
46
© O.Васильєва & A. Соколова
Volume 2 (1) 2021
47
Professional Art Education Volume 2 (1) 2021 Scientic Journal
(2021), L. Yatlo (2008).
The article goals and objectives formulation.
The purpose of the article is to identify the specics
of teaching conducting and choral disciplines in the
training of future Music Art teachers.
Рresenting the main material. One of the main
directions of a future Musical Art teacher’s work is
the organization of vocal and choral performance of
student’s youth in establishments of comprehensive
secondary school.
The analysis of the works of A.Bulgarsky,
I.Zelenetska, A.Kozyr, L.Khlebnika proves that the
vocal-choral activity of a Music Art teacher has its
specic features caused by the purpose of general
art education. As L. Masol claims in the «Concept of
General Art Education», its main purpose is to educate
students to value the reality and art, the development
of consciousness, emotional and sensuous sphere
of personality and its spiritual formation while
perceiving and interpreting works of art and
participating in practical art activities» (Masol, 2004,
c. 3).
Students’ choral performance in secondary
schools is carried out in several directions. At music
lessons, choral singing is one of the types of group
musical activity. In extracurricular activities, it exists
as the work of school singing groups (choirs, vocal
ensembles, song studios).
These features determine the specics of
conducting and choral training of Music Art teachers
and encourages the generalization of methods of its
teaching. Achieving the required level of competence
in this area is possible through mastering each
of the subjects of the conductor-choir cycle and
understanding their relationship.
Choral conducting is one of the most
sophisticated kinds of performance art directed to
training and educating multiskilled professionals
prepared for careers in pedagogy and performance
both theoretically and practically.
The purpose of the course «Choral conducting»
is to provide future Music Art teachers and leaders
of children’s choirs with fundamental conducting
training, raise a viable personality able to organize,
lead creatively, conduct a choir artistically convincing,
and self-develop constantly.
The course objectives are in the active
comprehension of the academic process as an
important means of enhancing personal being, self-
realization and self-organization of a personality;
acquiring choral conducting knowledge (choral
pieces texts, methods and techniques of a choral
piece conducting, ways of self-learning choral
scores etc.); development of a teacher-conductor’s
professional abilities and skills (verbal and nonverbal
communication with choral class, musical talents,
performance reliability, artistry); nurturing exibility
and speed of mental and emotional reactions; art
activity; ability of self-development, self-control
and self-organization; mastering methodological
fundamentals of choral work; accumulating repertoire
for further choral work.
Pedagogical principles: systemacity, self-
organization, socialization, cultural correspondence
and humanization, personal orientation,
individualization, dialogue interaction, intellectual
and creative development. Subject principles: the
principle of freedom, graphic clarity and movements
eciency, warning, sound choral articulation, melos,
artistic expediency.
The close connection of «Choral Conducting»
with social, psycho-pedagogical, musical-theoretical,
performance disciplines and subjects of the choral
conducting cycle. Integration of «Choral Conducting»
content promotes to shape the productive thinking
of students learning to be conductors and teachers;
stimulates to develop the depth, completeness and
integrity of their competencies.
Modern teaching of choral conducting is
not possible without extensive implementation
of various teaching methods: problem methods
(problem-search tasks; determination of features
of conducting technique, performance), method of
mental intonation, method of comparison, method of
creative project, etc. The main task in the study of the
discipline «Choral Conducting» is to prepare future
Music Art teachers for practical vocal and choral
work in the classroom with schoolchildren. To ensure
this form of work, songs from the school repertoire
must be included into the very rst classes on choral
conducting. Such work should involve obtaining
skills of educational and song material presentation
(creation of introductory conversations, computer
presentations), analysis of intonation, rhythmic, a
school song diction diculties, choice of means to
overcome the latter, mastering conduction techniques
of choral singing.
In the career of the music teacher and the head
of the children’s choir, the ability to play choral scores
has a signicant role. It contributes to the success of
their work and problem solutions encountered in
choral practice. The importance of reading choral
scores skills was revealed by prominent choral art
personality and teacher M. M. Danilin. He emphasized:
«As a conductor plays the score, so will the choir sing
under his direction».
