International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Khoo, H.L., Ang, K., Odendaal, A. (2023). Helping students overcome musical inhibition: Perspectives of instrumental teachers in Malaysia and Singapore. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 24(si2.2). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea24si2.2

Although musical inhibition is well known in music education, it has not been studied extensively. This may result in misdiagnosis of student experience. In this paper, we examine how teachers have described the ways they help students overcome musical inhibition. Using a basic qualitative research design, we conducted semi-structured interviews with twelve studio piano teachers from Singapore and Malaysia. The themes that emerged from the data showed that in order to help students overcome musical inhibition, teachers foster personal relationships within the students’ learning environment, increase student ownership of their learning, and develop students’ confidence in their musical abilities. This shows that teachers intuitively grasped the basic needs for motivation in musically inhibited students and attempted to address this through their previous teaching experiences. The results suggest that understanding the relationship between motivation and inhibition will support music teachers in helping students who display symptoms of musical inhibition.