YMSD: Exploring musical creativity, a continuing series of programs.

Early this week, a visitation to a school to meet primary school students who study music was organized for me by the school's music club. There were 43 students in total who attended the workshop.

For these series of visitations and workshops that is on-going, I have a mission to create greater music awareness to encourage students to understand the purpose of studying and knowing music. Similarly with all my other workshops at schools, the workshop began by linking music rudiments and music theory to practical application and musical creativity. Music begins with music literacy and applying it to the musical instrument and beyond to composition, improvisation, etc.



Stressing the need to connect the three main components in their music education syllabus, which are, theory, practical and aural studies, will create greater appreciation for music. The workshop was to help the students understand how to use music theory creatively in practice. For example, some students were invited to the piano to explore creative and improvisational ideas using scales. We also worked on music from the popular Piano Lessons Made Easy series that all these students are familiar with as they used these publications when they began music lessons.



I also appreciated the school's music teacher spontaneous thought of bringing out a song that the students are familiar with and are learning for me to help them understand how to interpret and perform the song. Taking the song to the piano, I asked for the students to gather around me to discuss musical ideas that they could employ to perform the song. After which, I performed the song using the musical ideas discussed. Hopefully, the ideas I shared with the students will encourage them to begin exploring the song creatively as well as any other musical pieces they know.