Empowering the students to lead

It cannot be denied that one of the most effective ways for young students to learn and develop confidence is to empower them to lead. This happens to be the main objective of our music jamboree this coming August. However, before empowering them to lead, the students must first be prepared and ready. The only way to know their readiness is to know their knowledge, skills and personality through tests and activities assigned to them.

There are numerous objectives that we incorporate into our annual music jamboree for music teachers and students. For the teachers; sharing, exploring and learning creative teaching ideas make them much more versatile, adaptable and effective in teaching their students. For the students; the experience and joy of music will hopefully encourage them and instill more musical interests.

During the music jamboree this year, some of the primary school students of our CSR music program have volunteered to be leaders of whichever team they are assigned to. Each team will be assigned a few team leaders. Every team leader will be in charge of a different activity required in the music jamboree project.

They student team leaders will have to coordinate with each other in creating and rehearsing the other students in their group for a musical performance the following day. So, while the music jamboree with students does seem to be in the hands of the students, the music jamboree teachers still do have a role in supervising, advising and assisting the young student leaders and the entire group.

The student leaders are empowered to organize, create, instruct and lead their team. Obviously, we can all comprehend the purpose of giving students the opportunity to lead because this is one of the best ways to let young students develop. It is also revealing for the students to test themselves and know themselves, Unless the students are reading this article, they would not know that they will be assessed by their peers and the music teachers assigned to their team. So, it should be quite an interesting music jamboree this year.

Just a slight departure from the focus of this article, I was pleasantly surprised during one of my CSR music lessons last week when two students came up to me right after class and handed me a card and a present for Teachers Day.

The students said they were looking forward to giving me the card and present on Teachers Day but I was not present that day at the school.

It was the simple homemade Teachers Day card
message that I truly appreciate more than anything else. To these two students, A BIG THANK YOU from me if I have made your musical experiences worthwhile.

Enjoy Playing Piano The Creative Way (2)

Interests in this workshop brought us to a music centre in Klang, Selangor right after the first in Penang. At this centre, there were 16 students who participated as well as 9 piano teachers at a separate session. All the students and teachers are from a classical music-based background and are keen to explore contemporary music in the manner that our workshop is offering.

Doing a musical arrangement of a piece of music is something that they have never done before as classical works they learn are complete, prepared music that one is not allowed to desecrate. Therefore, to have the freedom and to experience arranging a musical piece, a contemporary music piece would be most apt for this purpose.

Obviously, they have to rely on all the music theory and musical experience that they possess for this task. They are at liberty to decide how complex they wish to arrange the musical piece of their choice.

For the classical teachers, this workshop offers them the opportunity to learn how they can teach their students creative ways to arrange and perform contemporary pieces. The teachers too can use the ideas explored for contemporary music works that they themselves like.

Below is a clip of a student at this workshop performing her arrangement.