AN OUTLINE OF A TEACHING AID FOR SLOVAK MUSIC PEDAGOGY
AN OUTLINE OF A TEACHING AID FOR SLOVAK MUSIC PEDAGOGY

Summary/Abstract: A mission of current as well as future generations of pedagogues is to search for a balance between supranational politico-economic interests and the presentation of nationalhistoric-artistic roots. Despite the many efforts by humanists, it is still true that historic memory and veneration of national values is not a strong aspect of Slovak society. Lifelong education through art could bring a shift in the quality of appreciating cultural accomplishments. Artists and their most significant masterpieces are examples which attract attention abroad as well as at home. In contemporary music education, such development in the dissemination of information which uses new technologies as well as playful and undemanding methods enriches the teaching process with a range of teaching aids and applies an individual approach to each student in the class is expected. An example for opening such a dialogue between a teacher and a student which would allow entrance into the operatic“world” of national schools are the works of such significant personalities as B. Smetana, S. Moniuszko, F. Erkel, E. Suchoň and others. National awakening, relating to traditions, the choice of literary bases, music script, or the composer’s synthetism of these central- European music personalities, are a source of continuous analyses, discussion topics, and educational activities. Opera as an exclusive form for the exacting, so-called gesamtkunstwerk,is, in the pedagogical process, a highly demonstrative form and it is necessary to treat it didactically in such a way so that it is intelligible for younger generations, musically or otherwise gifted. The contribution presents the possibility of introducing the opera “Katrena” – a piece from the period of Slovak musical modernism - with elements of verism, Brechtian and Janáček-esque theatre – swayed by political regulations into the primary school classroom. The teaching aid – a music presentation – comprises a chronologically organized audiovisual overview of the opera. It includes a workbook by means of which teachers obtains feedback about the creativity and knowledge of their students. In this way, the audio information is transferred and intensified by other sensory information, which might bring a memory trace of higher quality. The main objective of this study is to indicate how to involve a Slovak opera – or its audiovisual recording – in teaching music at our schools.The process of involving the matter is taking place within the framework of pedagogical interpretation of a specific opera work. The efforts of the author of the study have resulted in completing a DVD containing the crucial extracts of the opera and a workbook – both representing an interlinked teaching aid for the purposes in question.

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