“Music, a Universal Language around Asia”

Choral Education in Malaysia:
An Overview of Major Issues and Propositions for Choral Education in Malaysian Primary and Secondary Schools

Susanna Saw San San

Pusat Kebudayaan (Cultural Centre)

University of Malaya

Abstract

Choral education in Malaysia is a relatively new and upcoming field. An overview of the emerging choral scene is presented, with a brief introduction to various genres of Malaysian music, as well as the state of more contemporary compositions and composers. Challenges faced by Malaysian choirs and choral tutors are also touched upon, such as the wide spread of pop-influenced music, lack of trained choir conductors, public expectations of choral singing, and the lack of parental support for an activity deemed too ‘academic’. A brief case study, drawn from the setting up of a choral department in a Malaysian private school, illustrates the teaching methods and training programs currently employed in Malaysian choir training, as well as ongoing efforts to promote local Malaysian compositions and arrangements, and expand choral knowledge in schools and amongst the public.

Introduction

Malaysia has a rich musical heritage drawn from its multi-racial culture. The three major races in Malaysia are the Malays, Chinese, and Indians, each with their own musical culture. The eastern part of Malaysia consists of two large states – Sabah and Sarawak; the communities from these two states have their own unique forms of music from the different tribes. The Orang Asli (native people) contributes to the diversity of Malaysian music with instruments made from available natural materials that produce their unique brand of music.

However, music was not a main subject at schools before 1970. It was an extra-curricular activity at some missionary schools (such as Methodist schools and Convent schools) where students would stay back after classes for rehearsals for musical productions.

From 1970 onwards, the government started recognizing the importance of music education. Teachers were sent overseas for music training. Ideas brought back from the United Kingdom and the United States were invaluable to planning and improving the music teaching program in Malaysia.

Music became a compulsory subject within the Integrated Primary School Curriculum (Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Rendah, KBSR) in 1983. Music education is included in the school education system because it serves as an important tool to create respect for national culture, and promote national unity.

Singing in a choir may be an activity at schools; however the stress on promoting the choral singing is not so developed. This paper will begin with the introduction of the school music education system, as well as cover the problems faced by all choir teachers. Lastly, a brief overview of the measures taken to implement a better choral education in Malaysian schools is documented.

1. Breakdown of schools in Malaysia

There are three different types of schools in Malaysia:

The National Schools – The Malaysian Government provides eleven years of free education at Primary and Secondary Schools. Stated below are the three major categories among the National Schools.

National School (Sekolah Kebangsaan) where the main language used is Malay and English

National – Type Chinese Schools (Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Cina) – Malay, the national language will be used in the teaching, however, the Chinese Language subject is compulsory for all students.

National – Type Tamil Schools (Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil) – Malay, the national language will be used in the teaching, however, the Tamil Language subject is compulsory for all students.

Private Schools – All self-funded private schools that use the national education system and curriculum.

International Schools – Schools that conduct foreign curriculum using English as main medium. It is primarily for children of expatriates. However, these schools also accept students from abroad and a limited number of Malaysian students.

2. The National Education School System - Pre-tertiary Level

Under the national education system, a child’s schooling begins at the age of four:

Pre-school – age 4 to 6

Primary education – age 7 to 12

Secondary education – age 13 to 17

Post –Secondary education – from age 18.

3 Music Education in Primary School

Music is a subject in every primary school. Students will have 60 minutes of lessons per week. The brief description of the syllabus is as below:

Primary 1 – 3

(Ages 7 – 9)

Music Education has three sections:

1.) Singing – singing favorite songs or popular tunes in unison. Scales to be sung in Sol-fa are included in the teaching as well.

2.) Music and Movements – to add actions or movements for the songs

3.) Percussion – small percussion instruments are used to accompany the singing

Primary 4 – 6

(Ages 10 – 12)

Focus will be the same as Primary 1 – 3 but with the addition of Theory and Recorder.

1.) Singing – singing songs selected by teachers. The selection of songs varies among teachers, but the selection is mainly sung in unison and is of the popular genre.

2.) Theory – basic notes and rhythm reading skills

3.) Recorder – to perform songs in unison or in parts in a group

4.) Percussion – to accompany the singing, or recorder performance

3.1 Music Education in Secondary School

In 1995, there was a pilot project for 20 selected secondary schools nationwide to have music as an elective subject. The five objectives of music education in the integrated secondary school curriculum, KBSM Music, were documented (Ministry of Education, 1998) as follows:

To enable students to express their perceptions, feelings and ideas through speech, writing and creative behavior

To develop communication and interaction abilities as well as to build musical skills and understanding through performance

To widen the scope of awareness and sensitivity towards what is seen, heard, touched, felt and experienced

To appreciate, value, analyze and discuss musical compositions and performances

To increase students’ knowledge of the folk music of the communities in Malaysia and related cultures, including music from other cultures.

