It's well-known that the Chinese rightly love Western music, and love our "serious" music more than our pop music (not that I believe that any music is really "serious"). It is no surprise that they love ours, because their traditional music is hideous.
Right now in China, it's not so much the violin as it is the piano:
China made 379,746 pianos last year, 77 per cent of global output, almost all of it for domestic sale. Multiply that by ten for second-hand sales and you are still nowhere near the popular estimate that 60 million Chinese children are currently playing the piano, equivalent to the entire population of the United Kingdom sitting down every evening and practising scales for two hours.
I wish that I had had a better piano teacher when I was a kid but that sounds like lame excuse-making. I have no musical talent at all, but I always have wanted to make just a little music for myself instead of pushing a button for it like a king with his court musicians. I wanted to understand what was behind the pieces I was learning to play, and she kept saying "that's for later." Then, eventually, there was no later. I should have been learning scales, and why scales exist. Or maybe not. I have a friend who is taking up piano in middle age, and is having a wonderful time with it. Great delight learning scales and jazz chords.
Every home needs at least one person practicing music, however well or poorly.
Maybe this is like our post about new math. You either have it, or you don't, but there is a gray zone.
