音乐学院英语教程

　　College English for Music Majors is initially designed for musicians and budding musicologists at the Central Conservatory of Music who are undertaking undergraduate studies， with Music as their Major. It is structured to be user friendly， inclusive and enjoyable： hopefully it may find a wider audience amongst the many， many undergraduates studying Music in China today.
　　Over the years we have read thousands of articles about hundreds of composers. We have talked endlessly about the philosophy of education with learned musicologists. Mostly we have spent an inordinate amount of our waking time discussing how to integrate music， musical ability and musicology with English-learning and a love of the English language as it is written， spoken and sung. This volume is the result of a prolonged gestation indeed. We truly hope that it provides some scaffolding upon which to build a healthy knowledge of English， a language exquisitely rich in words， word-play， subtle meaning and plain speaking.
　　The text includes articles and exercises from a wide range of music experiences and genres as well as debates about music in education and the loss of music-related culture. It spans 500 years and more of European， Asian and American art， movie and avant-garde music. We have included articles about film music to represent the Seventh Art and musicology research papers to introduce students to the type of document they must needs read for their own research purposes， further down the line in time.
　　The exercises we have devised are partly designed to reinforce knowledge and usage of music terminology. Thus each unit comes with translation exercises and reading comprehension passages. Moreover， the questions are deliberately structured to broaden the students’ vision and augment critical thinking. The level of language used is similar to the kind of English likely to be encountered when reading texts or learned documents. Note that the articles used have been edited and modified to suit the students’ needs. There are glossaries available with each article， covering names， new words and music terminology.
　　It is important to note that in every case， the authors or publishers of the articles have been contacted in order to obtain permission to use them and to modify them to suit second-language users. Thus， alongside each article， one can find the acknowledgements. We wish at this juncture to thank most deeply the many authors who replied to our avalanche of letters， aided us in designing the edited versions and who went out of their way to encourage our small venture. At the same time， we extend a heart-felt thanks to the Director of CCOM and the editor of CCOM Press who guided us safety around many obstacles. The Musicology Department of CCOM and the librarians of CCOM and the National Library of China were ever helpful and knowledgeable and our colleagues at home and abroad were patient and generous， to a fault. All errors， we hope small ones only， remain ours.