Malaysian Journal of Music

A Delphi Study of Effective Practices for Determining the Competencies of Elementary Music Teachers

Benjie M. Manila — 2024-11-17

This study aims to determine the competencies essential for elementary music teachers by exploring effective practices and insights of experts in music education. Using a three-round Delphi method with twelve music education experts, the study collected and refined competencies across three stages. In Round 1, qualitative data were thematically analysed to identify competency domains. In Round 2, participants ranked these domains and competencies by importance, with agreement levels assessed using Kendall’s W. Round 3 sought consensus by allowing participants to review collective rankings and explanations. Results revealed seven key domains, with musical skills emerging as the most essential, with the ability to play an instrument being the most important competency.

Pianists’ Interpretive Insights: Exploring Hunt, Military, and Pastoral Motifs through Monelle’s Topic Theory

Ding Jin — 2024-11-18

Topic theory in musicology examines how musical elements and structures convey emotions or topics in music. Despite its potential to provide a framework for understanding musical expression, topic theory has rarely been applied to piano pedagogy. This study aimed to explore participants’ perceptions of Raymond Monelle’s topic theory, specifically the hunt, military, and pastoral topics, in piano interpretation and teaching. Participants included six music lecturers from Chinese universities and nine university music students from Bulgaria, China, France, Germany, and the United States. Data was collected through a listening survey and semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis. The listening survey used excerpts from Dussek’s La Chasse, C.146, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in A Major, Op. 101, Second Movement, and Liszt’s Années de Pèlerinage, Première année - Suisse, No. 3, Pastorale. The results showed that more than half of the participants matched the selected topics with the musical excerpts, with some confusion between the hunt and military topics. All participants agreed that topic theory enriches the interpretation of piano pieces and provides a complementary method in piano pedagogy. Two main themes emerged regarding the application of topic theory in piano interpretation: enhanced expression and imagination. Participants also believed that topic theory could serve as an analytical framework for interpreting musical works and increase the musical knowledge of both teachers and students.

Quiet Resonances of an Emergent Indigeneity: Sound, Silence, and Igorot Protest Performances in the Philippines

Lisa Decenteceo — 2024-12-09

Soundscapes of piercing gangsa (flat gong) rhythmic patterns, political speeches blared on loudspeakers, and call-and-response chants that envelop renditions of traditional celebratory dances characterise street protests led by Igorot left-wing activists. Upholding militant activism as foundational to Igorot identity, these spectacular displays signify an Igorot sense of value for collectivism, sovereignty, and territorial defense, echoing long-established practices that have sounded community resistance to corporate aggression since the 1970s. Despite this history, many Igorots reject the practice. Performances by leftist Igorots in 2017 aggravated internal debates about politicising Igorot identity. This troubled many Igorot activists, particularly an elder who, since his teenage years, had witnessed Igorots confront corporate intrusion into their ancestral lands through deployments of traditional practices. In an existential crisis, he distanced himself from the normative “noise” of protests, staging a solo act that reaffirmed his identity as an Igorot activist yet also promised his acceptance by the broader Igorot public. Drawing from ethnographic evidence and adaptations of Abe’s (2016) insights on sound-silence relationalities and Tsing’s (2007) notion of “friction”—the traction and slippage of divergent indigeneities—I examine this duality, amplifying the weighty “silence” of the said activist’s militancy and its emergent meanings. Through this exercise of individual creativity, Indigeneity manifests as a contradictory phenomenon that transcends conventional associations about identity and its expression. This paper seeks to disrupt the tendency to homogenise Indigenous experience by unveiling its radical possibilities. I voice often-ignored musical lives that forge new trajectories of identity.

Creating Place: The Role of Festival, Kajarī Folk Songs, and Rituals in Mirzapur

Milan Chauhan — 2024-12-17

This article examines the role of the Kajarī festival and folk songs in the socio-cultural lives of rural women in Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It explores how the festival provides a unique space for rural women to assert their autonomy within a patriarchal society. Through ethnographic fieldwork, including the documentation of rituals, folk songs, and cultural activities, this study analyses the Kajarī festival as a place-making process. It argues that women use the performative space of Kajarī songs to express themselves and their experiences using strategies rooted in their traditions and rituals. The paper concludes that the Kajarī festival and its songs function as a critical outlet for emotional expression, social interaction, and self-expression, offering women a form of agency within their rural context.