HO Chee Kong, CHAN Tze Law, MIAO Kaiwen, Frances LEE, Rachel HO, Xavier TAN, and Benedict NG*
Career Orientation and Community Engagement
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YSTCM)
Ho, C. K., Chan, T. L., Miao, K., Lee, F., Ho, R., Tan, X., & Ng, B. (2023). Interdisciplinary learning in music [Lightning talk]. In Higher Education Campus Conference (HECC) 2023, 7 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecc2023proceedings/interdisciplinary-learning-in-music/
SUB-THEME
Communities and Education
KEYWORDS
Community engagement, music education, interdisciplinary learning, inquiry-based pedagogy
CATEGORY
Lightning Talks
CONTEXT
The traditional role of a music conservatory is to produce professional musicians and emphasises artistic excellence. However, in the rapidly evolving musical landscape, it is no longer sufficient for professional musicians to focus solely on musical excellence to remain relevant. Moreover, the portfolio career that most musicians work in necessitates “entrepreneurial and transferable skills that often go beyond the domain of music” (Smilde et al., 2016). Furthermore, the National Arts Council (NAC) identifies the collaboration between the arts and different sectors, and audiences’ expectation for greater connection between the arts and social causes as macro trends in the industry (National Arts Council, n. d.). As such, musicians must also critically evaluate the impact of their musical practices vis-à-vis their relevance to the communities that they live in (Gaunt et al., 2021). Nurturing these values necessitates a shift from the traditional artist-apprenticeship model of education, which focuses on developing discrete musical skills (Jorgensen, 2011), to a model that develops students who learn independently and are cognisant of how their musical practices impact society.
CURRICULAR CHANGES
One of our initiatives was to create space within the Music & Society, Music Collaboration & Production (MS/MCP) curriculum to include problem-based, investigative projects with inquiry dimensions that critically evaluate how their musical practices can have a meaningful impact on wider society. These self-directed projects aim to develop “critical thinking skills and an awareness of the interconnectedness of various domains” (MS/MCP Roadmap, 2023). The inquiry process also aims to instil intellectual curiosity and nurture research-thinking mindsets. These are vital for musicians to be able to seek new knowledge and advance their own professional practices (Aditomo et al., 2011) amidst the turbulent nature of the music industry, especially where there are few developmental career structures (Smilde, 2016).
Pedagogy in the MS/MCP context also shifts from one-to-one learning to a team-taught process. Students are assigned an overseeing mentor who, in regular consultation with a team of tutors, can tap on a wider pool of expertise. Moreover, collaborative teaching has the potential to raise the quality of teaching as students would be exposed to a wider variety of perspectives and ideas (Knieter, 1963) as the faculty team comprises active practitioners from different sectors of the music profession that stay abreast of current developments in the industry. From the pedagogical perspective, team-teaching also helps instructors to sharpen ideas, role model collaboration, and expand existing networks with industry stakeholders.
The mode of assessment also evolves to give greater weight to assessing the student’s learning process. This includes continuous assessment dimensions, where the student is evaluated on their artistic growth and demonstration of critical thinking. Written and presentation assessments are also included to evaluate the student’s ability to communicate their artistic processes. The assignment weightage is also scaffolded where in the first two years, students would be assessed largely through continuous assessment and the focus would gradually shift to the quality of student projects in the later years.
EXAMPLES
The changes in curriculum and pedagogy have given rise for expanded possibilities with interdisciplinary dimensions. For instance, the team-teaching concept was expanded to include collaborations across faculties including the NUS Museum. During the seminars, MS/MCP students were introduced to themes surrounding the museum’s artefacts and created informed musical responses to them. This was later expanded in the subsequent semester, where students collaborated with the NUS Baba House to produce a full-length performance. These experiences developed the students’ curatorial and production skills as well as critical thinking in connecting their music to wider issues.
The intermodal nature of students’ projects also reflects these new creative possibilities. One of the capstone projects, emergent, combined violin performance with lighting and sound design, composition, and dance, to create an interdisciplinary performance. Rather than producing a presentational style performance that focuses primarily on the music, the student here sought to use interdisciplinary performance as means to explore perspectives on issues of identity. With a critical lens, the student was able to articulate her artistic choices and demonstrate how the arts can be a powerful means to unpack these issues in an impactful manner.
The nature of student projects have also developed to encompass non-performative contexts that seek ways to use music to have a wider impact on society. The third-year project ‘Gesture as Connection: A Study of Soundpainting’s Effects on Composer and Performer Communication’, explored intermodal communication between musicians and audiences. The visualisation of music through gestures also has the potential to represent music to hearing-disabled communities, empowering them to appreciate music. Another capstone project, the ‘No Pain More Gain’ symposium, on performing arts health was also instrumental in spreading awareness about wellness for performing artists. The impact is clearly seen when the student was also invited by the Singapore Armed Forces Military Band to facilitate a workshop on wellbeing for their musicians.
As the nature of the musical landscape is ever-changing, it is thus pertinent that the academic faculty and curriculum at the conservatory is dynamic and constantly evolving to anticipate the needs of the industry. While the effects of the revised curriculum and pedagogy is still nascent, the preliminary results of these efforts have been positive and we intend for the team teaching concept to be expanded to include collaborations with new faculties, opening up new possibilities for music major students as well as non-music major students. We have also embarked on the Teaching Enhancement Grant (TEG) to explore greater ways to assess the effectiveness of team teaching, establish best practices, and seek ways to expand collaborative instruction to include other disciplines.
REFERENCES
Aditomo, A., Goodyear, P., Bliuc, A.-M., & Ellis, R. A. (2013). Inquiry-based learning in higher education: Principal forms, educational objectives, and disciplinary variations. Studies in Higher Education, 38(9), 1239-58. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.616584
Gaunt, H., Duffy, C., Coric, A., González Delgado, I. R., Messas, L., Pryimenko, O., & Sveidahl, H. (2021). Musicians as “makers in society”: A conceptual foundation for contemporary professional higher music education. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 713648. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713648
Jorgensen, E.R. (2011). Pictures of Music Education. Indiana University Press, 53-57.
Knieter, G. L. (1963). The creative arts symposium. A four-year experiment team-teaching music and the fine arts. Music Educators Journal, 49(5), 62–66. https://doi.org/10.2307/3389950
National Arts Council Singapore (n.d.). Our SG Arts Plan (2023-2027). Retrieved from https://www.nac.gov.sg/docs/default-source/the-arts-plan/our-sg-arts-plan_2023—2027_phase-4_updated.pdf?sfvrsn=bf188896_2.
Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meanings of performing and listening. University Press of New England, 2-4.
Smilde, R., Tómasdóttir, B. M., Hall, Þ. D., Pedersen, G., Gaunt, H., Lopez-Real, C., Bork, M., Jonker, R. (2016). Research in NAIP. Musicmaster.eu, 7.
Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music. (2023). MSMCP Roadmap (AY2022/2023). National University of Singapore, 1
