ISSN: 1550-7521

All submissions of the EM system will be redirected to Online Manuscript Submission System. Authors are requested to submit articles directly to Online Manuscript Submission System of respective journal.

Shaping of a Musical Culture of Youth in a Small Town

Yavgildina ZM1*, Murtazina GR2, Salikhova LI3, Dyganova EA3 and Kamalova IF3

1Department of Musical Art and Choreography, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication named after L. N. Tolstoy, Kazan (Volga region) Federal University, Russian Federation

2Department of Socio-Cultural Activities in Kazan State Institute of Culture; Orenburg tract, 3, Kazan 420059, Russian Federation

3Institute of Philology and Intercultural Communication named after L. N. Tolstoy, Kazan (Volga region) Federal University, Russian Federation

*Corresponding Author:
Ziliya M. Yavgildina
Head of Department of musical art and choreography
Doctor of pedagogical sciences Professor
Institute of philology and intercultural communication named after L. N. Tolstoy
Kazan (Volga region) Federal University, Kremlevskaya St
18, Kazan 420008, Russian Federation
Tel: (843) 233-71-09
E-mail: zilia.javgi@gmail.com

Received: Feb 25, 2016 Accepted: Feb 29, 2016 Published: Mar 05, 2016

Copyright: © 2016 Yavgildina ZM, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Visit for more related articles at Global Media Journal

Abstract

The article considers the shaping of a musical culture of youth in a small town of the Republic of Tatarstan, as one of the leading Russian regions. The authors offer insight substantial characteristic of a musical culture concept, identify the major trends in the development of folk instrumental creativity and define features of the sociocultural space of a small town. The main trends of folk instrumental creativity, such as listening, performing, conducting, improvisation and composition, education, as well as musicological, pedagogical, methodical, productive, publishing, and managerial trends, proposed and justified in the article, made it possible to reveal its pedagogical potential in the shaping of a listening culture associated with the comprehension of intonation and visual thinking, genre, and stylistic properties of folk music; introduction to folk instrumental traditions, expanding musical horizons, an accumulation of musical and auditory experiences, the development of creative and organizational skills, teaching tolerance, and the improvement in performance skills. The authors propose original model as the mechanism of a musical culture shaping in youth in terms of cultural and leisure institutions, which serves a pedagogical system, representing unity of goals, objectives, principles, contents, methods and tools. The results of experimental approbation of the proposed model under conditions of cultural and leisure institutions of a small town in the Republic of Tatarstan prove the effectiveness of the conducted research.

Keywords

Musical culture; Small town; Folk instrumental creativity; Cultural and leisure activities; Sociocultural environment, Youth

Introduction

The problem of shaping of a musical culture in young people is particularly acute in a small town. A small town is a socioterritorial entity in which the main town-forming factors are industry, science, education, culture, and leisure. Here the interests of society, labor groups, institutions, organizations, as well as interests of a person as a resident, are intertwined the most closely. Socio-cultural environment of a small town has a rich potential of historical and cultural heritage, traditional appearance, spirituality, compactness, social integrity, semirural lifestyle, socio-cultural commonality, and polyethnicity of the population.

However, the leisure activities of young people in a contemporary small town, subjected to the peculiarities of the politics, economy, ideology, education and culture, has become a special way of life, a source of pleasure, enjoyable and mindless pastime, filling in spare time by a variety of exquisite impressions. Experience has proven that at a relatively low cultural level the leisure not only does not contribute to health recovery, is not conductive to flourishing of creative abilities, but rather turns into a criminogenic factor of society.

There is no doubt that the leisure and cultural activity of today's youth in a small town requires a systematic organization and should be carried out in the cultural and leisure institutions, acting as centers of culture, organizing free time of the local population, the youth, and the younger generation.

One way of solving the above problems is the active involvement of young people to the art of music based on folk art. Great developmental potential is concentrated in the folk instrumental creativity, which, in our opinion, can largely contribute to the high level of development of artistic culture, moral values, and creative potential of young people.

The problem of exposure of a person to the world of culture and art was in the focus of various sciences. Among them we should note researchers in the fields of philosophy, cultural studies, psychology, and pedagogy. Knowledge of the certain peculiarities and phenomena of musical culture is reflected in various studies of domestic authors [1-8].

Issues on formation of personality are presented in the works of leading scholars and educators, who offer to carry out the education of young people by various means, in particular, by means of musical art [9,10] in cultural and leisure institutions [11-14].

