Music education in school bears an objective of allowing the students to nurture sensitive sentiments toward music as well as developing attitudes for expressing and experiencing music. This goes beyond simply singing well or being able to play an ins...
Music education in school bears an objective of allowing the students to nurture sensitive sentiments toward music as well as developing attitudes for expressing and experiencing music. This goes beyond simply singing well or being able to play an instrument in a skillful manner, to include seeking musical growth and aesthetics that consist of ability to distinguish musical elements, engage in imagination and insight to enhance the aesthetic attitude reflected on ones life.In order to nurture the musical development and aesthetic attitude, every music class must include the process of allowing the students to appreciate the beauty of a musical piece and its artistic significance. In order to make such class feasible, each individual student must be sensitive toward hisher musical receptivity, which can be nurtured through learning. Being trained to listen carefully to the sound and becoming familiar with the attitude of appreciating a musical piece are very important for bringing sensitivity to musical receptivity. Appreciation activity is what is related to such process among various fields of music education. Appreciation is the starting point of music education, should always be incorporated into the music education curriculum, and it also has a profound relationship with the results. Correct appreciation activity will greatly contribute toward achieving the fundamental aspect of music education, namely musical development and nurturing of aesthetic attitude.It is best to experience a correct appreciation approach at an early age. Today, there is an increasing recognition for childrens music appreciation. However, music education for elementary school first and second graders relies mainly on textbooks, and music is included in the Joyous Life subject of their curriculum along with physical education and art. The subject only has two musical pieces, making it very difficult to implement music appreciation activities.This study seeks means for active music appreciation activities for musical development and nurturing of aesthetic attitude within the integrated Joyous Life textbook for elementary school first graders. The objective of this study is proposing teaching methods for enhancing music listening skills and appreciation methods for diversifying appreciation activities with the Joyous Life subject for elementary school first graders.In order to develop a correct approach to appreciation, it is important to teach first graders to sufficiently practice listening attentively to various sounds and bearing an attitude of feeling toward sound. Such practice is referred to as listening activity in this study, and a program is proposed for intensifying listening activities during Joyous Life classes where music is involved. Moreover, music pieces outside the textbook appropriate for first graders are suggested as well as their application methodology and there are also proposition for musical piece appreciation activities that integrate playing, listening activities and rhythmic instrument playing.Elementary school first graders have much curiosity and display very energetic activities. They like to sing, play musical instruments and at the same time, enjoy and eager about listening to and expressing music. If children can learn how to listen to and feel music at such an energetic, active age when they can easily absorb things around them, it will contribute significantly toward embracing musical development and a loving attitude for music.