Arti musices, Vol. 55 No. 1, 2024.
Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.21857/9e31lhzjkm
The Influence of General Pedagogy on Music Education in Zagreb in the 19th Century: Vjenceslav Novak’s Pjevačka obuka u pučkoj školi [Singing Training in an Elementary School]
Marija Benić Zovko
; Odsjek za povijest hrvatske glazbe HAZU, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Abstract
The influence of general pedagogy on music education in Zagreb was researched through the example of Vjenceslav Novak’s Pjevačka obuka u pučkoj školi [Singing training in an elementary school]. The work was published in 1892 as a methodical manual for elementary school teachers and as a textbook for male teacher school students. It is the first work in which the methodology of teaching singing in public school is elaborated theoretically and practically. The author referred to the following European and Croatian pedagogical authorities: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Johann Friedrich Herbart, Jan Ámos Komenský, Stjepan Basariček, Milan Kobali and Ljudevit Modec. Until Novak’s time, the prevailing method of teaching singing was the memorization of songs after multiple repetitions with the teacher. Novak considered it outdated and proposed an analytical-synthetic method, according to which the students analysed songs they already knew (from personal experience) and comprehended the musical system. This means that a transformation of musical content from an idea to a concept, from an example to a rule and from experience to abstraction took place in the teaching process.
In order to make students aware of the elements of music and to encourage them to better understand the structure of a song, Novak advocated the rational teaching method – learning the tonal system and notation – but in an adapted form. His intention was not to teach children to sing by notes, but to encourage an aesthetic experience of music. The majority of Croatian music pedagogues in the romantic-idealistic spirit considered that music has the power to directly affect people and that it does not need education to mediate its beauty. Unlike them, Novak methodically created aesthetic cognition.
In his methodology, among others, he included Pestalozzi’s concepts of individualizing students and simplifying teaching material (dividing it into sections), and employing Herbart’s four stages in teaching organization, which were widely accepted in Croatia in Basariček’s adaptation (to five stages). Applying modern pedagogical principles, he laid the foundations of modern music pedagogy.
Keywords
singing teaching methodology; elementary school; Vjenceslav Novak; music pedagogy; Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi; Johann Friedrich Herbart; Jan Ámos Komenský; Stjepan Basariček; Milan Kobali; Ljudevit Modec
Hrčak ID:
319643
URI
Publication date:
22.7.2024.
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