The study of the Tatar musical art in the framework of formation of the Tatar culture and education were conducted by regional researchers [15,16]. A small town phenomenon is considered by scientists from different perspectives and scientific approaches [17-19].

The analysis of scientific literature, the study of experience in the field of musical creativity and the socio-cultural sphere, as well as pedagogical activity of the authors of present study showed that the shaping of a musical culture of youth based on folk instrumental creativity in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town has been studied insufficiently that demonstrates the relevance of studying concerned issue.

Research Methodology

In this study the authors used various research methods:

Theoretical methods

The study and analysis of psychological and pedagogical, philosophical, and musicological literature related to the issues of research, synthesis, analogy, abstraction and specification; modeling; analysis of program documentation for the training of specialists in social and cultural activities; summarizing the experience of specialists of cultural and leisure activities, etc.

Empirical methods

Direct and indirect observation of the activities of amateur folk and instrumental groups in cultural and leisure institutions of the Republic of Tatarstan; questionnaires; interviewing, testing, ranking; prospecting-summative and formative sociopedagogical experiment.

The basic part

The problem of shaping of a musical culture in youth which gave us an impetus to conduct present study is caused by the ongoing processes of socio-political and socio-economic transformations at the current stage, which has undoubtedly influenced the minds of young people. On the one hand, the present changes wracked the education system, established over the years, modifying the principles, attitudes, and values of the younger generation. On the other hand, socio-cultural processes of the XXI century are distinguished by manifestation of progressive tendencies, significantly expanding the range of creative activity of young people.

In our opinion, the musical culture is a tool that will allow youth to step up and realize their spiritual and moral potential and creative capabilities. At all times appeal to the folklife culture, striving for its revival, preservation, and development has contributed to the moral, aesthetic and artistic education of a human, to unfold his creative abilities and needs, and to enrich his emotional and spiritual potential.

The first task of the current study is related to the theoretical rationale and expansion of the essential and substantial characteristics of the key concepts of this work, namely a musical culture. The development of conceptual and categorical framework forced us to analyze the associated concept of "culture".

A cultural phenomenon is the research subject of many sciences; there are dozens of theoretical concepts of culture models, as well as scientific approaches. These include:

- Anthropological concepts, arising from the fact that culture is the combination of the human activity products and the world of things confronting nature;

- Historical concepts, emphasizing that culture is a product of the history of society, and develops through the transfer of acquired experience from generation to generation;

- Aesthetic concepts, used to indicate the achievements of a human in the field of material and spiritual culture;

- Cultural concepts, studying society and a human in their "cultural" existence, their relationships within the cultural framework, their emergence, development and future change;

- Sociological concepts, which consider culture as a factor of social life organization, as a set of ideas, principles, social institutions providing collective activities of people;

- Psychological concepts, indicating the relationship of culture with the psychology of human behavior and revealing the socially constructed features of the human psyche, different types of the person’s basic desires and tendencies, attitude of personality to himself, people, animate and inanimate nature, and the world in general.

To define the key concept of the present study, i.e. “musical culture”, we have considered the definitions of “folk culture”, “ethnic culture”, “regional culture”, “musical culture of the region and area”, and “national musical culture” that helped us to concretize and clarify the concept of a “musical culture”, as well as to define it as a set of spiritual values in the field of music in their diverse manifestations, whose implementation is ensured by the specially organized musical activity of the individual.

We felt it necessary to include the following constituent elements to the structure of a musical culture: 1) knowledge in the field of a musical culture; 2) skills and experiences of playing folk musical instruments; 3) the interest in folk music; 4) horizons in the field of a musical culture; 5) musical taste that determines the level of musical preferences and the ability to perceive music emotionally and to appreciate it.

Given that a musical culture is formed through a musical activity, in our study we considered a musical activity as a way of understanding musical art, as well as the defining component, prerequisite, condition, form, and an indicator of a person’s musical culture level. A comprehensive study of a musical activity has allowed us to highlight one of its varietiesfolk instrumental creativity, which in our study is an effective means to shape a musical culture of the youth. Main trends of the national instrumental creativity, proposed and justified in the current study, such as listening, performing, conducting, improvisation and composition, education, as well as musicological, pedagogical, methodical, productive, publishing, and managerial trends, proposed and justified in the article, made it possible to reveal its pedagogical potential, namely: the shaping of a listening culture associated with the comprehension of intonation and visual thinking, genre, stylistic properties of folk music; the development of interest in folk music, introducing folk instrumental traditions, expanding musical horizons, ensuring the accumulation of musical and auditory experiences, the development of creative and organizational skills, teaching tolerance, the improvement of performance skills, etc [20].

