Music Performance & Appreciation: Young Musician's Skills Development events

Encouragement is what everyone needs to develop the awareness and appreciation to excel and to pursue with purpose, a vocation or even a hobby. Without doubt, the more we learn from others, the more it should motivate us on to greater achievements. With that in mind, the Young Musician's Skills Development (YMSD) program hopes to reach out to as many music students as possible to motivate and give them more purpose towards learning music.

To date, the YMSD sessions that we have conducted for music students has brought us into contact with their teachers and parents too. The opportunity to meet parents is much appreciated as get to hear their take on music and for them to inquire more about music education for their child. Such opportunities allow me to share some insight into the intrinsic values of learning music with the parents. In doing so, I hope to have parents realize the benefits of learning music.It is through such 'meetings' with parents during our programs that we can also thank them for their gift of music to their child.

As mentioned, the YMSD program is for us to further encourage and motivate music students to excel in music. It gives the individual great gratification to be able to understand music and be able to perform music decently well. When one can find much joy in performing music, it means one is doing it right and have much to derive from it. In a way, we see this program as helping music teachers by motivating their students in hope that their students will be looking forward to music lessons and desire to learn more.

The most recent YMSD events were held in Kuala Lumpur and Penang. Putting the music students through the various musical activities relevant to create musicality in them, we hope that their experiences during the YMSD event raises their appreciation for music. Personally, I would like to see more musical talent emerge from among the numerous music students we have in this region.

The photos featured in this report shows students involved in the various activities from pitch development to chord appreciation and improvisation. We do have some flexibility in the program as we will never know what talent students have until we meet them. In some instances like the recent one in Penang, we were able to create an ensemble comprising all the students, their teachers and parents to perform a musical work. There was singing, percussion accompaniment and students with me at the keyboard to perform the musical piece.