Opinion · Inside Hong Kong classrooms
The erhu doesn’t need to audition for the piano
Consider the instruction to play the same melody on an erhu and a piano. If the only permitted measure of success is hitting the notes printed on a staff, you can overlook the slide, the attack and the length of the sound between the noteheads. The piano has different control over those things, and a different way to make a phrase hang together.
The Education Bureau provides materials for Chinese instrumental music and Cantonese opera as well as other repertories. Including a piece from each tradition in a textbook is an opening. An imaginative lesson asks what listening habits each tradition demands. What does a learner have to hear and imitate? Which information travels easily on paper? Who can demonstrate the sound?
Compare two takes of an original four-note motif on instruments with different sound production. Play the second note early in one take. Approach the last note with a slide in the next, where the instrument permits it. Ask someone unfamiliar with the score to describe what changed.
A teacher need not claim expertise across all traditions. Bring in a player if possible, credit the source recording, and let a student ask the questions a uniform scoring rubric would suppress.