Providing an opportunity for students on whom the future of our country hinges to be exposed to our own classical instruments is one of the sure ways to teach them to have the right understanding of Korean cultural heritage of music, to build the righ...
Providing an opportunity for students on whom the future of our country hinges to be exposed to our own classical instruments is one of the sure ways to teach them to have the right understanding of Korean cultural heritage of music, to build the right values on Korean music culture, and ultimately to make a contribution to the development of the music culture and the creation of new one.
Korean classical music education shouldn't merely aim at teaching students to learn the concept of it by rote or simply represent traditional music. Instead, it should focus on expressing and enjoying the beauty and significance of the music. Currently, elementary Daegeum education is just conducted in the field of appreciation, which results in making it hard to learn the beauty and meaning of the national classical music that are represented through Daegeum.
Among Korean classical music instruments, Daegeum is especially difficult to produce a sound. Therefore it's advisable to instruct students to experience the superb culture of our ancestors through the instrument instead of simply focusing on performing skills. And a systematic approach should be taken to spark their interest in Daegeum class.
The purpose of this study was to examine Daegeum teaching methods for extracurricular activities, not regular music classes, in an effort to let students acquire how to play diverse national classical music instruments. It's ultimately meant to urge students to enjoy music(national classical music) as a way of life.
How to provide Daegeum instruction was considered in three different stages: acquisition of basic skills, acquisition of the Ankongbeop, and acquisition of traditional songs. And lesson plans were prepared for each stage to develop teaching methods.
The stage of basic-skills acquisition focused on getting students who would learn how to play the Daeum for the first time to have a general understanding of it and to get familiar with it with interest. A wide variety of teaching methods about the right posture, breathing and producing a sound were presented to improve their performing skills, and teaching plans were mapped out in accordance with the process of instrumental music practice.
In the stage of the Ankongbeop acquisition, the elementary school curriculum of wind instruments was analyzed to find out the teaching stages of wind instruments involving recorder and Danso to determine the directions and stages of Ankongbeop guidance. Given the characteristics of Daegeum, the teaching stages were selected by using the kinds of sounds that were widely used in traditional music performance and easier for learners to produce. Besides, the songs and nursery rhymes of the music textbooks were analyzed to select etudes for each kind of Ankongbeop, and the Jeongganbo score was made and presented.
The third stage of traditional-song acquisition centered around understanding the beauty and value of the national classical music by learning about Sigimsae such as Teoisung and Yosung and the ornaments of Pyongjohoisang Sangryeongsan, one of traditional instrumental music. The Pyongjohoisang Sangryeongsan was analyzed to provide what to teach about the performance of Sigimsae, and teaching plans were prepared in accordance with the process of instrumental music practice.
Finally, lesson plans for instrumental music practice were mapped out by applying the instrumental music teaching methods of the elementary music curriculum and instructional strategies. The lesson plans could be utilized as effective teaching-learning materials for Daegeum.
Although Daegeum is very big and hard to produce a sound, the selected students gradually got familiar with it and got accustomed to that while they practiced seizing it in the right posture and practiced how to play it step by step according to the teaching stages.
They were intensively taught to do abdominal breathing to learn how to control their breathing, and various sorts of activities were conducted to let them learn how to breathe long and produce a sound in a manner to stir up their interest. They got to have lots of interest in Daegeum while they learned about that by using the etudes according to the teaching stage of the Ankongbeop.
It's not that easy to acquire how to play Yosung or Toeisung in a short time, which were Sigimsae of the national classical music. But they found it very interesting to learn the Sigimsae step by step, which was one of the typical characteristics of the national classical music. The repeated guidance and the intriguing learning stages of the lesson plans successfully encouraged them to practice the instrument on their own, and they naturally came to play the Daegeum.
In the future, students should be allowed to have ample chances to be exposed to different sorts of traditional musical instruments, to play them, to understand the beauty and value of Korean classical music, and to take pride in it. Traditional instrumental music education should be provided in diverse ways for them to pass our unique traditional music onto next generations to step up the further development of it.