CONDUCTING AND CHOIR TRAINING FOR MASTER’S STUDENTS MAJORING IN SPECIALTY 014.13 SECONDARY EDUCATION (MUSIC ART)
Authors: Demianko N. 
Published: August 2023

The article reveals the peculiarities of conducting and choral training for students of the second (master’s) level of higher education, specialty 014.13 Secondary education (Music art). The Hryhoriy Levchenko Department of Music of Poltava V. G. Korolenko National Pedagogical University has considerable experience in training masters of music art, in particular, in specialties 8.010103 Pedagogy and methods of secondary education. Music, 8.02020401 Music art, 014.13 Secondary education (Music art). Conductor and choir training in the educational and professional programs of master’s training occupies an important place and is carried out within the courses “Choir Conducting,” “Conducting,” and “Solo Singing and Conducting.” In the process of studying educational components, general competencies are formed (the ability to affirm humanistic ideals, democratic values, and traditions of Ukraine; the ability to critically analyze and evaluate modern pedagogical and artistic phenomena, generate new ideas when solving practical tasks, complex and innovative problems; the ability to form, based on self-knowledge own style of pedagogical and artistic and creative activity; the ability for self-improvement and self-education) and professional competence (the ability for artistic (instrumental, vocal, conducting and choral) and cultural and educational activities, for a competent assessment of artistic and pedagogical phenomena; the ability to justify and implement a pedagogical and performing idea and interpret a musical work by means professional and pedagogical speech). Program learning outcomes are the ability to take into account the specifics of artistic directions, styles, and genres in the verbal and performance interpretation of musical (artistic) works; mastery of basic means and methods of performing musical works; skills to integrate complex performing techniques (instrumental, vocal, conducting) in professional activities; formation of an individual style of pedagogical and artistic and creative activity through self-discovery, self-improvement and self-education in the educational space. The specificity of the educational discipline involves the implementation of the educational process in the form of individual practical classes. They have an established structure: checking the performance of individual independent tasks; analysis and characterization of works of the educational repertoire; intonation of choral parts; instrumental performance of choral scores; work on conducting equipment; conducting choral works; self-accompanying performance of songs from the children's repertoire. The main principles of successful training are the pedagogical direction of special conducting training; gradual complication of tasks, directing them to the creative level of mastering the course; providing conditions for the master’s student to choose ways and means of solving specific executive tasks; taking into account personal experience during the formation of professional competences; constant attention and demand for professional literacy; creating an emotional background, a creative atmosphere as a guarantee of the effectiveness of classes. Compilation of individual work programs is carried out on the basis of a thorough and systematic study of personal, and professionally significant abilities and qualities of the master’s student; development, correction, and optimistic forecasting of these qualities in the direction of integral professional training of the future specialist; correspondence of the educational material to individual abilities, the level of their general musical development and conducting technique; diversity of the repertoire in terms of content, style, genre, form, texture. Control and evaluation of educational achievements takes place in the form of the current, modular, and final evaluation of the achievements of master’s students in all types of classroom and extracurricular educational activities. The criteria for evaluating classroom work are executive conducting, vocal and instrumental interpretation of choral works; systematic, effective, purposeful work of a master's student to improve conducting and choral skills; highly artistic performance of works of the educational repertoire. The conducting and choral training of master’s students is carried out in the conditions of formal and non-formal art education, in particular in the creative laboratories of the Hryhoriy Levchenko Department of Music of PNPU.