Wednesday 23 February 2011
Bishop’s College Lobby
It was my first trip to Sri Lanka and I found it to be a very nice place to visit. On my second day there I managed to take a visit to the National Museum. It contained a lot of artefacts from the many archaeological dig sites around Sri Lanka itself, thus telling us much about the history of Sri Lanka’s past.
It was my first trip to Sri Lanka and I found it to be a very nice place to visit. On my second day there I managed to take a visit to the National Museum. It contained a lot of artefacts from the many archaeological dig sites around Sri Lanka itself, thus telling us much about the history of Sri Lanka’s past.
The Music Is Fun activity was set for Wednesday 23 February 2011 at the Bishop’s College Lobby which was actually more of a big hall. The hall was decked out with banners and flags and a traditional oil lamp.
Our MC for the day was Ms.Sounthi Thavam of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Station compeering this programme for us.
The first agenda on the list was the lighting of the traditional oil lamp by Mrs.Usitha Samarakoon, Director Educational Ministry (Western Music),
Mr.Dushyantha, Chairman/ Managing Director of Symphony (Pvt.) Ltd., Mrs.Mano Dias Abeyegunawardene, Director of Symphony (Pvt.),
Mrs.Anurukshi Bandarathilake a teacher from Kandy, and me.
After the lighting of the traditional oil lamp, the national anthems of both countries were played. Next up was a welcome address that was delivered by Mr.Dushyantha, who is the Chairman/Managing Director of Symphony (Pvt.) Ltd. He mentioned that his company was delighted to be organising an activity of such a nature for the first time in Sri Lanka.
Mrs.Usitha Samarakoon, Director (Western Music) Education Ministry was also invited to present her speech. She thanked Mr. & Mrs. Dushyantha for taking the initiative in organising this workshop (Music Is Fun) for the first time. She mentioned that a workshop of this nature would go a long way to help develop the children’s mind.
Finally after MY “speech” which was something like 2 sentences, the fun and games began. We started with grouping the students into six groups. Then we started with note values and rhythmic movements to help keep pulse.
Sometimes even with students who are already learning music the conventional way, feeling pulse and rhythm can be quite challenging. You need to feel the rhythm within your body. Once we got down to sorting out getting the right feel, the children got down to playing card games. This activity helps to reinforce what was done earlier and at the same time also serves to stimulate the children's sense of creativity since no rules were set to play the games. There were many open choices to getting the cards right so they need to remember what they saw earlier.
Half way through, I got a surprise visit from a very special guest who attended our activity to see what we were actually doing. She is none other than Mrs. Rosy Senanayake a Member of Parliament and former High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to Malaysia. She watched the proceedings of the workshop, and before she left, she had a chat with me while I explained what we were doing with the children. She was highly impressed with the program and thanked us for arranging this activity.
Continuing with the Music Is Fun activities, we came to the section where we did pitching and singing. This is always my favorite segment. The whole exercise is to let children experience a sense of harmony by doing simple canon singing.
By now you can probably see why this is my favorite!! If you may notice, it is not just the children who can enjoy the music but also the PARENTS who can participate!!! If you look carefully we have some shy participants, but after the first two rehearsals, the shyness actually disappeared!
Music is Fun concluded at 5pm and one of the senior teachers who attended this event with her students, Ms. Shanti Goonathialke concluded the event with her appreciation address on behalf of all the teachers, parents and students.
Overall, from some of my conversations with parents and teachers, they seemed to enjoy how we approach teaching music by using simple but unconventional methods like games and fun movements to stimulate the learning process for children.
The children also reacted very positively to the whole process without anyone feeling shy or left behind. One observation during this activity was that, although we purposely group students of different levels and instrumental studies together, the activities of Music Is Fun does not leave anyone out from the whole exercise.
We never got any student who felt that they could not cope or lagging behind which was a very good plus point. It makes the whole learning process a very interactive group activity where everybody needs to be involved.
We also saw that throughout the process of playing the card games, peer learning or learning with the help of your friends, actually helps to speed up the learning process of the children and the things that they learn is much better stored in their memory.
Then finally, it was time for group photos.
So Sri Lanka, thank you for inviting me there and I wish you all the best and hope to see you again in the near future.
