Develope Children Artistic

7/28/2019 Develope Children Artistic

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Title:DevelopingChildrensArtisticThinkingWithImagesin

MusicLessons

Author(s):L.GoryunovaandL.Shkolar

Source:Goryunova,L.,&Shkolar,L.(1993,Fall).Developingchildrensartisticthinkingwithimagesinmusiclessons.The

Quarterly,4(3),pp.30-32.(ReprintedwithpermissioninVisionsofResearchinMusicEducation,16(4),Autumn,2010).Retrievedfrom

http://www-usr.rider.edu/~vrme/

It is with pleasure that we inaugurate the reprint of the entire seven volumes of The

Quarterly Journal of Music Teaching and Learning. The journal began in 1990 as The

Quarterly. In1992,withvolume3,thenamechangedto TheQuarterlyJournalofMusic

TeachingandLearningandcontinueduntil1997.Thejournalcontainedarticlesonissues

thatweretimelywhentheyappearedandarenowimportantfortheirhistoricalrelevance.

For many authors, it was their first major publication. Visions of Research in Music

Educationwillpublishfacsimilesofeachissueasitoriginallyappeared.Eacharticlewillbe

aseparatepdffile.JasonD.Vodickahasacceptedmyinvitationtoserveasguesteditorfor

the reprint project and will compose a new editorial to introduce each volume. Chad

Keilmanistheproductionmanager.IexpressdeepestthankstoRichardColwellforgranting

VRMEpermissiontore-publishTheQuarterlyinonlineformat.Hehasgraciouslyprepared

anintroductiontothereprintseries.


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Developing Children'sArtistic Thinking With

Ifll.agesIn Music LessonsBy L. GoryunovaRussian Ministry ofEducationL. Shkolar

Russian Academy ofPedagogical Science

Msicessons in the general educationschools of our COUntlYare compul-sory for all students from the firstthrough the eighth grade Cages6 to 14).School children have one or two music les-sons aweek. Typically, the lessons consistof group musical activities such as singing orlearning to play instruments. Also includedare activities to encourage children's self-ex-pression, such as thinking about music andreflecting music inmovement. This systemof general music education is based onKabalevsky's concepts of music pedagogy.The music lesson must be consistent with

the principal goal of education: to promotethe child's discovery of lifeand an under-standing of his or her own position in theworld. That is, the music lesson should moldthe moral "kernel" of the student. In contrastto anarrow view of music behavior, we aremore interested in the child as an individualpersonality searching for and acquiring themeaning of life, striving for beauty, good, andtruth-all that elevates human beings.Therefore, musical activity should not be-

come an end in itself; instead, the content ofart should become the child's content."Spiritual work" must pervade the innermostL. Goryunoua is the head of tbe Laboratory of

Music Education at tbe Research Institute ofGeneral Education of the Russian Ministry ofEducation, Moscow. L. Sbleolyar is the head ofthe Laboratory of Music at tbe Research Insti-tute ofArtistic Education, Russian Academy ofPedagogical Science, Moscow.

part of the child's thoughts and feelings.This is the only way for the teacher and thestudent to derive personal meaning fromartstudies; thus art becomes fertile soil for one'sspiritual growth and for one's search for thebest possible ways to develop self-expression.The changes brought about by the new

school music syllabus inRussia have chal-lenged our foundations of music education.The following are brief statements of earliertheoretical principles used inmusic class-rooms, with comparisons to Kabalevsky'smain ideas:

Music education has moved from an areaof separate instruction to emphasizing edu-cation more broadly ("educating a humanbeing, not amusician");

Music, rather than only an instructionalmatter, has become asource and subjectof spiritual intercourse;

Music listening has been made broaderand deeper so that students' music per-ception becomes the basis of all musicalactivities. The process of perception ismore clearly understood as the spiritualmastering of works of art in relationshipwith spiritual values;

The priority of students' accomplishingnarrow, specific tasks connected with lis-tening, Sight-reading, and choral singinghas been replaced with attention to theelements of personal development, cultiva-tion of the interest in life through interestin music, and formng creative artisticthinking inmusic and about music withmusic images;

Music teaching at school, once defined asdeveloping students' knowledge, habits,

30 The Quarterly journal of Music Teaching and Learning


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and skills, is increasingly seen now as alively and complex artistic process of jointteacher-and-pupil activities aimed at one'scognition of the world and oneself:

Music educators who once chose class-room topics rather randomy and withoutconsidering the deeper nature of musicnow have access to a system of interre-lated musical and aesthetic topics that arearranged by complexity and reflect the na-ture of music and the nature of the child:

general didactic principles formerly appliedto the artistic pedagogic process are nowreplaced by the prin-ciples of aspecific peda-gogy of art informed bythe nature of music as asystem of sound imagesand itsassociation withlife and the other arts.

