Methodological Foundations of Holistic Musical-Aesthetic Education in the Process of Learning to Play the Erhu at Pedagogical Universities in China

Abstract

Music teacher training at a pedagogical university in China brings together two lines that, in the practice of teaching the erhu, frequently diverge: the technical mastery of the instrument and the formation of an aesthetic attitude toward the national musical tradition. The first lends itself to operational description and assessment, whereas the second resists it and is often placed outside performance training. The aim of the work is to identify the methodological foundations under which both lines merge into a single educational process, so that learning to play the erhu acquires a holistic music-aesthetic character. Conceptual-categorial analysis, structural-functional modelling and a comparative method encompassing approaches of Chinese and Russian music pedagogy were applied. Holism is achieved not by summing the technical and aesthetic components but by coordinating four methodological approaches, the axiological, ethnocultural, activity-based and environmental, on the common subject material of the instrument. A structural-functional model is proposed in which the value-motivational, cultural-identificational, performative-technical and reflexive-creative components are linked by relations of mutual mediation. An aesthetic attitude toward music is formed in the future teacher not in parallel with technique but through technique itself, when a performance device is mastered as a carrier of intonational meaning. The methodological task of a pedagogical university consists in retaining the value plane within technical work, while separating these planes across different disciplines reproduces the very fragmentation that holistic education is meant to overcome.