Musical poetics in instrumental music: China’s intangible cultural heritage in the information age

Abstract

Enjoying the benefits presented by the information age can enhance the effectiveness of learning musical poetics in instrumental music, which constitutes intangible cultural heritage. This paper addresses the effectiveness of the academic program in instrumental music poetics (which was uploaded on YouTube) in order to specify cultural heritage popularization options. The survey was conducted among 200 students from two music schools in China. The results of group B demonstrated the effectiveness of video tutorials uploaded on YouTube in learning musical poetics in Chinese instrumental music. The difference between the groups was especially noticeable when evaluating the “theoretical knowledge” and “final exam” criteria. After Group B’s semiannual exposure, a survey addressing the understanding of the musical poetics’ intangible cultural value revealed a large-scale difference in the results compared to the data obtained in January (p-values of 0.034 for questions about cultural value and 0.001 for questions about online promotion), while no statistically significant improvement was observed for group A. Group B saw an intense increase in the understanding of responsibility for preserving the country’s intangible cultural values (+ 26.8%) and confidence in the knowledge of traditional Chinese tools (+ 25.1%) on the Agree scale. This study has practical value and is important for further research because it demonstrates the effectiveness of innovative technology for studying musical poetics and the popularization of intangible cultural values. Research findings may be used by educational institutions, in academic programs and research.