However, music is currently only an elective in all secondary schools. Only schools with Musically Trained teachers will have Music as a proper subject. Students will have a total of 120 minutes of music lessons per week.

Secondary 1 – 5

(Ages 13 – 17)

Music education in secondary schools includes:

1.) Keyboard ensemble – basic knowledge on playing the keyboard will be taught

2.) Traditional music – students have the chance to experience local musical instruments such as cak lempong, kompang, and gendang, as well as the traditional dances or activities such as dikir barat and dondang sayang

3.) Music Theory

4. Teachers’ Training program

Music teachers at schools normally receive their Grade 5 theory and practical certificate from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, and then go on to training at the Teachers’ Training College.

Teachers who major in Music will have three years of training in Music theory, singing, pedagogy, history and music appreciation, education technology, and an instrumental major (recorder, keyboard or percussion). This Kursus Diploma Perguruan Malaysia (KDPM) is a three-year or six semester program.

Music teachers who choose music as an elective (Kursus Pengajian Pendidikan Muzik Elektif) will have training in music theory, pedagogy, singing and playing instruments.

However, a few universities in Malaysia do offer a Bachelor of Music Education and Masters in Music (Music Education). Teachers who have gone through a music education degree program will be assigned to secondary schools.

5. Choir

Despite the music program in schools, there is not much focus on proper choir singing. Majority of the schools will have a choir club so the teacher can select students to form a proper choir for various purposes or occasions. Schools with better funding may employ professional vocal instructors to work with the choir members; however, this is the exception rather than the rule due to funding constraints.

5.1 Inter-school Choir Competition

Although Music Education has been introduced to the national schools in Malaysia, the focus on choral singing is not widely emphasized. School choirs are normally formed for school events on National Day or Speech Day. Only schools with Music Teachers who have Vocal or Choral Knowledge will focus more on choral training.

However, the annual Inter-School Choir Competition among the national schools in Malaysia plays an important role in promoting the choral singing culture in Malaysia. Majority of the participating schools only focus on this competition and choir activities will be dismissed after it. Only those schools who have Music Teachers or who are very keen in choral singing will continue their rehearsals after the competition.

Levels of Competition:

Zone level: Several schools in the zone will compete and select a winning team for the District Level. The competition is normally held at the end of March or in the month of April. (This level only applies to the bigger states)

District Level: Winners from every Zone Level will take part in this competition. The champion of the District Level will then move on to the State Level. Normally the competition will be held at the end of April or in the month of May.

State Level: The competition in this level will involve all winners from all the District Levels in that particular state. The State Champion will then represent the state to compete in the National Level. The competition will normally be held in the month of June.

National Level: There are 14 states in Malaysia. The competition will be held in different states every year (rotation system). Previously it has been held in the month of August. However, the competition this year has been brought forward to the end of June.

Criteria:

Mixed voice and Equal Voices (male/female voices)

35 members (including Student Conductor and Accompanist)

Piano accompaniment or A Cappella

Two songs: First song MUST be a Malay Patriotic Song (there is a list of songs for school choirs to choose). Second song can be a Malay Song or English Song (no other languages allowed)

Marking based on: Harmony, Dynamics, Intonation, Balance, Attack/Release, Diction, and Overall Artistic Impression

6. Problems faced

Although music education was implemented in the school education system since 1983, the overall music standard in Malaysia has yet to reach the international level. Most Malaysians today still have a very shallow knowledge of music.

To most of the public, music is not important. In schools and private music lessons, the music period or any form of music rehearsals will be the first choice of cancellation in lieu of impending major examinations.

“Music education in schools, for instance, does not cater for a holistic understanding and appreciation of the universal mix of music that is available. The levels of musical knowledge or even the performance capability acquired in pubic schools and higher institutions of learning have to be improved.”

(Abdullah, 2008)

In order to improve music awareness in Malaysia, we must have a good group of music teachers. In Kodaly’s words (Choksy 1999):

“For a poor director fails once, but a poor teacher keeps on failing for thirty years, killing the love of music in thirty generations of children.”

