Digital Technologies in Vocal Training of Chinese Students in Russian Higher Education Institutions

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Digital Technologies in Vocal Training of Chinese
Students in Russian Higher Education Institutions
Konovalova S.A.1,* Zhang Tinting1,2 Sun Dongdong1,3
1Ural State Pedagogical University, Yekaterinburg, Russian Federation
2Northeastern Pedagogical, China
3Jilin Art Institute, China
*Corresponding author. Email: konovsvetlana@mail.ru
ABSTRACT
This article considers possibilities of using digital technologies at teaching Chinese students vocal in Russian
Higher Education Institutions. It provides grounds for significance of vocal development during all levels of
education from infant preschool educational organizations to Higher Education Institutions, which may be
implemented with the use of contemporary digital technologies. This article proves that at the Higher
Education Institution’s level contemporary vocal pedagogics includes traditional approaches to education,
based on Russian and Italian vocal schools, and contemporary methodologies, intended to form popular and
jazz music technical mastery. The purpose of this article is to describe a set of exercises and tasks from
contemporary vocal methodologies, including those using digital technologies, which favour effective
process of Chinese students vocal mastery in the Russian Higher Education Institutions. The selection of
exercises and tasks was conditioned by diagnostics results at the study initial stage and also by the
particularity of foreign students training. The theoretical study of different areas, genres and styles history,
and also practical learning through vocal works performance were offered for the students for development
of musical culture through learning vocal works and performers of different nationalities. A set of exercises
and tasks, developed on the grounds of contemporary vocal methodologies of both foreign and Russian
authors, was offered to the student for forming vocal skills and estrade techniques. Konovalova, S.A.
developed a complex of speech and vocal exercises for development of the level of vocal performance in
Russian, namely, of the level of Russian-language articulation development of the students from China. In
the results of inclusion of the complex of exercises and tasks, oriented to Chinese students’ vocal
performance development through contemporary vocal methodologies, the vocal performance level has been
significantly improved, which proves developed exercises perspectivity.
Keywords: vocal methodologies, vocal performance, digital technologies, education of foreign students in
the Russian Higher Education Institutions
1. PREAMBLE
1.1. The vocal performance is one of the focal areas in
musical education at different levels of education: from
infant educational institutions to studying at the Higher
Education Institutions. The variety of education process
approaches and methodologies is vast. As of today,
the vocal pedagogics bases upon the traditions, formed in
Russian and Italian vocal schools, and it introduces voice
training contemporary methodologies. Talking about
traditions, it should be noted that in the process of voice
training, estrade vocal teachers use approaches from vocal
pedagogics of academic vocal, in particular, when
forming vocal skills [4, 11]. Nowadays, there is a range of
voice training contemporary methodologies, including the
one using digital technologies [6, 10, 15, 16]. Such great
variety offers to a teacher a possibility of using elements
of different methodologies of voice training with
accountance of individual vocal and physiological
particularities of a learner.
1.2. The foreign students studying at the Russian Higher
Education Institutions became an everyday occurrence.
A growing number of foreign citizens choose Russian
Higher Education Institutions of both technical and
humanities fields for their education [1, 7, 9]. The Soviet
and Russian musical education has been of reference for
other countries, the students always demonstrated high
creative achievements. Many foreign Higher Education
Institutions and music schools use the Russian system of
musical education as a basis and engage teachers from
Russia. The Russian vocal school has its traditions, and it
is one of the leading vocal schools along with the Italian
one. The foreign citizens vocal teaching at the Russian
Higher Education Institutions is performed on the basis of
both traditional and contemporary vocal methodologies.
[13, 14].
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 437
International Scientific Conference “Digitalization of Education: History, Trends
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Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
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2. TERMS OF REFERENCE
2.1. The vocal performance favours forming of the
musical culture of the foreign citizens, who study at the
Russian Higher Education Institutions. Getting to know
musical culture of different countries in the light of vocal
works is an effective mean for musical “bundle”
development of the students from China. As it is noted by
a number of studyes, widening of musical ideas on
musical areas, styles, genres together gives a possibility of
forming musical culture of the students. [8, 12, 14, 19].
2.2. The teaching of Chinese students at vocal classes
favours formation of vocal skills on the grounds of
contemporary vocal methodologies, and also formation of
estrade techniques and the competence to perform them in
vocal works of their country and in the works of other
nationalities.
2.3. The vocal classes are an effective mean of forming
a skill of talking and performing vocal works in Russian
in the Chinese students. As the vocal teachers and speech
therapists notice, in the process of vocalization,
the Russian-language articulation development is
performed much faster and easier.
3. STUDY ITEMS
3.1. The efficiency of Chinese students’ musical culture
development process will depend on inclusion of vocal
works of different nationalities, which the students both
perform and learn through auditory listening, to
the educational process.
3.2. Chinese students’ vocal skills and estrade techniques
development is available through inclusion of
contemporary vocal methodologies, used in both
academic and estrade vocal, to the educational process.
3.3. The improvement of the level of the Chinese
students’ vocal performance in Russian is available
through the inclusion of a set of exercises, oriented to the
Russian-language articulation development.
