers on a translated call.
These essays are editorial commentary. Isaac Chap founded Hanashi, whose company runs this publication. His private music lessons are a separate paid offering. Editorial policy · Suggest a resource or send a correction