1. How is Seimpi School of Music different from the other music schools?
In Seimpi, our objective is to equip young children with the skills and attitude that are necessary to help them in achieving their highest potential in life. And we use music learning as the vehicle to achieve the above objective and help the children in our school.
Our belief is that every child is a born genius. They all have the potential in them to achieve many great things in life and to make a difference in the world. However, unless we as parents, care-givers and teachers help them to unleash and discover these potential, they will remain hidden. So here in Seimpi, we want to help equip the children in our school with the right skills, mindset, attitude and knowledge, as well as provide them the opportunities that will unleash their potential. That is why we have a plethora of courses catering to the young starting with MIM, SMART program (for accelerated learning), right up to Diplomas (Seimpi's own Associate Diplomas in Music Pedagogy, Associate & Licentiate Diplomas which are recognised by the renowned Birminham Conservatoire in UK to lead into their 3rd year of Undergraduate studies after successful audition). For MIM, it uses cutting edge and up to date pedagogy in our courses, together with our own proprietary books and materials, it ensures that all essential musical training are imparted to the child. For example, we do not only depend on ear training - teacher playing a tune and child imitates the tune back. Other training like eye and memory training are used simultaneously to ensure multi-sensory learning.
2. What do children learn in Seimpi School of Music?
Besides teaching the children to appreciate and learn music in a fromal and enjoyable way, be proficient in the instruments they choose to play, we teach them
- Speed Reading
- Eye and Ear Training
- Memory Training
- Music Dictation
- Music Mapping &
- Music Analysis
- Music Theory
- Musicianship and others
3. How do we train speed-reading skill in the course?
To many parents, the age of 2 years old seems to be too young to understand the complexities involved in reading scores.
What we do here is not making the 2 years old read and play out the tune in the score, but to expose them to how a score would look like for the tunes that they sing. At this age, their right brain is capable of absorbing information in high quantity and in a high speed. Notes in the form of a score will be shown to them using flashcards or OHP, their eyes will be made to follow the notes according to the tempo and rhythm of the music played to them in the background.
This helps them tremendously when they take up an instrument such as piano in the later stage of their life. The struggle of reading notes in the score and then transferring the information to the hands and playing music on the keys will be greatly reduced - they have acquired the ability to store high quantity of information with quick glances and a good memory to transfer the information into music.
The problem of reading notes slowly and the long hours involved in getting to play a piece of music will be eliminated. They are also capable of reading various forms of music scores in fast tempo.
4. Why is memory training necessary in moulding a young musician?
Having the ability of a good memory will help young musicians remember the pitches and rhythmic values that make a piece of music easily and faster.
What we do here is to relate note-values and pitches with stories, something that children would find fascinating. So, when all these complex pitches and note-values turn into an interesting story, and being flashed to them in high speed, their brain will capture the stories, together with the related notes, then store all these in their memory. With a constant training in this way, students are capable to memorize music easily. So when they perform, they would concentrate more on the tone production and the style of the music instead of constantly worry of getting the right notes.
To them, playing music has become like speaking a language. This memory training will also help in their acquisition of other bodies of knowledge and information.
5. Why is music dictation important?
Music dictation is popular among music training offered in all higher learning institutions. However, it's often being neglected in pre-childhood education in music. This training not only encourages 'inner hearing' but it also helps children tremendously on their compositional skill right from the age of 2. We use cards with single notes, or short music or rhythmic phrases, together with magnetic boards with magnetic buttons for this activity. Three activities are involved in this training:
Children look at the cards
Teacher plays the note or phrases
Children memorize what is being heard, and for older children, they are required to write the music down or play the music on the piano.(go to top)
6. What is music mapping and what has it got to do with music analysis?
Music mapping is the most wonderful and exciting music training available now. Children like to express themselves through paper and crayons; by asking them to draw or colour upon hearing a piece of music would help us to understand how much he/she knows about a piece of music. Teachers or parents would be able to help by adding details into their maps or drawings to raise their awareness on certain details. This activity helps tremendously in their music analysis work in their future learning. In Music for the Intelligent Mind, we view music analysis as an important training to young children, although some find it too early for a pre-school child.
A good performance not only relies on how well a child carries out the technical demand, it also relies on how well he/she understands the phrase structure, forms, expressive quality and the style. These are all part of music analysis. In Music for the Intelligent Mind, we have activities and games to indirectly implement all these quality in the performance of a child in a fun way.
7. What are the differences between Music for the Intelligent Mind and the other Music and Movement classes?
Music and movement classes involve the implementation of rhythmic feel and a sense of music appreciation in children. Normally, these classes provide some gymnastic equipment to help building strength and coordinate some body movements.
