[Harp-L] Teaching harmonica in China

[Tony Eyers <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear all,
            You may be interested in a harmonica project I have been 
running in China for the last two years. While working in 2006 at 
Zhengzhou University, Henan Province, China, I engaged a very smart 
Chinese post graduate student, then wrote a harmonica teaching website. 
He translated it, put it online in China, and now provides on-going 
translation and web mastering services.

You can see the site, at http://www.kouqin.com.cn  Kouqin is the Chinese 
Pinyin word for harmonica.

The site has been enthusiastically received in China, and has become 
very busy. It has more than16000 members, and  gets around 3500 hits per 
day. There is a forum, which gets about 250 posts a month (about 1/4 the 
size of harp-l). There are around 60 lessons, written by myself. There 
will soon be 80. There is a lot of my music, as well as profiles and 
music for a number of Western masters, used with their permission. 
Everything on the site is free.

Having reviewed other Chinese harmonica sites, as well as the comments 
on my forum, it would appear that I have become the leading diatonic 
harmonica teacher in China.

The teaching process has been interesting. I make my living as an IT 
educator, and applied my professional skills to this online harmonica 
teaching project. The result is a structured online harmonica teaching 
program, covering blues and bluegrass styles, from beginning to very 
advanced.  I would be happy to share my observations about online 
harmonica teaching with the list, if there is interest.

Tony Eyers
Australia
www.harmonicatunes.com