A Reflective Lens: Music Pedagogical Research to Transform Practice | Page 11

A Reflective Lens:
Music Pedagogical Research to Transform Practice

Introduction

As a music teacher teaching in a neighbourhood primary
school, I had my own initial reservations about teaching
music composition, although creating music is one of
the learning outcomes of the General Music Programme.
I perceived that music composition required a certain
level of musical knowledge and understanding, and was
therefore not within everyone’s ability, much less primary
school children with little or no musical background.
However, since the Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the
aRts (STAR) launched a new initiative in 2012 on studentcentric principles in arts learning, I started reflecting
on my classroom teaching. One of the principles that
struck me the most was facilitating creativity in music
making. I began thinking of ways in which I could provide
opportunities for my students to create or improvise
music. How do I start? How much parameter should I set
for beginners?
With the belief that “the one who does the work does
the learning”, student-centric teaching is about providing
opportunities for students to be actively engaged in the
learning process (Doyle, 2011). This made me review
my role as a teacher; from being the only one giving
information to being a facilitator in helping students
discover or explore the information on their own.
Putting this in the context of teaching composition,
I saw merits in allowing students to be in-charge of
their own learning by allowing them to create music. I
consciously started providing my students opportunities
to create or improvise, but limited them mostly to
creating or improvising movements or adding on simple
instrumentation or body percussion. Although there were
times I allowed my students to improvise some melodies
on their recorders or Orff instruments, these activities
were mostly done on a one-off basis.

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