Vision necessary to develop music education - V. Hemapala Perera

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

In Tune dips into music education in Sri Lanka with the following interview with visiting university lecturer in music , multi instrumentalist, music teacher and master composer V.Hemapala Perera.

The interview focuses on many views in Sri Lankan society about Western and Eastern music with a focus to find where local music stands and the direction it is heading under the current system of music education.

* We asked the master musician to explain why music education is regarded important by society

This is one of the aspects in music education that needs more attention save all the other related aspects that revolves around it as a subject of education.
 

The general understanding about Music in Sri Lanka does not extend beyond playing and listening to a song.

Their scope is thus limited in understanding the importance of music as a subject by the lack of broad vision on the part of those who are responsible for developing aesthetic studies in Sri Lanka.

Music instils discipline in the minds of people, next only to the world’s religions which teach righteousness through spiritual experience.

There is no other worldly subject that can create concentration of a single person or millions of persons at one time the way music can.

 Why must you attribute the blame on policy makers over the issue of public’s general notion about music.Isn’t entertainment what is expected from music?

Hemapala Perera: I do not want to blame anyone personally.

However I must say that the success of music education could not be determined by its school syllabus alone.

If there was any development in the area of music education over education, we would have had eliminated at least a few perverted concepts about music in our society?

* Please explain.

For example in Sri Lanka we have two types of music groups called Western music groups and Oriental music groups. People call them Western groups because of their appearance in Western dresses , wearing ear rings, bangles and long hair, and the instruments they play, if there are three guitars, a drum and Keyboard they call them a Western band.

They use Western musical instruments alright. But they play Eastern music. This is wrong thinking but it has come to be accepted.

Not only that I play the bamboo flute. If I were to play a Western piece on it , it is not going to be accepted as a Western piece.

If I were to play an oriental piece of music with a Western concert flute or an Alto flute , they might as well accept it as a Western piece.

This is what has gained ground. There should be a conceptual change in our approach to music education.

And I don’t have reasons to think we have people in authoritative positions who understand music education other than from their limited vision that these problems have lasted for such a long time.

Music is determined by what is being played by an instrument and not by the country in which that instrument was originated. Take violin for example it is an instrument that can represent both music traditions, Western and Oriental with its technical properties.

Not only that I have met some young students who look down upon musical instruments stating they are outdated Bamboo flute has existed for over many thousand years among musical instruments, but was not to be cast away and still being used by instrumentalists across the world.

My point here is how can we ever develop our music education without this knowledge being passed on to our students. Nothing has been done on the part of education authorities to promote a system of education that cover these aspects.

They stick to the task of preparing school syllabuses without any serious thoughts being given to many important aspects.

* How can we expect manifestation of a proper education system under the circumstances?

H.Perera: It can happen when vision manifests in school teachers, politicians, music teachers, ministers and policy makers.

* When can we expect this to happen?

This can happen when a collective effort is made with the support of the media providing necessary background to help the students by enabling them to relate what they study at schools with some programmes.

They may be fun inducing programmes if you like , but should be based on knowledge sharing. This is not happening at the moment.

Having said that I must also say that which is taught in school is not going to be enough to produce a musician unless he gets the right background to encourage his or her education.

* Do you think that music education is faced with its current fate because of politics?

I’d rather say that the situation is the result of a some persons with little knowledge handling the subject.

What are the other causes that gave vent to conceptual deterioration of the situation.

Media. I am not against young musicians getting publicity over the media. But I am against half baked musicians getting promoted as maestros through the media.

The media should see that music or musicians are promoted on a firm musical footing and not on tottering feet.

* Where have the system of music education gone wrong?

The aesthetic studies starts from grade 6 in Sri Lanka.

The child has information embedded in his brain by this time and he has an idea about what he is going to become.

It was from grade 1 that a child should be educated in music little by little by training him to sing a small poem or two or folk songs for that matter.

But the most important thing here is that he learns to identify the pitch of notes through these poems.

This means one should know how to pitch her voice to the notes of that song or that he or she may be able to play a few tunes on the piano or some other instrument so that the child gets to identify musical sounds.

I think that education should be given from from the montessori to grade 6 and up till A/Ls.

The problem is we do not have a proper syllabus even from grade 6 or a system to cover that syllabus effectively in pragmatic terms.

* From where do we start?

From popular music, be it Western or oriental music with easily identifiable tunes instead of stuffing them with difficult Ragas and other details.

In fact elements of both Western and oriental music could be traced from popular music.

The approach should be smooth and interesting.