ABSTRACT

Music is an artistic work and activity in which the human life and emotions are reflected and sublimated through the expressive sound symbols. The intrinsic value of music education, therefore, should be understood as helping students to appreciate the import and beauty in the art of music. The import, structure, and beauty of music should be the core of teaching-learning contents in the music classes. To find the ways and means for such a process is one of the most important keys in teaching and learning music. Since we approach the learning contents through the aesthetic activities based on the musical thinking such as feelings, artistic insights, and imagination, musical thinking plays an important role in the process of approaching the core learning contents. In this study, the researcher examined the substance of the musical thinking and explored the instructional strategies for the development of musical thinking. Logical thinking in music can be built through the musical experiences on the foundation of logical thinking. The musical thinking can be built through the opportunites of illogical thinking like feeling, insight, and imagination at any suitable moment based on the logical thinking in music. The following ideas could be suggested for the development of musical thinking. In order to teach the concepts of music, the melody, the form, and the style are selected as teaching contents. For example, during the process of teaching the concept of melody, the students think music inferentially while inquiring the processes of forming repetitions, sequences, and contrasts in a musical piece. Simultanously, they feel, penetrate, and imagine the meanings of the two successive tones by observing how they repeat, contrast, and rest in the music. Musical thinking is applied throughout this process. For teaching the performing and listening to music, the relationship between the text and its musical setting, the musical painting, and an example of musical description of musical story-telling are selected as teaching contents. For example, in the process of teaching the relationship between the text and its musical setting, the musical thinking operates when the students notice that the scenic images in the poem correspond to the sounds of music, while they feel, penetrate and imagine the relationship between the poem, melody, and accompaniment.