FOLK TRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS REFLECTED IN AN ELECTRONIC MUSIC TEXTBOOK FOR THE 7TH GRADE OF THE GENERAL EDUCATION SCHOOL IN BULGARIA
Authors: Georgieva Fileva – Ruseva Krasimira 
Published: April 2024

A person gets attached to things that are intrinsic to him, close, understandable and tends to reject what isunfamiliar and incomprehensible to him. The rapid technical development has brought not only enormous, but alsoconstantly accelerating change into our lives - ever greater and pleasant reliefs, which, however, increasinglydistance us from the traditional folk way of life, from the customs, holidays, beliefs, and rites of the people. We getsomething comfortable and irrevocable, but we lose something of our own, beautiful and also necessary - ourstarting point, our roots. Fortunately, this trend is being recognized by more and more people who are looking forways to counteract it without depriving ourselves of modern technical achievements. Since the knowledge of thetraditions, way of life, customs, and rites of our people are part of the culture forming the national self-awareness ofevery Bulgarian, such information should be studied. In the music textbooks for our general education school byProf. Penka Mincheva at al., the topic of Bulgarian is present from the 1st grade and continues throughout thecourse, with the study of folk customs, traditions and holidays. This topic is widely developed in the 7th gradeeducational set. In order to prove this, I will examine the materials included in the electronic textbook for the 7thgrade, which I am the author of and which is part of the educational set of the author's collective led by Prof. PenkaMincheva. In the electronic textbook, the information on the topic of Bulgarian traditions and customs is presentedthrough two photo galleries, it is also the basis of creative activities and various tasks. The taught material is richlyillustrated with pictures and sound examples. For the performance of these musical examples, which are onlyincluded in the electronic textbook, I selected young performers who have proven themselves at national andregional competitions - colleagues and students from the folklore specialties of the Academy of Music, Dance andFine Arts, where I work. The analysis of electronic resources (main method in the present study) on the topic ofBulgarian folk traditions - holidays, customs, rites and way of life highlighted the following results: - Electronicresources are closely related to the Electronic resources are diverse, thereby contributing to maintaining the interestof adolescents; - The electronic resources are compiled in such a way as to provide additional information; -Electronic resources are directly related to the creation of listening habits among students; - A significant part of theelectronic resources are organized as creative tasks, which is beneficial for the development of the creativity ofseventh graders; - Electronic resources are related to enriching the musical culture of young people; - Habits arecreated in seventh graders also for putting themselves in the other person's place, their empathic abilities aredeveloped. I am proud to share that the electronic materials of the Prosveta publishing house (Prosveta plus, whereour educational set is published, is one of the publishing brands of the Prosveta publishing house) have beenawarded the special prize for the best electronic aids of the BELMA (Best European Learning Materials Awards ) for2021. This is a serious recognition and at the same time authoritative proof of the effectiveness of Prof. Mincheva'ssystem of musical education and of our textbooks, including the electronic textbook for the 7th grade of secondaryschool.