In our study we have identified the major development trends and problems in folk instrumental creativity in small towns of the Republic of Tatarstan. They include enhancement of artistic performance when playing folk instruments; revitalization of cultural and educational activities of leading folk and instrumental groups in small towns of the Republic of Tatarstan; creation of training orchestras in educational institutions; the enrichment of the repertoire of orchestras and folk instrumental ensembles by the best samples of Tatar and Russian pieces of music; organization of training courses for instrumental group leaders; holding of conferences, round tables, and workshops on folk and instrumental performance issues; improving performance skills of amateur art groups and musical associations; lack of specialists and folk instrumental group leaders; poor logistical support; and lack of interest to folk instrumental creativity among young people.

Our study, aiming at shaping a musical culture in youth through folk instrumental creativity, is limited to a small town. We have determined the features of socio-cultural space of a small town of the Republic of Tatarstan, which include: the inextricable link between cultural and natural spaces; semirural way of life; the desire to bring lifestyle to the standards of big cities; the selectivity in communication, behavior, relationships with residents; polyethnicity of the population; demographic crisis; the dependence of the inhabitants’ welfare on the local production development; migration of youth to the capital cities and administrative centers; low education level of school graduates; small variety of options in various areas for professional choice of graduate students; socio-cultural similarity and restriction of the processes taking place in the cultural space; the growing importance of domestic forms of cultural perception, such as the Internet and audiovisual media; low level of youth’s aesthetic culture; limited opportunities for leisure activities of young people; increase in a number of initiative amateur groups in artistic, scientific, technical, application, and sports spheres.

In order to determine favorable conditions for the shaping of a musical culture in young people, the authors considered in detail their psychological, educational and age peculiarities, as well as value orientation. In particular, social science defines youth as being in the stage of socialization, i.e., being included in the process of acquiring a certain system of knowledge, norms, and values that allow them to function as full-fledged members of one or another society.

In turn, psychologists believe that the behavior of young people is conditioned by their impressionability, psychological alertness and excitability, visual, auditory and intellectual receptivity, the predominance of emotions over reason, puberty processes, worldview development, systematization of value orientations, the development of political, moral and aesthetic views, choice of career path, searching for friends and life partner, training of independent behavior and communication skills, and the perception of their own very self.

The results of the survey conducted among the youth of small towns of the Republic of Tatarstan (Agryz, Aznakaevo, Arsk, Bavly, Buinsk, Jalil, Zainsk, Mamadysh, and Mendeleevsk) allowed stating a fairly low level of their aesthetic and musical culture that necessitated the organization of a comprehensive work on improving this situation.

To organize and manage the above process, we have designed the model on the shaping of a musical culture of young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town, representing unity of the following structural components: target, environmental, subjective, methodological, informative, active, diagnostic and effective components [20,21].

Consider further each of the structural components of the proposed model in detail.

Systemically important element providing the model development is a goal that organizes around a complex educational system, is reflective of the state order, and unites the whole process of a musical culture shaping in young people.

The general goal of leisure and cultural activities is deemed to be the enhancement of the general culture of the people, while particular objective is inoculation of professional, moral, aesthetic, physical, legal, psychological, environmental, and other cultures. The targets of the social program of the community provide for a promising formation, development and change of human needs [12].

In our model, the main goal consists in the development of young people’s needs to deal with a musical culture.

Here the main objectives

Educational objectives: educating young people in terms of love, respect, and interest to the art of music, folk traditions, patriotism, pride in the culture of their own ethnicity, and the tolerance for diversity of other ethnic cultures;

Learning objectives: the development of a common, creative and musical abilities of youth; musical horizons, taste, thinking, imagination and perception; a common sensory culture; emotional sphere; skills of playing various musical instruments;

Informative objectives: the development of a musical culture in the context of studying musical folklore and professional instrumental music; familiarity with folk music performers, researchers of the musical heritage of the ethnic groups living in Volga region;

Organizational objectives: implementation of a model of shaping musical culture in young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town, as well as implementation of the creative potential of young people by their attraction to the socio-cultural activity; creation of conditions for joint creativity of young people with different social institutions in a small town (educational institutions; arts institutions; cultural and recreational institutions; sports and health institutions; mass media; and family); identification of artistically gifted adolescents, and promoting the most talented youth further towards professional self-determination and creative selfactualization;

Informational objectives: Advocacy of a musical culture among young people through the folk instrumental creativity.