6.1 Choir Teachers

Although there are music teachers in schools, Malaysia still lacks teachers who have proper training or experience with choirs. Majority of the Music Teachers in schools are instrumental majors. When these teachers need to form and coach a choir, they normally pick students who have louder vocal quality and form a team one or two months before the competition. For the training period, all they focus on is just the two songs for the competition. For schools with better singers or students with better abilities, they will venture into choral works with harmony (SATB, SAB, SSAA, a cappella or piano accompaniment).

Rehearsal techniques are very important to choir training. However, the majority of the teachers’ teaching methods are very routine; Rehearsal will always start with the same set of warm-up exercises before moving on to the repertoire for the competition or performance. The songs are sung over and over without heed to rhythmic or tonal interpretation, or other aspects of the musical interpretative process. This results in students eventually getting bored, and the learning process is adversely affected. Teachers need to have proper training in the field of rehearsal techniques; however, they are very limited in the resources available to them to achieve such training.

Classroom management skill is insufficient. Teachers who had undergone methods courses were found to be able to continue to refine and redefine their musical knowledge in more holistic ways. However, courses are seldom found in the country; teachers must go to a great deal of expense to attend courses overseas. This makes it difficult for many teachers to obtain the necessary training they need, as they cannot afford the cost.

6.2 Time

In school competitions, normally students serve as both conductor and piano accompanist. Therefore the teacher needs to work with the pianist and conductor as well. The one hour per week rehearsal is not enough for training in all these areas. Malaysian students focus more on academics than extra-curricular activities; therefore organizing extra rehearsals is a difficult task.

On top of that, music teachers at school are fighting for enough time to take care of all the various subgroups within the choir curriculum. This includes teaching choir, the gamelan group, band, and the recorder group. Schools that have better funding will simply hire a professional to work with the various groups. However, schools which cannot afford it will either scrap the activities or ignore the quality of the performances.

6.3 Support from parents and public

For the public, choir singing is just another form of entertainment. One can find choir performances at functions, events and corporate dinners. The public mostly expects to hear popular music, and see movements and actions by the choir members. A choir performance consisting of folksongs and singers standing still will be considered boring. On occasions like this, the choir does not need to present a work with harmonies; unison singing of popular tunes will arouse the audiences’ attention and appreciation. Because of this reason, a lot of students are not keen to learn well-composed choral repertoire. They prefer to go with more popular tunes.

6.4 Choice of Music

Due to lack of resources, teachers usually have difficulty finding suitable music for their choirs. Teachers usually borrow works from other choirs or arrange the songs by themselves. To save time on arranging new works every year, they may recycle the same songs year after year.

Since 2007, the Young Choral Academy in Kuala Lumpur has taken up the role of compiling and promoting Malaysian composition and arrangement, by publishing a series of works by Malaysian composers. The Academy has also commissioned works from these composers, and encourages budding composers to compose more choral works to cater to the needs of local choir teachers.

In conjunction with the Radio Television Malaysia, recordings of such works will be published by end of 2008 so that teachers and choirs have the opportunity to listen to the demo of the works, in order to have an idea of how the music should be performed.

6.5 Students’ interest and exposure

Malaysians do listen to music through radio and television, though the songs they listen to are more of the entertainment variety. Due to pop music influences, school students love to sing popular music or show tunes from popular musicals. Any choral music which requires more advanced singing techniques eradicate the interest of the students. Students tend to prefer fast tempo music more than slow lyrical songs.

Teachers need to have sufficient knowledge of choral music, and must be able to impart this knowledge in an interesting way to encourage students to experience different genres of choral repertoire.

7. Current Choral Activities in Malaysia

More and more private schools in Malaysia have focused more on Music and Arts Education. Some schools franchise the keyboard program from YAMAHA schools; string instruments apply the Suzuki Method; drama lessons are given by private Drama Institutes; or else professional music teachers from various music institutions are employed to take over music education in the school. The idea is to have proper quality control in the teaching of such subjects.

Early this year, the Young Choral Academy was approached to draft out a syllabus for a private school to help them set up a choral department. The program is for students from Primary level (ages 7 to 12) all the way up to Secondary level (ages 13-15 only). Students from all classes will get one hour of training from the choral department every week.

By adapting the ideas of Kodaly teaching, students get to learn sol-fa singing (sol-fa reading, hand signs, and in-tune hearing), rhythm reading (flashcards, worksheets, and simple composition), musicianship skills (letter names and musical terms) and sight-singing. Students are also introduced to singing canons, folksongs, art songs, well- composed choral repertoire for children and youth choirs, as well as songs from other cultures and languages. Selected popular songs and songs from musicals are included as well in the repertoire to keep the students’ interest.