Music for the Intelligent Mind engages qualified music teachers to conduct our classes. It involves more in the stimulation and the development of the music brain capabilities rather than concentrate on body movements. Certain activities in music and movement are still conducted in the class but we believe that a holistic approach, which involves as many senses as possible is vital in developing a young mind into a music mind.
Music for the Intelligent Mind aims to build a young pianist at the end of our program who is versatile to take up any other instrument that he/she chooses to pursue. .
The speed reading, photographic memory, music mapping, music analysis, fine motor skill, self-confidence, concentration, strong imagination, fine intuition and expression and quick response abilities that they have acquired from these training will also be able to assist them in their other academic study.
8. What age is the best age to start playing an instrument?
It very much depends on which instrument parents plan to let their little ones learn.
For piano, you can start playing it as early as 2+. Different children have different pace in their fingers' muscle development. Parents have to understand the fact that piano playing involves quite a complicated procedure. A child is only ready to play the piano when he/she can separate their fingers individually.
Parents can help by encouraging them to count with their fingers, using both right and left hand. Music for the Intelligent Mind Playtime does not encourage too much piano playing until after half a year of the course training. Within this half a year, we encourage the use of fingers, such as playing with dough, counting using fingers to activate the fingers' muscle. Thus, these activities would prepare the children better when they are encouraged to play a simple tune during the 2nd half of the training.
For violin, we encourage students to start off with Music for the Intelligent Mind Playtime first to develop their pitch, rhythmic and harmonic sense first, before they start with violin playing at the age of three.
There is no fixed pitch on a violin as on a piano, so it is good to let children develop the hearing first before they start playing the instrument. We do not find the usage of stickers on the fingerboard help them too much in their hearing and note reading. Recently, several researchers have started to write their thesis again about developing perfect pitch. It is proven that children who start to recognize pitches especially by singing under the age of three find it easier to develop perfect pitch.
For guitar, the approximate age to start is six.
For vocal training, you could start training seriously at the age of twelve and for flute, it is approximately at the age of seven depending on the build of the child.
For tin whistle its about five years old.
And lastly, to answer this question, I'd like to quote from one of the leading music educator of the last century, Zoltan Kodaly,
"A child who plays before he sings may remain unmusical for a
lifetime"
"See what you hear and hear what you see"
That is why sometimes I hear parents and students making such a comment:
"I've practised very hard for the exam but why do I get such low marks for my playing?"
The quote from Kodaly above answers all!!
9. Why is ensemble playing and group lesson important?
Music is a language.
Language is used to communicate with each other. It is going to be extremely boring if you choose to make music alone, locked in a room, without any communication with other people.
Children learn to listen to each other when they play in an ensemble,learn to count to develop a strong rhythmic sense. They also learn to hear the different parts played by their friends, learn the importance of orchestration and tone balance and developing the spirit of cooperation among themselves. There are just too many advantages that I can think of!
Concerning the ability to hear different parts: We encourage two- part singing starting in our Music for the Intelligent Mind In Me for three years old. This is an extremely important training for the young. Our ear is capable of hearing at least 4 parts, solely played on the same piano! This is what we call harmony training.
Chord training: I often hear comments from parents about their child who has learnt an instrument for a while being unable to play just a simple tune say 'Happy Birthday'.
The problem lie on too many teachers or parents falling into the trap of making their teaching or training syllabus the same as the examination syllabus. The examination syllabus is set up only for the few activities that an examiner could do within 15 - 30 minutes to test the ability of a candidate.
Our weekly training should do more than what the prescribed activities in order to prepare students well to tackle for the tests done in such a short time. I often have older students especially Grade 6 - 8 staring at me in silence after I ask them to name me the few chords that I play on the piano. They blame themselves for not having the "talent" in music to "hear" the chords but I always tell them not to be disheartened by this inability. It is because they have not had the ample training from young when they are doing the low grades.
10. What are the progressions in a child's music education in Seimpi?
Seimpi conducts all kinds of music courses for all ages, starting with MIM for the young child. When they progress to individual lessons, they can opt to join the SMART (Seimpi MIM Accelerated and Robust Training) program for accelerated music learning. Beyond SMART, they can progress into Seimpi's own Diplomas (Seimpi Associate Diplomas in Music Pedagogy, Associate & Licentiate Diplomas which are recognised by the renowned Birminham Conservatoire in UK to lead into their 3rd year of Undergraduate studies after successful audition).