The organization of musical and educational process and development of youth is significantly influenced by the environment. The selected socio-cultural environment of a small town is a set of subjects and objects of social cultural activity involved in the shaping of a musical culture of youth and involving immersion into a musical environment, which includes educational, creative and awareness-building forms of cultural and leisure activities.

The educational process is a way of streamlining the activities of two subjects- organizing subject, i.e. leader, and participating subject. The leader is a subject of pedagogical activity, while participant is a subject of learning activity.

We have identified young people aged 14 to 30 years to participate in the test, and the leader of the folk-instrumental band having a higher musical education with special conceptual and technological training in the field of musical art, including the awareness of the musical folklore and professional creative work of composers of the Volga region; proficient in theory, history, and methodology of music education and performance; playing musical instruments, etc.

Necessary condition for the successful design of a model to form a musical culture in young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town is the knowledge and comprehensive understanding of the principles of sociocultural activity.

The principles of socio-cultural activity are general provisions, which reflect objectively existing, internally driven, relevant and sustainable relationships and relations, which are formed during creation, development, preservation and dissemination of cultural values, and predetermining its orientation, nature, content and forms.

The spiritual life of today’s Russian society integrates a number of principles, such as principle of voluntariness and accessibility of socio-cultural activity, the principle of inspiration the initiative and self-activity; the principle of comprehensive utilization of culture-creating potential of nature and society; the principle of differentiation of ideological and emotional impact on different population groups; the principle of continuity and consistency of involvement of the individual into culture world; the principle of inter-influence and synergistic effect from the implementation of the adaptive-regulatory, educational and developmental, transformative and creative, environmentalprotective, informative and educative, integrative, communicative and recreative-playing functions; the principle of unity of informational-logical and emotional-imaginative effects on the minds, feelings and behavior of people; and the principle of aestheticization of social life [11].

The most important principles of leisure and cultural activity, according to A. D. Zharkov, are its inextricable connection with life, practical tasks to reform our society; a differentiated approach; reliance on the initiative of the people; the principle of individualization; the principle of accessibility; the principle of sequence; and the principle of systemic approach. He considers the principle of interest; unity of recreation (rest and health repair) and cognition, and joint cooperation as general provisions of the leisure pedagogy [12].

All the considered principles that define certain aspects of the pedagogical process in the field of leisure are interrelated and determine together the technological process. When developing the model we were guided by the following principles:

• Taking into account regional and national peculiarities of the place of residence;

• Developing the interest among young people in a musical culture;

• Active approach in the shaping of a musical culture in young people;

• Voluntariness and accessibility of musical and instrumental activities;

• Targeting folk instrumental art towards extension of a person’s creative potential;

• Taking into account age and individual peculiarities of personality in the course of folk instrumental creativity;

Clarity in the implementation of regional musical culture using forms of fine arts (works of decorative art, costumes, and musical instruments) and non-representational art forms (musical folklore of the Volga region ethnic groups; the musical heritage of composers; video and audio recording of fasts, rituals, performers, concerts, and master-classes).

The optimal implementation of the music educational process depends on how well the music and educational activity content are selected. One should especially carefully consider the content, forms and activity methods among young people, bearing in mind that more than half of the adult population are young people.

The content and the form are two philosophical categories, which are in close relationship. The content, being a defining aspect of a whole, represents the unity of all the constituent elements of an object, its properties, internal processes, relations, contradictions and trends, while the form is a way of existence and expression of the content. In the relationship between form and content, the content is a moving, dynamic aspect of the whole, whereas the form includes a system of sustainable connections of an object. The content determines the form, while the form depends on the content and affects the content. The form is an appearance, in which the content exists.