4. STUDY METHODOLOGY
4.1. The purpose of study. To determine the most effective
exercise from the contemporary vocal methodologies at
teaching Chinese students’ vocal mastery in the Russian
Higher Education Institutions.
4.2. Study methods. To use the following study methods:
studying and analysis of the literature on vocal pedagogy
issues, analysis and generalization of pedagogical
experience, pedagogical observation, methods of
psychological and pedagogical diagnostics.
5. STUDY RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
5.1. For the purposes of solution of assigned tasks and
giving answers to the questions, outlined in this article, we
have undertaken a study, in which the students of
Baicheng Pedagogical Institute, the field of study: musical
education, studying at the Musical and Artistic Education
Institute of the Ural State Pedagogical University in the
period of 2017-2019 academic year, took part.
The initial diagnostics of the students’ musical culture
maturity included such methods as an interrogation, which
gave a possibility to reveal Chinese students’ knowledge
of particularities and distinctive features of vocal culture
of different countries in the historical retrospective,
knowledge of vocal performers of the past and of the
present time. In the process of diagnostic tasks
development, we referred to the theoretical base, which is
studied at the music history disciplines. This discipline is
included into the musical education curriculum of all
Musical Higher Education Institutions in Russia and in
foreign countries. And we also referred to the vitageneous
experience of the students themselves at interrogating on
vocal performers.
The performed diagnostics, related to this issue, allowed
to state the following conclusions. The students’
knowledge of the musical system in whole and of its
retrospective is developed, however, the students have
partial knowledge of vocal performers of the past and
present time. They couldn’t explain and substantiate the
vocal works genre particularities and name the music
areas.
While performing diagnostics on vocal skills and estrade
techniques development at the study initial stage, we used
the exercises, oriented to revelation of development of
the students’ vocal skills, such as inhale, diction, sound
generation, intoning. Along with the exercises we offered
the tasks, which were oriented to revelation of the level of
performance development and estrade techniques
knowledge.
This issue diagnostics showed that at this stage such
student’s vocal skills as sound generation and intoning are
formed sufficiently well, but not all of the students can
use speech and vocal inhale at the rest stroke, only few
people managed to name estrade techniques, but at the
same time they couldn’t perform them.
While performing diagnostics of the initial level of
Russian-language works vocal performance, we offered
the students to perform a number of exercises and vocal
works. At the diagnostics we were analyzing the students’
skills of pronouncing syllables in the process of execution
of both speech and vocal exercises. The initial diagnostics
of the level of Russian-language works performance
implied the performance of a Russian work, known to the
students.
The executed diagnostics allowed to make the following
conclusions: the Chinese students’ Russian-language
articulation is formed very lightly. The major part of
the students hardly managed to do speech and vocal
exercises. Such syllables as “bra”, “ma”, tsu”, “sta”,
“scha” were especially difficult. However, the suggested
Russian works, such as “Katyusha”, lyrics by M.
Isakovsky, music by M. Blanter, “Podmoskovnyie
Vechera”, lyrics by M. Matusovsky, music by V.
Solovyev-Sedov, didn’t cause performance difficulties
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notwithstanding the fact that not all of the words were
pronounced correctly from the point of view of
articulation. The Chinese students listened to this work
performance through smartphones, and received, in this
way, an example of correct performance with clear
pronunciation of the words.
The achieved results gave a possibility to develop a set of
exercises and tasks, favouring vocal skills and estrade
techniques, and also development of Russian-language
vocal performance level.
5.2. In relation to the initial diagnostics achieved results
a set of exercises and tasks was developed for the students
from China, and it was used at vocal and ensemble
classes. All tasks and exercises were oriented to the
formation of a specific skill or technique, but, herewith,
they were supplementing each other. The following tasks
were included into the program of Chinese students
musical culture development. Thuswise, the students were
offered to learn jazz music history and famous jazz
performers biography. A group chat was created in the
Internet, namely, in WeChat social network, for student
and teacher communication and education material
transfer. The links to the Internet sources, containing the
following information in Chinese, have been provided
there: on jazz history [5], on jazz vocal performers [2, 3].
The following audio recordings of famous vocal
performers have been provided to the students for
listening through the application: Ella Fitzgerald, Louis
Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Miles Davis
Quinte, etc. The students showed the interest in studying
jazz music history and stylistics and to listening
the supplementary musical material through. They
personally suggested to make a comparative
characterization of the Chinese, Russian and West-
European contemporary popular vocal music. The
attendance of the concerts of the students of the Musical
and Artistic Education Institute of the Ural State
Pedagogical University was organized for the Chinese
students for the purposes of listening contemporary
popular estrade and jazz music live performance through.
In the process of vocal skills development we have used
the exercises from different contemporary methodologies.
Working at the correct sound generation, we used Seth
Riggs methodology elements [10]. In his opinion, with
which the article’s authors agree, singing in the voice
position is singing, when the voice operates freely,
without any efforts. Making this methodology exercises,
the students were noticing that if it is done correctly,
the muscles, laying outside the throat, don’t interfere
the process of sound generation and in such way it is
much easier to pronounce the words, and the articulation
becomes clearer. I use the exercises from Lara Fabian’s
methodology, in particular, the vocal cords warming up
[15]. In the students’ view this exercise is very important,
because you can’t start signing without warming up.
