Journey of finding local fraction pieces of music

The Journey of finding local fraction pieces of Music started in June 2014 when I am preparing my action research to be carried out in my Music Classroom. Why it is so important? I could answer that there is no single point that I could see my student improve in musicality through out 4 years of teaching music. Student with private music lesson are still showing the lack of music qualities such as beat, rhythm and pitch discrimination. They could be better if there is solid foundation in school's music education. In one of my reflective teaching, I asked myself about my student achievement and I could not get a clear answer.

In 2013, I started my studies in Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, UPSI under the supervision of Dr. Andrew Blackburn. It was the time that I started to realise that something need to be fixed before it is getting worst. It should be the way we teach music in Malaysia that urgently needed to be researched and the findings should be widely published. It drive me into various methodology of teaching until I reach a point where Kodaly is the best method to start off.

Kodaly Method is choose because of the materials are widely available. One thing lagging behind is the 'mother tongue children folk' music of Malaysia. There are still lack of collection of proper teaching sequence in both songs/ music used and also teaching sequence.

In the studies, I found that China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore have done a lot of work in spreading the Kodaly teaching method. In Malaysia, there are courses offered by Suzanna Saw's Young Choral Academy yearly on Australian Kodaly Certification program. It was still not enough as the materials used in the program is still not our own mother tongue language materials. As according to Kodaly, the best materials to used in teaching is the language that children used daily. In Malaysia, student in Malay school speaks Malay, Chinese student in Chinese school speaks Chinese language, and India in their school speaks Tamil as their language. English comes second for all the locals. There is urgently need of collecting Malay children folk songs, Chinese, and Tamil for the use in general public schools (SK, SJK(C) and SJK(T)).

Secondly, how should we use this materials for teaching is what heavily related to my current research. In music education, music educators especially in general public schools need to have clear vision to help improve students to achieve high quality of music literacy. The need of music teaching sequence become important as music period is shorten from 60 minutes a week in Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Rendah (KBSR) to 30 minutes in a week the new Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah (KSSR) syllabus.

For now, my focus is to have a collection of analysed local children folk songs, sorted in a proper sequence, activities/ games that is fitting nice into 30 minutes of teaching period a week. It is vital to have short and handy songs that builds the musicality of the students weekly where they could learn the concepts of music.

This is the first blog post

Hi everyone, this is the first blog post that mark the opening of Malaysia Music Teaching Sequence (Kodaly Based). I am currently pursuing my Masters in Music (Education) and preparing with my research on Malaysia Music Teaching Sequence (Kodaly Based) in Chinese Primary School. 

The rational behind doing this research is due to the insufficient of 'good' & proper materials for smoother teaching in building Music Foundation from kindergarten, primary and secondary school. In my current research, I am preparing a suggestion of Music teaching sequence focuses mainly in the primary Chinese public schools. The main purpose of teaching music in schools is not to create only musician but a society with high music literacy. 

My suggestion to help build up student music literacy is based on the Kodaly teaching concepts. It is where singing comes before any other instrument. It is important to let young students to differentiate speaking and singing at the first place. It is vital for the students to start off with singing games, proper teaching sequence, local cultural based music before getting them to advanced with other deeper musical literacy.

In the upcoming research, I will discover the different local materials (mainly in Chinese as Kodaly emphasis learning mother tongue as first language), games associate with songs, analysis of melodic and rhythmic in the materials (music), and lastly get my findings published in hope that it will help others music educators in their teaching.

If you have any suggestion or idea, please do not hesitate to email me at liwen[at]acidofire.com.