We have identified the following constituent elements in the content of the model on the shaping of a musical culture of young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town:

Experience of emotional-value attitude of youth to the musical art of the ethnic groups living in Volga region and Russia, which are manifested through youth's preferences, interests, and tastes in the field of both music and certain kinds of musical activity;

Musical knowledge about the culture of the ethnic groups of Tatarstan and the Volga region are divided into two groups: knowledge of music and knowledge about music, presented by instrumental, vocal and vocal-instrumental music performed by outstanding musicians;

Musical skills and experiences of playing musical instruments, which rely on knowledge about music and are classified depending on generalized skills (perceiving musical tone, identifying the main genres and styles, evaluating the results of own musical activity and the activities of friends, etc.); skills, inherent to a particular type of musical activity; skills, associated with identifying common and peculiar features between music and other arts; the ability to select the music, consonant with the individual, and ability to control own psychological status;

Experience of musical creative activity of young people in the sphere of folk instrumental creativity, which is acquired in various kinds of musical and instrumental activities (in the course of listening to music, instrumental performance, folk music improvisations and compositions on folk melodies, linking music with other arts, history, and life).

Forms of socio-cultural activities represent established system of using certain means and methods to engage people into the process of creation, development, preservation and dissemination of cultural values, into various types of social, scientific, technical and artistic creativity.

Considering the fact that the musical taste is formed through the musical activity at perception, performance, assessment of music, etc., that it is not innate, but is acquired with experience, we have carried out purposeful work with young people to expand their musical preferences in the field of a musical culture. It consisted in conduction of non-standard classes, extracurricular forms of training with young people of different ethnicities, living in urban and rural environments. It should be noted that non-conventional forms of lessons always give pupils an awareness of the joy of musical creativity, form a sense of belonging to the world of beauty, the ability of enjoying the moral and aesthetic content, which is put by the composer or by the folks into a piece of music. However, it is intelligible to youngsters providing they are wellshaped in terms of ethno-musical taste. One can define the degree of this shape by person’s preferences in certain kinds of folk music and the depth to which they perceive this music.

In practice, there are episodic forms (lectures, excursions, parties, festivals, concerts, fasts, etc.) and stable forms (clubs, groups, initiative groups, amateur art collectives, etc.) of sociocultural activities.

The forms represented in the model are divided into the following groups.

1) Educational forms: lesson, rehearsal, presentation, musical meeting, excursion, quiz, folk music performance, ceremony, presentation, video-theater, etc.; open classes, creative workshops, master classes, etc.;

2) Creative forms: participation in fests, rituals, folk festivals, exhibition of decorative arts, theatrical plays, theme nights, entertainment programs, socio-cultural projects, concerts, contests and festivals of artistic creativity, the mass events, processions, costume carnivals of the national fairy tale characters, entertaining programs for children and youth, thematic discos, literary and musical evenings, rest evening parties, and show programs;

3) Educational forms: participation in charity events, exhibitions and fairs, visiting major cities for folk music concerts, philharmonic subscription concerts, exhibitions of decorative art, visiting museum of local lore, history and economy; organization of musical-educational lectures, theme nights, meetings with war veterans and labor; organizing literary-musical compositions; conducting PR-actions, promoting volunteer movement; educational talks, lectures aimed at the prevention of drug addiction, AIDS, and juvenile crime;

4) Research forms: the implementation of regional exploratory research (conducting folkloristic and ethnographical expeditions with interpretation of the collected materials); the creation of a database, recordings, video and photo libraries, collecting town’s archival materials, contemporary distributed cultural information foundations, and youth participation in multi-media projects.

The next component that ensures the integrity of the pedagogical model is operational-activity element, which includes certain methods and tools.

In the model on shaping a musical culture of young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town we have identified traditional methods, which include: methods of problem-creative nature; methods of creating special aesthetic situations; methods of organizing creative activity; methods of stimulating the need for active promotion of folk music sources and musical heritage of composers.

The traditional methods, to which we attribute a story, conversation, explanation, exercise, visual methods, etc., were intended to help learning the folk music and folk musical instruments, to teach playing on the notes of orchestration, variations, fantasies on folk melodies, to organize the hearing of folk and professional music, to discuss the features of the audited music, to accumulate theoretical knowledge about the folklore of the ethnic groups living in Volga region, to familiarize youth with the performing traditions.