The exercises of her methodology are based on sonorant
consonants, which give a boost at the correct Russian-
language articulation formation.
These are the sounds “m”, “n”. Using the basis of this
exercise from Lara Fabian’s methodology, we have
developed the exercise for chest and head registering
phonation, namely, making exercises on “nyam” syllable.
Herewith, this exercise performance is followed by hand
movements, which show the movements of a man, who
eats from large and small plates.
As many methodology authors and teachers consider, one
of the main vocal performance skills is the inhale. At
working with this skill at the vocal classes we use
the exercises from Strelnikova’s, A.N. and Tsukanova, I.’s
[16, 17] methodologies. Each lesson starts with
the breathing gymnastics, which has been developed by
one of this article authors on the basis of different
methodologies. The breathing gymnastics, suggested by
Konovalova, S.A., is differed by the exercises and musical
material from a lesson to a lesson.
In the students’ opinion, the most beloved and effective
breathing gymnastics exercise is “the Music Breath”.
The essence of this exercise is that we breath in
accordance with the music, telling a phrase with the use of
different breath types. This exercise is performed both
statically and in movement in accordance with the music.
When performing contemporary compositions,
the rhythmic base is an especially important aspect. Thus,
swinging, emphasis on down beat, syncopation and triplet
feel are distinctive for jazz compositions. That is why
the exercises, oriented to develop the sense of beat under
Karyagina, A.’s [6] methodology and the scat
improvisation rhythmic etudes under Bob Stoloff’s [18]
methodology have been offered to the students. These
exercises were complicate for performance for the
students. A great complication arose because of the
performance of scat syllables improvisation. However,
many students gained the interest in improvisation, and
they tried to make improvisations in Chinese.
Diction, namely, Russian-language articulation,
development exercises were the most difficult ones for
the students. The exercises of different methodologies [6,
16] and the exercises and tasks, developed by
Konovalova, S.A. for the Chinese students with
accountance of specific characteristics and individual
particularities, were provided to them. One of the
students’ beloved exercise, oriented to Russian-language
articulation was “Tonguelet Gymnastics”. The students
themselves called this exercise in such a warm way. The
essence of this exercise involves pronunciation and
signing the syllables, containing vowels and all consonant
sounds of the alphabet, through, namely: “a”, “o”, “u”,
“e”, “i”. Like this, there resulted the following syllables:
“ba-bo-bu-be-bi”, “va-vo-vu-ve-vi”or “ab-ob-ub-eb-ib”,
“av-ov-uv-ev-iv” and so on. At the beginning, this
exercise was pronounced, and then the students were
offered to sing this exercise through gradually in mediant
range to legato and staccato. Then, this exercise was
complicated and the students were offered to perform
three-sound syllables “bra-bro-bru-bre-bri”, “vra-vro-vru-
vre-vri” and so on. The set of exercises, developed by
Konovalova, S.A., included exercises, referred to different
particularities of the Russian-language articulation. In
the process of education, the students were offered to
learn and perform Russian folk songs, romances and
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contemporary popular songs. It should be noted, that even
though singing in Russian was difficult for many students,
all of them were heartily learning the songs and
performing them. The elements of Konovalova, S.A.
methodology, developed for teaching vocal performance
to the foreign students, and also the exercises, referred to
the development of vocal skills and Russian-language
articulation, are provided in the video lesson on the topic
of “Formation of Russian-language articulation skills and
Russian-language musical and poetic text pronunciation
skills” with the students from China, which is posted at
the video hosting web-site
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=wp
OM4Rg2adE.
5.3. According to the results of overall diagnostics we can
make a conclusion of improvement of the following:
musical culture level development through enrichment of
students’ knowledge on variety of genres and styles of
the vocal music, on broadening their auditory bundle of
different folks vocal works; the level of formedness of
vocal skills and estrade techniques through inclusion of
the contemporary vocal methodologies into the
educational process; the level of vocal performance in
Russian through inclusion of a set of exercises, oriented to
the Russian-language articulation development.
6. CONCLUSION
The positive results, obtained in the course of
the undertaken research, analysis of diagnostical tasks and
exercises execution at different stages of the research gave
the possibility to reveal existent problems of Chinese
students training at vocal classes. The most difficult thing
for the students was to study and demonstrate the Russian-
language articulation at doing exercises, and of course, at
performing vocal works. The Chinese students showed
different results. Thus, the level of vocal skills formedness
of many of them has significantly improved, but the vocal
estrade techniques mastery of the most part of the students
hasn’t changed or has changed insignificantly. In terms of
widening musical knowledge of different styles, genres
and particularities of different folks, which we have
presented to the students through getting to know vocal
works, we should note, that a great interest in vocal works
was demonstrated. The outlined problems are prospective
for their further solution in the process of Chinese
students musical training at the Russian Higher Education
Institutions.
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