Lesson 1 - Enjoy Music Learning

Enjoy Music
Learning?
Dr. Lo Khin Yee
Popularity of Formal Music
Teaching and Learning
The prevalence and popularity of ABRSM examinations.
According to Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment
Authority (HKEAA, 2012), 90,000 Hong Kong students
participated in the ABRSM exams every year, thus comprising
30% of the total number of candidates from across the world.
In 2019, ABRSM candidates in HK comprised 40% of the
total number of candidates from across the world.
The large number of students participating in the Hong Kong
Schools Music Festival on a yearly basis.
Questions
1) What do these figures reflect and imply?
2) Can you say that in Hong Kong
people/children/young people are very musical?
3) Do you think that we/they are music lovers?
4) How do you describe the music learning
phenomenon in Hong Kong/Mainland?
Quotes…
“Most begin their lessons willingly, even
enthusiastically, yet many discontinue their
lessons before reaching a level of
accomplishment that would allow the
musical independence and satisfaction to
which they aspire” (Costa-Giomi et al.,
2005, p. 235).
Quotes…
“Many young Western Australians learn
musical instruments through school based
on elective programs. However, many
students drop out from these programs,
particularly in lower secondary school”
(Lowe, 2010, p. 41).
Questions
1) What is/are the reason(s)

behind these dropouts?
2) Do you think this phenomenon
applies to Hong Kong and the
Mainland as well?
What is happening with music learning
in schools?
“…music remains the least attractive subject
compared to other curriculum studies within
the Arts Key Learning Area…” (Ng &
Hartwig, 2011, p. 123-124)
“…children become increasingly negative
towards school music as they move through
the primary school year…, with music being
nominated as one of the least favourite school
subjects…” (De Vries, 2010, p. 4)
Quotes regarding School
Music…
“Student enjoyment (cont.)
for Music and the
Visual Arts in school decline across the
years of schooling” (McPherson, 2005, p.
2).
“A good deal of lower secondary school
music is unimaginative, out of touch with
pupils’ interests and unsuccessful”
(Hargreaves & Marshall, 2003, p. 265).
Quotes regarding School
“Whilst formal music
education has become
Music… (cont.)
increasingly available and
diverse in content, it has
not managed to stem the
ebbing tide of involvement
in music-making,
particularly in the lives of
adults after they have left
formal education. Indeed,
those societies and
communities with the most
highly developed formal
music education systems
often appear to contain
the least active music-
making populations”
(Green, 2002, p. 5).
Questions
1) Do you have the same
experience?
2) What is wrong with school
music?
3) What is wrong with formal
learning?
Think deeply…
We create something called…
“School music”
…which is disconnected from the music
and music learning in the outside world.
Community Music Making
Questions:
1) Do participants receive any
formal instrumental instruction
in their lives?
2) How do they learn their
instrument/singing?
3) Do you think they will give up
music-making easily? Why?
4) What makes their music-making
sustainable?
Video Clips
Drum & Dance: Kenyan Children
Singing and Dancing
Balinese male adults’ involvement in
Gamelan Baleganjur
“It is unfortunate that formal music
education has only had lasting benefits
for a minority of the students who
come into contact with it, while in
many societies without any formal
music education, musical participation
is part of daily life for everyone”
(Green, 2004, p. 225)
Do you agree? Can you explain the
reason why?
“When I watch young Venda
developing their bodies, their
friendships, and their
sensitivity in communal
dancing… But then I was
brought up not to cooperate,
but to compete. Even music
was offered more as a
competition than as a shared
experience” (Blacking, 1973, p.
44).
Rethinking music learning:
Fostering a lifelong love of music (Green &
Hale, 2011)
Teachers’ major goal: To foster a lifelong
musical connection among students, both
as consumers and participants (p. 45).
Rethinking music learning: Fostering a
lifelong love of music
Reason for the decline in
music participation: an
emphasis on competition
and performance
techniques that are
irrelevant to students,
especially after they finish
high school. (p. 46)
Motivation comes from
extrinsic rewards.
Achievement Goal Theory (p. 46)
Two orientations:
1) A grade (or performance)
orientation
2) A learning (or mastery)
orientation
A Grade (or Performance)
Orientation
“Did my solo get a 1-rating at all-state?”
“Does my teacher think I’m good?”
“Will my audition place me in the first
chair?”
A Grade (or Performance)
Orientation
❖ Focus on performance level and
enjoy competition with others.
❖ Middle and bottom: label themselves
as untalented or a poor musician
and give up easily.
A Learning (or Mastery)
Orientation
“How much have I learnt this
semester?”
“Has my singing improved compared to
last year?”
“What kind of music do I enjoy most?”
Orientation
❖ Focus on their own learning and
improvement over time and less on
other people’s judgments.
❖ Students persist longer with difficult
tasks and are more willing to try
challenging tasks. This is perhaps most
relevant for fostering a lifelong love of
music.
Orientation
“Research suggests that students who
perceive that their teachers are
emphasizing a learning orientation tend
to have more positive attitudes toward
school and subject matter” (p. 46).
3 key classroom elements that
promote learning orientation…
1) Varied, meaningful, challenging

tasks
2) Evaluation and recognition
practices
3) Student participation in decision
making
Brand (2001) on Surface, Deep and
Achievement Motives
Motive and strategy in approaches to learning and studying (Biggs, 1987b).
Approach Motive Strategy
Surface Student’s motive is to meet Student strategy is to learn the bare
requirements minimally; balancing essentials and reproduce them through
between failing and working no rote learning.
more than is necessary.
Deep Student’s motive is intrinsic interest Student strategy is to discover meaning
in what is being learned and to by reading widely, inter-related with
develop competence in particular previous knowledge.
academic subjects.
Achieving Student’s motive is to enhance ego Student strategy is to organize one’s
and self-esteem through time and working space, follow up on
competition and to obtain highest all suggested readings, carefully schedule
grades. practice and study time and behave as a
“model student.”

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Enjoy Music

1) What is/are the reason(s)

1) Varied, meaningful, challenging

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