Given that a musical culture inspires potential of creative development of youth when perceiving its imagery system, the presentation of musical material involves the use of methods of problem-creative nature. This is natural in those educational situations, where similar or contrasting images in a variety of music genres were compared and contrasted, as well as in the situations where one had to define own ethnic music out of three or more proposed pieces of music of other ethnic groups, when conducting "Audio questioning"; when detecting expression means of perceived folk music; when solving musical crosswords; when making dance movements to diverse folk music. Some young people are shy to express themselves publicly. In such case, one can ask them to draw a picture on the heard music, to express their impressions of music through the color modeling, literary narrative, musical composition, etc.

In order to give the opportunity to young people to feel the originality of the musical material, we felt it necessary to use methods of creating special aesthetic situations that facilitate “immersion” of youth into an environment of cultural values. This was achieved due to filling the environment with new learning objects, i.e. samples of decorative-applied art, elements of the national costume, folk musical instruments, sounding of discourse, music melodies, etc.

Great importance was given to the creative development of spiritual riches of the folk musical culture of ethnic groups of the Volga region among young people. With this purpose we used the methods of the organization of creative activity. This resulted in the preparation of the compositions and improvisations of folk songs, selection of melodies pleased by ear, inclusion of the folk text into the folk-tunes, inventing riddles about music and folk musical instruments, composing musical dialogues to folk tales, writing takmaks on a given topic, compiling crosswords for the musical arts, performing sketch of musical instrument with ornament (encrustation), conducting special creative games, etc.

A special place in work with youth was taken by methods of stimulating the need for active development of musical folklore sources and musical heritage of composers, in particular, those of the Volga region. These included visiting theater performances, various exhibitions and expositions, learning the museum's archives and exhibits, taking part in organization and holding the festivals, competitions, concerts, consent shows for the best instrumental performance of folk songs, folk-tunes on folk musical instruments; audio- and video-recording of the best performances; a variety of musical and didactic games, etc.

In pedagogical science there are many classifications and typologies of pedagogical tools, described in particular in the works of Apatova NV, Lesnevsky AS, Robert JB, Sergeeva TA, Wellington JJ and others. The Institute of Training Resources of the Russian Academy of Education proposed classification criteria for the typology of educational software tools depending on their content and function (diagnostic, supervising, training, demonstrational, referential and informational, formative, and simulating); as well as degree of students’ activity (designed for a minimum activity level, i.e. demonstrational, and for a maximum activity level, i.e. designing); user’s target group - software tools for teachers (creation of new software and use of existing software tools, such as "electronic notes" and "electronic journal"); general and specialized software tools for students. They are classified also by the level of communicativeness: domain-specific training programs with varying degrees of interactivity and communicative-oriented tools [22].

Means of socio-cultural activities are spiritual and material types of activity, sources and tools to create a favorable cultural environment, ideological and emotional impact on the mind, feelings and behavior of people, their involvement into the world of culture, into the process of creation, development, preservation, dissemination and further enrichment of the cultural values.

The leading means of the socio-cultural activities include the living word, art, image, mass media, means of visual agitation and advocacy, books, musical instruments, and technical means, i.e. image projectors, sound recording and other sound-reproducing apparatuses, etc.

• When designing our own model, we have used the following tools:

• Musical folklore of the Volga region ethnic groups;

• Musical heritage of composers;

• Video and audio recording of fasts, rituals, performers, concerts, master classes (archival recordings available from the music departments of libraries, personal audio and video materials recorded on CDs, DVDs, MP3s, MP4s, and MP5s);

• Folk musical instruments;

• Creations of applied art and costumes;

• Scientific, educational, methodical, and musical literature;

• Computer music software (Sibelius, Finale, Capella, Overture, Encore, etc.).

To implement the main ideas of the research into practice, we have developed our own program, which includes three sections: “Musical culture of the ethnic groups of Tatarstan”, “Development of national musical instruments”, and “Creative performance”. This contributed to the development of a musical culture of young people, to accumulate knowledge in the field of a musical culture, as well as skills and experiences of playing folk musical instruments, to kindle interest in folk music, and to expand a musical culture horizons, inoculating musical taste, musical preferences and abilities to perceive and appreciate music emotionally.

Presented authors’ program has been piloted in harmonica ensembles and folk instrument orchestras of regional culture centers in a small towns of Buinsk (director Nurullin), Zainsk (director Ziganshin), Jalil (director Karimutdinov), and Mendeleyevsk (director Khalikov).

We have determined the following levels of musical cultural patterns in youth in terms of their cultural and leisure activities: listening pattern (low level), performing pattern (intermediate level), and creative and transformative pattern (high level). Besides, we have determined criteria to assess the level of a musical culture maturity of youth, which include motivational, informational and activity-practical levels.

