APSMER2017 PROCEEDINGS

Proceedings of the 11th Asia-Pacific Symposium for Music Education Research
(APSMER 2017) 19th to 21st July 2017, Melaka MALAYSIA
proposed expression. They felt insecure and the obtained expression was
gradually diminished in each recording.
On the other hand, the players experienced an assent and easiness
when they realized the effect of the teacher’s direction.
Aya: I thought that he was pushing the tempo while he was conducting,
but it encouraged me to exceed my limit.
Seiko: I thought that I felt more unreserved to play the music with his
conducting, too. It was the most cohesive performance in this
session, I suppose.
In the recording right after the scene, the players made a drastic
change of musical expression in not only tempo, but also in dynamics and
articulations.
Discussion
Firstly, none of the three teachers brought definitely predetermined plans of
musical expression as their goal (Karlsson & Juslin 2008). The teachers’
words “Ichigo-Ichie” shows that they evidently recognized the importance to
generate musical expression in a reciprocal process with the players on site.
To prepare for the reciprocal instruction, they gave the players several
question to discern their primary ideas and understanding of the music.
Secondly, not only teachers but also players collaboratively made
decisions of musical expression. The teachers rarely gave concrete
propositions about changes of tempo and dynamics. Instead, they mainly
facilitated the players to generate and reframe their own ideas of musical
expression by inspiring their imagination with intentionally ambiguous
words. These tactics contributed new perspectives for the players to evoke
another way of expression that they had never thought. The teachers accepted,
impelled and sometimes inhibited the players’ new idea as feedback. In the
last phase of their session, the teachers requested players to listen to each
other’s sounds to make a coherent expression of the music by consolidating
individual musical ideas. These structures of the sessions were very similar
to the improvisational process that Fournier (2011) described the
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