Indigenous Soundscape, a component of the acoustic environment ranging from urban design to wildlife ecology, plays an important role in creating music in Southeast Asia. Acoustic Environment, a combination of all the acoustic resources within a given area ranging from natural to human-caused sounds as modified by the environment, provides the basis for creating or re-creating presentational or re-presentational musical forms for music education in pre-colonial to post-colonial Southeast Asia. The three main elements of the soundscape i.e. biophony (collective habitat expression); geophony (sounds of natural elements) and anthropophony (environmental sounds created by humans) gave distinct variants to Southeast Asian music curricula patronized by temples, palaces and music schools. Music education in Southeast Asia, particular Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, and Indonesia have used these tracks in creating music through music education. Perhaps Malaysia could take a leaf from such experience.

Bio:
Professor Dr. Mohd Anis Md Nor, Managing Director of Nusantara Performing Arts Research Centre in Kuala Lumpur, is a retired Professor of Ethnochoreology and Ethnomusicology at the Cultural Centre (School of Performing Arts), University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Music and Performing Arts, Sultan Idris Education University in Tanjung Malim, Perak. He is the Secretary General of World Dance Alliance (WDA Americas, WDA Asia Pacific and WDA Europe) and Chair of the ICTM Study Group on Performing Arts of Southeast Asia (International Council for Traditional Music – PASEA). He was the 2007-2008 William Allan Neilson Distinguish Professor of Music, Dance and Theatre at Smith College, Northampton, Mass. USA; Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan in 2011; and a European Union Erasmus Mundus Fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology at Trondheim, Norway, for the 2012-2013 Winter Semester.