The idea behind setting up the choral department in this school is to arouse an awareness of choral singing by allowing students to experience a wide range of choral repertoire. Another focus is to obtain more knowledge on proper choral singing, and to keep up with the current choral trends in the world today.

The first month of the program proved rather problematic as the students had not been exposed to proper choral singing before. They found vocal warm-up exercises hilarious and thus did not take it seriously. When asked to sing one note together, teachers received several pitches at the same time. Students found it tiring even to raise their hands to do the Curwen hand signs and clap the rhythm.

The program has now been in progress for six months; better classes have gone on to learn simple two-part choral music, or choral works with percussion accompaniment. The overall choral singing tone blends much better. When it comes to intonation, students are more aware of what to listen for.

For the first three months, teachers in the choral department spent period after period inspiring students to love and appreciate our own folksongs, patriotic songs and Malaysian music. The majority of the younger generations in our country do not know many of our folksongs. When asked to name ten folksongs from Malaysia, the students barely managed five titles. By introducing a number of local songs in the syllabus, teachers were able to help student to acquire knowledge of their own culture. This is very important, as in order for a person to learn their own music, they need to go back to their roots.

The choral program in this school is new, but with a proper structure of training methods, teachers have gradually begun seeing results in the students’ singing. It is an example of problem-solving, using a well-structured program and trained teachers who implement creative solutions to engage difficult students.

8. Other choral activities

8.1 Choral Festival

This is one avenue for students to experience a wider range of choral music. As most of the schools prepare for the inter-school choir competition, they tend to learn only two or three songs per year. Attending a choral festival allows them to experience different genres of choral music. The experience of seeing both contemporary and traditional choral works from different cultures and languages is essential in expanding students’ horizons of the possibilities to be found within the framework of choral singing.

The choral festival also presents an opportunity for the students to work with other choristers and conductors. This allows them to develop their skills in adapting to various teaching methods and styles.

Aside from choral education, this festival offers students a chance to meet new friends who share the same interests. It also serves as a venue to introduce new music to the participants, and expose them to current trends in the international world of choral singing.

8.2 Choral Concerts

More and more local choirs, as well as choirs from overseas are beginning to have public concerts in Malaysia to share their beautiful singing with wider audiences. Students have a chance to watch other choirs perform various genres of choral music as well.

Cheaper tickets are sold to encourage more public to come to the shows. The concept of inviting a local choir to perform with the visiting choir is also a very important draw for the concerts.

This trend is an extremely beneficial one, as both the public and Malaysian music students will have a chance to see how other choirs present various works. It allows them to observe the presentation of different styles, tones, genres, and interpretation from other choral groups. These observations can then serve as new resources for music students and music teachers to incorporate into their choir training routines.

8.3 Exchange Programs

Thanks to cheaper traveling packages these days, more choirs from overseas are visiting Malaysia to perform and have exchange programs with the local choirs there. Usually, the exchange program consists of warming up together; performing songs for each other; and learning songs from the choirs’ countries. This is a very good way of sharing interests and cultural exchanges through music.

8.4 International Choir Competitions

Malaysians are becoming gradually more aware of the choral festivals and events outside the country. In the past five years, more and more Malaysian choirs have begun to prepare their members to take part in international choir competitions. They hold concerts locally to raise funds for the trip, and they bring back both their experiences and the music learnt from the event back to their country.

Normally in International Choral Competitions, choirs are encouraged to perform a work or two from their country. This has given Malaysian choristers more of an awareness and appreciation for Malaysian works. Works have been commissioned by the choirs from the local composers. Malaysian folksongs have been revived to a new performing direction.

8.5 Workshops

In recent years, many workshops with tutors from overseas have been organized. This allows teachers the chance to expand their knowledge, and widen their choice of repertoire or methodology of classroom teaching.

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper was to present an overview of the current scenario in the choral scene in Malaysia. As a Choir Director, I would love to see more initiatives taken by all relevant parties to help further the growth of the choir singing culture in Malaysia.

To reach an international level of choir singing, training for choir teachers needs to be greatly improved. Government and private sectors must work hand-in-hand to help raise the level of choral awareness in the country; there is a crying need for dedicated, well-trained teachers and support from both the schools and the public. To educate the public however, the choir singing culture must be inculcated from the very beginning in the school education system. Music education in Malaysia needs to be revised and taken more seriously; only then will there be an emergent generation of students who can appreciate choral singing and its place in Malaysian music, and take both to greater heights in future.