Beautiful Singing Refleets His Youth

Mr. Sun Zhanbai is one of the most well accomplished singers and vocal educators in the music history of modern China. Sun premiered Ode to the Erlang Moutain and enjoyed a fame in the music circle, receiving a warm welcome at home and abroad when he was in the Song and Dance Ensemble of the PLA General Political Department. Since 1960, Mr. Sun Zhanbai taught at the Art Academy of PLA and the Music Department of Henan Univercity consecutively. In the decades of his vocal teaching career, he studied actively from the vocal experts both home and abroad and absorbed the essence of Chinese traditional folk vocal art. Sun summarized a set of vocal music teaching system of his own and trained a great number of music talents for China due to his bold exploration and initiative. When he was 86 years old, Sun compiled A Concise Course of Fundamental Training in Singing with his correct acknowledgement on his own vocal performance and teaching despite that he was old and infirm. Mr. Sun Zhanbai made an outstanding contribution to the national vocal art progress in China and left us a rare fortune.To study Mr. Sun Zhaibai, we should not only learn his eager to study and his spirit of exploration, but also dig in his valuable experience on vocal performance and teaching and apply those into our study and work, instead of interpreting his legendary artistic life or summarizing his fifty years of practice on singing and vocal teaching. The thesis will illustrate from the following aspects: the introduction reveals the purpose, significance and the current research status on the study of Mr. Sun Zhaibai; the first part makes a general survey on Mr. Sun Zhaibai's life, with a particular emphasis on his integrated traditional Chinese and western educational background and his growing path on vocal art; the second part depicts his teaching experience in both the Art Academy of PLA and the Music Department of Henan University; the thirds part is the key point of the essay that discusses the background of the formation of his teaching philosophy and his important theories of the vocal music teaching; the forth part summarizes the artistic achievements of Mr. Sun and discusses his efforts on the development of chinese modern vocal art; the epilogue re-sorts the context of the whole thesis and makes a conclusive illustration on Mr. Sun Zhanbai's vocal performance and teaching.In the thesis, I take a combination approach to narration and discussion. The narration helps the discussion and the discussion leads to the narration, trying to reveal the material, literature and figure. I also applied the investigation approach, interviewed Mr. Sun Zhanbai and his students in person, which made me obtain the first-hand research data. I also conducted field surveys and collected a lot of useful information by visiting Mr. Sun Zhanbai's living and working places. In addition, by applying the comparative approach, I summarized Mr. Sun Zhanbai's vocal performance and teaching art in multiple perspectives. The thesis focuses on the artistic career of Mr. Sun Zhanbai, incorporated his own development, discussing Mr. Sun Zhanbai's artistic life and his vocal music development in modern China with the perspectives of his singing career, vocal teaching philosophy and practice.