Theory course, 2 credits, 2 credit hours/week.The Chinese vocal music originates in the progress of the Chinese civilization and in the constant efforts of the intelligent Chinese people in their life. As an art form, it combines various tones with speech, rhythms and performances to show the singer’s and the composer’s inner hearts and feelings and to produce visualization and auditory effects to the audience. The Chinese vocal music works, passed down over history, contain musical and poetic elements and have been channels for the composers’ reflections and ideas on themselves, their life, their time , their society, the nature and the things around them. Those various works have been across time and space and become popular and classical.In this course, we appreciate and analyze about 120 pieces of Chinese music of different themes, periods, styles, genres and contents from the Song dynasty to contemporary and modern periods (including the art songs, opera music, folk music, ancient songs and songs by contemporary composers based on ancient Chinese poems and lyrics). The course also focuses on the backgrounds, the composers’ and the musicians’ art styles, their characteristics and the anecdotes in music composition. Furthermore, we describe the aesthetics and the pattern behind it, recognize and understand the role of the Chinese vocal music in the history of contemporary China, particularly the role of the classical vocal music about the Chinese revolutions, the Anti-Japanese War, the Liberation War and the Chinese Socialism progress. Students, by attending the course, will be able to understand the essence and the spirit of the Chinese vocal music and acquaint themselves with the landscape and the achievements in the Chinese contemporary history. Appreciation of the classical Chinese vocal music is beneficial to students in cultivating their personalities, aesthetics, values, moralities, views of life and in exploring their potential for art and in training their perceptual and logical thinking.？