Music education: through the pages of history

Music education: through the pages of history

Throughout a person’s life music is played. Starting with a simple mother's lullaby, which we hear in the first days of our life, ending with music at concerts, television, radio ... This list is endless. Today, music plays a significant role in raising children. It is she who, like no other art, is able to give a child an understanding of beauty, sophistication, to develop his sensuality and creative abilities. Has it always been like this? To answer this question, let's look back into the centuries and turn to the three most distant eras of world culture.

Music and education in antiquity

Since time immemorial, special attention has been paid to the issues of musical and aesthetic education. An exceptional role in this area belongs to ancient Greece. It was there that music was considered the most important means of public education, and therefore it was assigned almost a fundamental role in the development of a true citizen of the state. The ancient Greeks considered it necessary to give each child an intellectual, physical and musical education. The educational system of this country implied compulsory education for boys, beginning at the age of seven, in a special “kypharist” school, where they studied singing and mastered playing various musical instruments. But the musical development of girls less attention: it, as a rule, took place in the walls of his home and sometimes limited to singing.

It is rather curious that the ancient Greeks considered people who could not sing in a choir, uneducated. The importance of this skill was explained by its almost state significance: singing in the choir was considered a sacred duty. All residents of the country up to 30 years old were required to learn vocal skills and playing musical instruments.

The pedagogy of that time considered music to be the main “lever” of influence on the moral behavior of a person. For example, Plato saw musical art as the main state education system. That is why he proposed to share music on acceptable for the upbringing of the younger generation, and, accordingly, unacceptable.

Musical education in the Middle Ages

The Middle Ages offered their view on music, which was henceforth determined by the tenets of Christianity. In the hierarchy of spiritual and aesthetic values, she moved to the last place and began to play the role of an auxiliary tool for the assimilation of religious truths. At this time, music was considered as one of the areas of mathematical knowledge, along with arithmetic and geometry.

The period from V to X century is called the "dark ages." And all because the collapse of antiquity provoked a sharp decline in culture and inhibition in the development of education. However, this did not affect musical education, on the contrary, during this period it made a big step in its development. This was due to the fact that the study of music was included in the list of disciplines necessary for theological education. Under the bishops, departments were formed, which later became the basis for universities and centers for the study of music.

Among the forms of music education, naturally, singing prevailed. They taught this skill at churches and monasteries. In schools, only boys could learn, who by all means had to master the reading of prayers in Latin and church singing, in the second place were writing skills. Most of the children of that time did not receive education in schools, but were raised by their parents in domestic work. The only exceptions were the daughters of the feudal lords, who studied both in nunneries and at home.

Learning music in the Renaissance

The musical pedagogy of the Renaissance sought to educate a new person, a musician of a different type, meeting all the requirements of her time: to be strong-willed and perfect spiritually and physically. From a young age, children were taught choral singing, playing several musical instruments, musical theory and composing skills. The musician of that time had to be universal in his field, and, if necessary, switch from one type of activity to another. The main innovation of the era was the joint training of boys and girls.

Leading figures of the era attributed great importance to music, considering it higher than other arts and sciences. This contributed to the wide dissemination of educational institutions: schools of musical skill and academies. They appeared mainly in large cities. Music sought to make publicly available through her to call for good and justice.

The significance of the Renaissance in the development of music education is difficult to overestimate. Unlike the Middle Ages, which relied in pedagogy on the firmness of traditions and ecclesiastical authority, the Renaissance opened up new paths for its development, turning its gaze to the child himself, his abilities and capabilities. And there are still several centuries of the New time, several hundreds of years of new discoveries, achievements and flourishing of human thought, in which music and its educational functions are not the least important.