(This essay is generated by ChatGPT and then edited for adherence to the meaning I intended.)
The current GCE O-Level (6085) and A-Level (9753) music syllabi in Singapore reflect a superficial inclusivity by covering selected local Asian traditions (Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Javanese Gamelan) alongside Western classical music. While on the surface, this inclusion appears multicultural, it remains largely formalistic and devoid of the social, historical, and cultural contexts that give music its deeper meanings. This approach creates a superficially inclusive but decontextualized curriculum, which, rather than genuinely embracing cultural diversity, inadvertently limits students' understanding of the complexity and richness of the world’s musical traditions.
What is Contextually Inclusive Education?
Contextually Inclusive education integrates the social, historical, and cultural backgrounds that shape the subject matter, fostering a deep understanding of its significance and relevance. In music education, a contextually inclusive curriculum would not only teach students the technical aspects of various musical forms but also explore the cultural and social contexts behind these forms, including not just historical but also modern and contemporary contexts and related musics. This approach helps students understand music as a living, evolving expression of identity, values, and community, rather than as isolated technical constructs. Contextually inclusive education thus encourages empathy, cross-cultural appreciation, and a more holistic view of the subject.
Decontextualized education, by contrast, presents diverse subject matter in a superficial or fragmented way, often focusing solely on technical analysis without fully addressing the broader cultural or historical contexts. In music, a decontextualized curriculum might include a variety of global musical traditions but largely reduce them to their structural elements—such as scales, rhythms, and melodies—without meaningfully discussing their meanings, functions, or evolution within specific communities, and may omit modern and contemporary musics in global context. This approach limits students’ understanding, treating music as a set of disjointed forms rather than as meaningful cultural expressions, and delimiting contexts that remain detached from the primary context students find themselves in—that is, the modern Asian context of contemporary Singapore. Decontextualized education risks reinforcing stereotypes and marginalizing contemporary Asian and global perspectives by failing to convey the depth and adaptability of global traditions.
Superficial Inclusion and Its Limitations
The syllabi largely focus narrowly on the structural and technical analysis of music, such as scales, rhythms, and forms, particularly in the Asian music traditions covered. This approach encourages students to view music through a detached lens, treating it as a series of formal components rather than a living cultural expression deeply embedded in social contexts. By emphasizing technical dissection, students learn to appreciate music at a surface level, missing out on the cultural, ritualistic, and symbolic significance that these musical forms hold within their communities; for instance, the syllabus includes gamelan music, but without exploring its ceremonial importance in Javanese culture or its role in community bonding in detail, students risk perceiving it merely as a unique rhythmic structure.
In Western art music studies within the A-Level syllabus, the Eurocentric focus on Baroque, Classical, and Romantic composers suggests a hierarchy in musical value, marginalizing global and Asian contributions. By focusing on these established Western canons without integrating global composers who work within Western forms, such as Toru Takemitsu or I Wayan Gde Yudane, the syllabus fails to reflect the global nature of art music. Consequently, students are not only excluded from learning about the contributions of these global composers but may also internalize an implicit hierarchy that places Western art music above others in terms of cultural and artistic significance.
Superficial Inclusivity and Cultural Exclusion
This decontextualized inclusion creates a false sense of multicultural education, occluding significant exclusions in the curriculum. By presenting a narrow range of Asian traditions and largely reducing them to technical elements, the syllabi obscure the broader, dynamic nature of global music. This form of inclusion can be misleading, as it suggests a diversity that does not fully exist; the cultural meanings and historical dimensions of traditional Asian musics are left out, while diverse contemporary expressions of Asian and global music remain unrepresented. The implicit exclusion of these elements does more than omit information—it actively shapes a limited worldview in students, subtly reinforcing stereotypes that certain music traditions are static or unchanging, while canonic Western music remains the benchmark of artistic progress .
Such an approach is presents an ethnocentric perspective, whereby students may come to see traditional Asian and global musics as secondary or inferior to Western art music, particularly when the former are largely stripped of their cultural contexts. This perceived hierarchy alienates students from a comprehensive understanding of music as a universal cultural expression, instead reinforcing a “museum view” of global musics that treats them as artifacts rather than living art forms. A focus largely on the technical aspects of traditional genres like Chinese or Malay music can make students perceive these forms as frozen in time, overlooking how these musical expressions adapt to societal changes or incorporate modern elements, such as in contemporary Asian genres like K-pop and J-pop .
Exclusion and Cultural Stagnation
Furthermore, selective inclusion risks creating a stagnant music education system. Without exposure to the evolution and diversity within music traditions—such as contemporary global traditional musics from Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East—students miss out on a wide array of creative approaches and techniques that would otherwise broaden their musical abilities. The restricted focus on specific local traditions within the CMIO framework limits students’ understanding of music as a global phenomenon. This framework inadvertently narrows the definition of “Asian” music to local, pre-modern forms, while globally influential genres and contemporary composers go unacknowledged.
This limited exposure inhibits students' potential as they are not encouraged to explore and appreciate the rich diversity and adaptability within various musical forms worldwide. The lack of diverse perspectives in the syllabi ultimately hinders the development of empathy and cultural competency, essential skills in an interconnected world where music increasingly serves as a bridge across cultures .
Conclusion
The current O-Level and A-Level music syllabi while inclusive in appearance, are non-contextually inclusive, emphasizing a narrow set of traditions and largely technical analysis of Asian musical traditions, without meaningfully engaging with the cultural meanings embedded within these musical forms. This approach, rather than offering a genuine multicultural education, obscures significant exclusions, reinforcing a limited, hierarchical view of global music traditions. For Singaporean students, an education that fails to incorporate both traditional and contemporary global musics, as well as a deeper, possibly ethnographic study of music’s social and historical contexts, restricts their cultural empathy, adaptability, and creative growth. Addressing these issues with a broader, contextually inclusive curriculum is essential to nurturing globally aware, versatile musicians capable of appreciating and contributing to the world’s rich musical landscape.