However, in the practice of training Music Art
teachers, reading choral scores as a separate discipline
is not provided by the curriculum. Therefore, such
work should be done more carefully within the
framework of the discipline «Choral Conducting» and
focus on the skills of reading scores from a sheet and
transposition. In our opinion, mastering these skills
allows the future Music Art teacher to conduct vocal
and choral work with children of different school
ages effectively and exibly. Teaching conducting and
choral disciplines in higher pedagogical educational
institutions is undoubtedly inuenced by art
faculties’ students’ educational background. Since
the specialty of Secondary Education (Music Art) is
gained by students with different levels of musical
training (graduates of secondary schools, music
and pedagogical schools), creating an individual
educational trajectory of each of them should be
based on individual semester work plans according
to curriculum, syllabus and students’ characteristics.
Besides it should be gradual, systematic, and
student-focused to ensure the multifaceted creative
personality development.
Тhe purpose of the course «Choral arrangement»
is to provide music and pedagogical department
students of pedagogical institutes and universities
with essential knowledge and skills to make
transpositions of choral, solo, instrumental musical
pieces for different choir pieces. It is implemented
through solutions of such tasks as forming a
system of compositional knowledge; nding the
best arrangement in accordance with artistic and
gurative tasks; working out your own individual
style in arranging pieces for any choir staff; getting
acquainted with arrangements made by prominent
masters of choral art.
While studying the course «Choral Arrangement»
future Music Art teachers should learn about possible
problems when changing author’s original. Possible
transformation of an original composer’s text by the
author of the arrangement which is a transposition
of the main theme material into another compared
to the original coral score register; changes in voice
of supporting parties; a transposition of main theme
material from one choral party to another (cases of
transposition for a choir without accompaniment of
instrumental compositions with a melody of a wide
range); changing the original tone of the composition
for a more comfortable range, tessitura and
dynamics; changing the main party accompaniment
in the transposition of vocal compositions with
accompaniment for a choir or a cappella.
The teacher of choral arrangement should
introduce students to the characteristic of the choral
arrangement main varieties as a result of the choral
transposition compared to the original source:
transposition from one choir to another (for example,
from a homogeneous choir to a mixed one and vice
versa), transposition of compositions written for
a voice with accompaniment (romance, song) for
various choirs’ staff, transposition of instrumental
compositions for choral performance.
Considering the eld of a Music Art teacher’s
activity, the content of the course «Choral
Arrangement» should focus on mastering the skills of
creating scores for children’s choirs of different age
groups. It should include transpositions for children’s
starting choirs; choral pieces transposition for more
experienced choirs; transposition for senior students’
choirs (homogeneous, incomplete, mixed); choral
pieces transposition for complete mixed choirs;
Instrumental pieces transposition for choirs; free
arrangements of folk songs.
One of the central disciplines of conducting and
choral training of a Music Art teacher is «Choral class»
and «Workshop of working with a choir». The choral
class is a creative laboratory where students are given
opportunities to learn conditions and features of a
choir organization and work. Acting both as a choral
singer and a conductor and observing the choral
leader’s methods of work facilitate their mastering
certain choral techniques.
The role of the choral class course as one of the
most important subjects in the professional training
of a future choral conducting teacher is in blending
theory and practice in the choral class; on the basis
of their knowledge of musical theory and vocal and
choral disciplines students master professional skills,
necessary for their future career activities.
Analysis of choral class syllabi allows setting
such course objectives as moral and artistic education
of students via the direct introduction to choral
compositions of various epochs, styles, genres;
gaining vocal and choral skills; obtaining skills of
working with a choir, accumulating choral repertoire.
Solving the outlined tasks allows a student not only to
acquire the ability to sing in a choir, but also helps to
consolidate their knowledge of a conductor’s practical
work.
The knowledge, skills and abilities acquired
in the choir class should become the basis for the
formation of the necessary skills in future Music Art
teachers to work with the educational choir in the
course «Workshop on working with the choir». The
value of the course is that in the process of studying this
subject the student applies practically their knowledge
and skills in the work and choir conducting, obtained
in conducting, choral studies, and choir class. It is in
the process of studying this subject that the student
acquires professional skills in working with the choir
and the ability to choose techniques and methods of
learning choral pieces.
The head of the course educational choir should
select the choral repertoire for the students’ practical
work, taking into account the specics of Music Art
teachers’ activity. It is recommended to choose bright,
diverse choral works that students will be able to use
in their further choral practice. When organizing
47
© O.Vasilyeva & A.Sokolova
Professional Art Education