Kabalevsky's concept ofmusiceducation remainsfreshin the pedagogy of the artsand in pedagogy in general.Elaborated in the 1970s, thisconcept emphasizes thepres-ervation and cultivation ofspiritual culture and the recognition of theimportance of human values. The new teach-ing and learning processes stimulated byKabalevsky's ideas are being used not only inthe study of the arts but in other segments ofsocial lifeas well.How are these ideals revealed in actual

practice in school-music programs throughoutthe former Soviet Union? One example is amusic syllabus for 6-year-old students. Itsaimistogivethe children rich experiences incolor,sound, words, and movement by creating con-ditions for children to perceive music in anatural way, through images of themusical art,and this curriculum lays the foundation forperceiving image content ofmusic in theuppergrades. The syllabus is significant because therepertory ofthemusic lessons includes genuinefolk music as the natural expression of art,sacred orchurch music asan important branchof Russian culture, and ancient and contempo-rarymusic by Soviet and foreign composers isincluded. Games, dramatizations, and improvi-sations abound in the lessons. Some specialmethods, derived from pedagogues such asOrff, Kodaly, Jaques-Dalcroze, Vanhoven, andSuzuki are used too.

Developing students' artistic thinking withimages in music is accomplished by using asystem of questions and assignments thathelp the teacher bring the content of music,music images, to the students. The dialogueformencourages students to express theirinterpretations of musical compositions. Aquestion may be raised comparing musicalcompositions or comparing musical workswith works in other art forms. The questionshould draw the child's attention not to sepa-rate means of expressiveness (loudly, softly,

slowly, quickly) but to thechild's own inner world offeelings, thoughts, reac-tions, and impressions thatmusic evokes in the heart.Here are examples of pos-sible questions: Do you remember the

way this music impressedyou at our last session?What do you think to

be more important in thissong-music or lyrics? \'{!hatismore important in a human be-

ing-the mnd or the heart?What did you feel when you were listen-

ing to this piece of music?Where could this music be played in

your life, and with whom would you like tolisten to it?What do you think were the composers'

emotions when the music was composed?What feelings did the composer wish to con-vey to us?What events of your lifecould be linked

with this music?It is important that teachers not only ask

questions of children, but that they hearchildren's original and unique answers, forthere is nothing richer in content thanchildren's utterances. Although children'sanswers may be contradictory or incompletesometimes, they aremarked with individuality,with apersonal attitude. This iswhat shouldbe heard and appreciated by teachers.Another teaching technique used to orga-

nize musical activity is a "polyphonic pro-cess." All the students in the classroomcould react to the same music image simulta-neously, each one proceeding from an indi-

Theprocess ofperception ismoreclearly

understood asthespiritualmasteringof vvorks of art...

Volume IV, Number 3 31


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Weaimatencouraging multiple pictures ofmusic perception inwhich each student has an individual and inimtable "voice" thatadds something unique and original to the experience of music.vidual vision and emotional response to thesound of the music. Music evokes amovingresponse in children, which some can ex-press with rhythmc movements of hands orbody. Another child mght express under-standing of music images with drawings em-phasizing color or line. The third one beginsto accompany the music by improvising onan instrument. Yet another child "does noth-ing" and simply listens to music most atten-tively. Actually, this mght be the most seri-ous creative activity of all.The wise teacher's task isnot to give an

appraisal of who is "better" and who is"worse," but to display the ability to preservethe diversity of creative manifestations and toencourage such diversity. The desired resultof the music lesson is not for each child tofeel, hear, or perform music identically. Weaimat encouraging multiple pictures of mu-sic perception inwhich each student has anindividual and inimtable "voice" that addssomething unique and original to the experi-ence of music.These strategies aim to cultivate students'

artistic thinking with images, their aptitudetoward aesthetic contemplation and observa-tion, and their ability to view phenomenaand processes of the surrounding world inindividual ways. All this helps students tofeel their own spiritual lives more deeply.Another important stage is the elaboration

of anew didactic that can be called the artis-tic didactic. It differs from the didactic usedin teaching natural and exact sciences be-cause it is based on the regularities of thearts. The new didactic has been influencedby B.Asafiev's theory of intonation in music;the original pedagogical legacy of agroup ofoutstanding music educators that includedNeuhaus, Igumnov, Fienberg, Oistrach, andYampolsky; by K. Stanislavsky's theory ofeducating and training actors; and by thenew concept of teaching arts in school ascreated by Kabalevsky and B. emensky, apromnent Soviet painter. The elaboration ofan integrated artistic didactic theory appears

to be a task of the future. At present, Rus-sian music educators can formulate basicprinciples that determne the goals, tasks,content, and methods of the pedagogicalprocess in arts instruction.Our view of artistic didactics isbased on

the belief that the study of all the arts incor-porate uniform standards and methods ofteaching. Weare primarily interested not somuch in the differences among literature,music, fine arts, dance, and so on as in theirdeep affinitywith the whole spiritual culture.The art of music, despite its unique specific-ity, cannot therefore be fruitfully masteredwithout knowledge of other arts, because itisthrough the unity of the arts that one recog-nizes the corresponding integrity and unity ofthe world, with itsdiversity of sounds, colors,and movements, and thus comprehends theconcept of universal character and regularitiesof artistic expression and development.Integrity of approach, association of ideas

proceeding frommusic images and intona-tion, and improvising music-these are thepedagogical ideas that can shape the processof giving students access to music. Musiceducation based on these principles favorsthe development of the student's basic capa-bility to think in artistic images. This ispar-ticularly important for very young students,who are generally predisposed to learn aboutthe world through various images.The best way to understand any phenom-

enon or process is to follow its logical, natu-ral development. Thus amusic educationcurriculum that fosters students' musical andspiritual development while relying on teach-ing methods that stem from the very natureof music isvery promsing. ~

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