Bubble Tea pop: Christine makes Mandopop

Abstract

The purpose of this case study was to examine Christine’s learning journey and music-making processes of songwriting in the Mandopop style over the course of a series of lessons. We begin this article by outlining our purpose and qualitative method, followed by a primer on Chinese popular music (C-pop). Next, we present a portrait of Christine to provide some context of her musical background, how she became interested in C-pop, and how she became interested in songwriting. We then proceed to describe Christine’s four-month songwriting journey with Adam as her instructor, and conclude by considering the implications of this case study for making Mandopop in music education.