INFUSING DALCROZE EURHYTHMICS IN IMPROVING SINGING SKILLS AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

Abstract

Singing is one of the main music activities in Malaysian primary music education. It is believed that singing makes a class fun and it is closely related to students. As singing comprises vocal elements such as pitching, tempo, rhythm and expression, students are taught to master all the elements in producing a pleasant song. Nonetheless, the current teaching method does not meet the high level of singing skill among students where all the students scored C Grade (satisfactory) in the preliminary test conducted. Thus, researchers introduced Dalcroze Eurhythmics approach to intervene in the problem, creating a fun music class and further improving students' singing musicality. The ideas of the approach are found to be related to time, space and energy to mold students’ comprehension to the concept of tempo, meter and rhythm, further applying in their singing skill. The combination of rhythmic and solfege activities with the accompaniment of percussion enables students to master all the vocal elements in a fun learning environment. This study has patently found the increment of students' result from pre-test to post-test based on quantitative analysis by comparing two groups of students learning in different teaching environments. The strengths and significance of Dalcroze Eurhythmics approach is further discussed with some recommendations for the future studies.