为师之道 无一不备——我所了解的郭淑珍教授

Guo Shuzhen, a Versatile Professor of Singing as I Know

提起中央音乐学院声乐歌剧系郭淑珍教授，人们都会想到她既是一位著名的歌唱家，又是一位蜚声中外的声乐教育家。作为歌唱家，在苏联留学期间时曾在“世界青年联欢节”上获得过金质奖章，她的名字被镌刻在苏联柴科夫斯基音乐学院的墙上（光荣榜）。她曾经在国内外舞台上演唱过大量古今中外的声乐作品，其中有许多作品至今仍深深地留在人们的记忆之中。

As everyone knows, Professor Guo Shuzhen of the Vocal and Opera Department of the Central Conservatory of Music is a well-known singer and also a world famous educator of singing. As a singer, she won the gold medal at the World Youth Festival during the period when she studied in the former Soviet Union. Her name can even be found today on the glory wall of the Tchaikovski Conservatory in Moscow. She has sung a large number of Chinese and foreign vocal works on both Chinese and world stages, and many of her songs are still remembered by the audience. As a music educator, she has educated countless students, many of whom became famous singers or won prizes at major national or international singing competitions. And quite a few of them are still active on international opera stages. I'm sure that this is already familiar to all. I wish to focus, however, on her teaching theory and experience that have helped her make success in voice education. An important idea of Prof. Guo Shuzhen for voice education is to teach and educate in parallel while educating is the main purpose. In 1996, I had a long talk with Prof. Guo, and later I prepared an interview article based on this talk, and published the article entitled ″Talking with Guo Shuzhen about Singing″ in the People's Music magazine in 1999. In this article, when I asked her what the most important element was to become a successful singer and educator, her answer was: ″To learn singing is just like any other professions. No matter what your profession is, the success of your career, your achievements and contribution, all these generally depend on the same condition, that is, your personal quality. By personal quality, I mean you must be honest, sincere, kind and tolerant to others, and you should devote yourself to your career, treat your art in very serious and earnest manners. This is very important indeed!″ Strict teaching, on the other hand, is for the better of caring for the students. Any disregard or ignorance of the problems that your students have is a way of irresponsibility. Prof. Guo's love for her students can just be found in her strict teaching. The high success of her teaching proves the very famous saying that ″excellent students can only be nurtured by strict teachers″. Moreover, Prof. Guo often takes good care of her students. For example, one of the students she is teaching now told me this story: in order to lead a new student to have the correct way of voicing, she does not allow the student to practise voicing alone at the beginning, but rather to have a lesson of voicing with her whenever it is needed, even on vacations. Some of the students she has taught before, who are now professional singers, appoint lessons with Prof. Guo from time to time when they have technical problems. And she always manages to satisfy their demands even if she is extremely busy, and very often gives them longer time in each lesson, which really moves them. In a way, Prof. Guo's success has been guaranteed by her rich experience of artistic career. A good teacher must have rich professional knowledge and high artistry. Without her sixty years of artistic experience and great knowledge, her success of voice teaching would be unimaginable. In my opinion, three elements are necessary to be a good voice teacher: first, you have to be perfect technically, with a large repertoire covering various types of works from different styles and different historical periods. It is impossible to have good students come out with a teacher who can not sing well or find no technical solutions. Second, you need to have stage experience, which truly makes a difference to voice teachers, as it is both a process of improving yourself and that in which you may accumulate experiences. Third, you must have a large repertoire. This is extremely important for a voice teacher, as more works you have sung on stage, a better teacher you will be. In all these three elements, Prof. Guo is taking the lead.