1. Currently, we can see that more parents in this country send their children to music classes. Many of them believed that it is a good activity after school. Moreover, parents mostly have the tendency to be proud of academic achievement i.e. certificates, high grades in examination, talent recognized by an international examination board, etc.
2. I recently involved in a music camp of an orchestra which comprised of talented young musicians. During a casual chat with a group of young violinists, they seemed to be proud of what they have achieve in their music examination e.g. Diploma from Trinity or Royal School. They do have the technical capabilities of producing sound beautifully, but it seems that by having a Diploma in such a young age, maturity in playing is relatively low.
3. How to get a music diploma from boards such as Trinity College, Royal School of Music, London College of Music, Australian Music Examination Board, etc.? The procedure ain’t that difficult. A violinist could practice their pieces, scales, sight reading, etc. thoroughly few months before taking an examination. The parents are proud when their children can score distinction in their examination.
4. The question is what’s next? There’s no module of ensemble playing; an important way of music making because in professional music performance, many musicians perform in an ensemble rather than performing solo.
5. At some private music schools in Malaysia, ensemble playing is not really their main concern. Music students are being coerced to swallow every spoon that their teachers fed; no questions really asked and many teachers don’t really like questions. The students are mechanically program to play a specific piece or specific scales according to the teachers or the system that the school has set.
6. When these students were put in an orchestra, they can play the repertoires quite well, but often lack of soul and lack sense of expression. I can say that I have encountered many desk partners in orchestra who writes instruction on the parts e.g. soft, don’t rush, one-two, on the string. Why are they doing this? Because that is what being told by their teachers; the same approach they will do on their exam pieces.
7. From what I’ve read, people in baroque music expressed their music more freely compared to the modern performers. Playing music is about expressing what is right; there are two things that you write in a part, techniques/ instructions and expressions e.g. sadly, happily. I hardly seen any of my orchestra colleagues write expressions, but only techniques. I can deduct that most of these musicians only do music from what they see but not what they imagine about the sound they are going to produce.
8. Stage fright is an element that music examinations did not cover, most people think that stage fright is something normal and it will go after several performances. That’s not right; I played violin for more than a decade, I didn’t know what causes stage fright, and still make mistakes because of stage fright. Until I discovered that there are many ways to overcome it.
9. In music examinations for instruments and singers, many of the students will perform to only the examiner, so where is the performance? Performing for someone that you don’t know is more frightening than someone that you know quite well. When you’re frightened, there is tendency to make mistakes and the examiners will only rate you from what they see and hear. The goal is to impress examiners but not to impress the music itself. Just imagine when we play a Beethoven piece for Dr. Someone or to Beethoven himself, which one is more exciting and stimulating when assuming that Beethoven is just a student composer (when he wrote his first violin sonata, he was just a student).
9. Why this matter is a concern for me? After 13 years of violin playing, I just realized that I only started to learn the violin now, before I was just imitating and followed instructions that had been given. And then we think that music examination is an indicator of musicianship or the level of education that we receive during our instrumental classes?
10. Therefore, I strongly urge that people here will not take music examination accreditation as the benchmark of social acceptance because music making is more than scoring distinction in a Fellowship examination.
June 13, 2009 at 9:46 am |
nice thoughts