By Dr Eugene Seow, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Music
What frustrated me most about music education growing up? Allegro. Lento. Memorise the terms. Spell the chords. Read the lines. Put me to sleep, sir.
We were taught to decode music like we were cramming for a language test. Nevertheless, music, real music, is not about codes. It is about feeling. That click is when a groove locks in. That shiver when a reharmonisation lands. That held note that makes the room exhale together. That is the moment I teach for. That is the moment I live for.
I did not always have the words for this. During my final semester in grad school, I made what seemed like a small decision: I dropped my formal drum lessons and asked to study world percussion with Professor Michael Lipsey. I learned frame drumming, tala cycles, gamelan, and classical snare. No one told me it would change my life, but it did. That switch reframed everything I believed about time, structure, and musical authority. It cracked open the door to a whole other way of knowing music, and I have never closed it since.¹
Now, I teach rhythm section players, composers, classical soloists, and ensemble musicians. I pull them out of their comfort zones and into conversations with each other, and with the music. I watch their eyes light up when they realise the rhythm is not off; they just have not been counting in 7. A moment when they realize a swell doesn’t need to be written, just felt. Another: when they finally hear a bassline not as background, but as the backbone of the song.
This is what I mean when I talk about decolonising music pedagogy. Not just swapping Western canon for “world music week.” Instead, taking off the Western lens that tells us which methods matter, which voices count, and which rhythms are “correct.”² It is teaching students to listen beyond notation. To create with intention, not just replication.³ To realise that feel and thought are not separate, they are fused in every beat, bend, silence, and swell.
My students are not just taught to sound good. They are taught to make musical decisions on purpose. If they reharmonise a phrase, they should be able to explain why. If they play behind the beat, it better be a choice, not autopilot. Furthermore, if they abandon the rules, they should know what they are choosing to break.
Some of this came from my hunger for something more. However, the turning point, the firestarter, was that semester of world percussion. I have written about it since.⁴ I have embedded it into curriculum design. I have coached ensembles on it. Moreover, I hope to one day travel the world teaching rhythm section fluency workshops, coaching hybrid groups, and reminding people that while music theory matters, theory without feel is just noise.
References
1. Seow, E. (2025). Integrating World Percussion into Graduate Jazz Training: A Practitioner Reflection. CUNY Academic Works. 2. Allsup, R. E., & Shieh, E. (2012). Social justice and music education: The call for a public pedagogy. 3. Hess, J. (2015). Decolonizing music education: Moving beyond tokenism. 4. Seow, E. (2024). Teaching Aural Skills in Undergraduate Music Using World Music Concepts: A Narrative Inquiry.