The effectiveness of the experimental work was determined through a series of diagnostic tasks (performed based on techniques developed by Schukina, Shkolyar, and other authors).

The data obtained from the experimental work, carried out on the basis of cultural and leisure institutions of small towns (Buinsk, Zainsk, Jalil, and Mendeleevsk), reflected a certain tendency towards increasing the level of a musical culture development in young people, participating in folk instrumental ensembles, who were included into the experimental group. This fact confirms the effectiveness of the developed program and allows us to consider that the conducted study was successful. The Table 1 presents comparative analysis of a musical culture development levels of young people obtained when conducting the stating and control stages of the test.

The elements of a musical culture Low level Average level High level
CG EG CG EG CG EG
Knowledge in the field of musical culture 51.4 53.7 30.7 32.5 17.9 13.8
45.6 30.1 35.4 45 19 24.9
Skills and experiences in playing folk musical instruments 38.6 36 44 45 17.4 19
30 18.8 45.4 48 24.6 33.2
The interest in folk music 28.6 30 43.6 44.5 27.8 25.5
20 10.9 45.2 39 34.8 50.1
The outlook in the field of a musical culture 41 45 38.5 35 20.5 20
34.8 25.2 42 37 23.2 37.8
Musical taste that determines the level of musical preferences and the ability to perceive music emotionally and appreciate it. 46.1 50 33.3 35 20.6 15
40 27.9 37.8 45.2 22.2 26.9

Table 1: Dynamics of a musical culture development of youth in control and experimental groups before and after experimental testing (%).

Pedagogical experiment has confirmed the effectiveness of the program developed by the authors, which is based on the idea of implementing pedagogical potential of folk instrumental creativity. This experiment has led to the growth of a musical culture maturity in youth that is achieved by using experimental techniques, comprehensive organization of educational process, the interaction between various fields of instrumental creativity in cultural and leisure institutions, active involvement of the family in the educational process, as well as the constitutional unity of traditional and innovative forms and methods of training and education, the involvement of other forms of arts and integrating them into the teaching process.

Results

1. The main trends of folk instrumental creativity, such as listening, performing, conducting, improvisation, composition, and education, as well as musicological, pedagogical, methodical, productive, publishing, and managerial trends, have been defined and explained, as well as pedagogical potential of folk instrumental creativity has been identified and justified in terms of shaping a musical culture in young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town.

2. The authors' model, aimed at shaping a musical culture in young people in cultural and leisure institutions of small town, has been not just developed but tested experimentally. The structure of this model consists of the following components: the goal, objectives, principles, content, forms, methods, means, levels, criteria, and the result of musical culture formedness.

3. To implement the main ideas of the study in practice, we have developed an original program that required selection of specific forms and training techniques, as well as types of musical activity.

Conclusions

The essence of the main research concept of a “musical culture” has been clarified in terms of its structure that was proposed by the authors.

The pedagogical potential of folk instrumental creativity, when shaping a musical culture of young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town, has been revealed.

The major trends in the development of folk instrumental creativity in small towns of the Russian Federation have been found out.

The features of socio-cultural space of a small town have been determined.

The authors' model of shaping of a musical culture of young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town by means of folk instrumental creation, implemented into the educational practice, has been proven as effective tool allowing to provide a holistic, organized, gradual, continuous, strong effect on the educational process and to enhance the level of a musical culture development of young people.

This research, being the first experience of studying shaping of a musical culture of young people in cultural and leisure institutions of a small town by means of folk instrumental music, does not purport to be an exhaustive coverage of all aspects of the concerned problem. Further research may reveal features of the shaping of a musical culture in the course of other types of musical creativity (vocal-choral, as well as musical and plastic); under different kinds and levels of art education (general, secondary, vocational, preschool, school, and special); in the framework of a various educational environments and regions (educational, training, and developmental); as well as based on the comparison and contrasting of musical cultures of various ethnic groups, etc.

Acknowledgements

The work was carried out under the grant allocated in the framework of the state support of Kazan (Volga region) Federal University in order to increase its competitiveness among the world's leading research and educational centers. The work is performed according to the Russian Government Program of Competitive Growth of Kazan Federal University.

References

Copyright © 2024 Global Media Journal, All Rights Reserved