Introduction

“Ukrainian sacred music” electronic study guide: content, structure, use recommendations at a pedagogical higher education institution

Creation of electronic training resources is one of the major tasks of up-to-date higher education which is proved by the requirements of the native pedagogical theory and practice. Informatization process which in recent decades covered all the branches of education had touched forgetive constituent: the lessons in “Music” and “Fine art” have already been provided with electronic study guides (pedagogical programming tool) at general education school and electronic applications for many paper textbooks were created; electronic training resources of various artistic disciplines are offered for higher school.

The scientists have proved that electronic training resources, for example a study guide, offer the possibility to avoid main disadvantages of paper textbooks – a linear order of educational material presentment, lack of feedback, verification of the standard of knowledge and skills of pupils etc. As М. Kademiia and О. Shestopaliuk specialize, an electronic study guide can be considered as an additional scientific-methods source that allows to organize independent work methodically and correctly and to build pupils’ capabilities [1].

The special requirements are separated in the pedagogical science (organizational, technical and pedagogical) which should be satisfied by the author of electronic training resources. V. Volynskyi, О. Krasovskyi and others [2] noted that the content of an electronic study guides should to be structurized in accordance with their assignment and didactic role, however most often a study guide consists of three main parts with the use of a modular principle of structuralization of educational-cognitive and operative-active materials and control messages:

• preliminary part – user’s familiarization with a content and destination of a study guide, motivation and its usage;

• principal part – system of sections designed for representation and explanation of educational material;

• concluding part (supplements: reference materials, dictionaries, list of references)

In this particular context of development of the modern educational tendencies and taking into account the process of education informatization and requirements as to creation of electronic training resources there was prepared “Ukrainian sacred music” study guide recommended to future music masters studying the course of “History of Ukrainian music” at pedagogical educational establishments.

It should be noted that appeal to Ukrainian sacred music was nonrandom. The interest to this sphere of the native musical art is very keen at present. Within the period of independence of Ukraine the processes of sacred music study and possibilities of its use in general aesthetic and moral- ethical education of young people have been actualized. Along with the coryphaeuses of the native and Russian musicology who studied and study various aspects of sacred music development of different times at present (І. Voznesenskyi, М. Brazhnikov, М. Uspenskyi, Yu. Keldysh, N. Herasymova-Persydska, L. Kornii), the representatives of musical pedagogics are attracted to the study of perspectives of sacred compositions use in education of youth.

At latest a number of scientific investigations in this direction increased. Musicological understanding of sacred music is delved gradually: the investigations of separate compositional personalias (for example, the work of M. Yurchenko, L. Kianovska, A. Zavalniuk etc.) are in the process, a subject of sacred music is analysed as itself as well as the processes which are carried out in the sociocultural space of present time (work of O. Kozarenko, S. Osadcha, I. Kharytonova and other authors). Significant amount of researches (М. Mario, L. Ostapenko, L. Radkovska etc.) are devoted to a study of influence of sacred compositions on development of education and art.

Moreover there are attempts to introduce the course of Ukrainian sacred music into the program of elementary school as elective one. As an example there can be given the teaching materials “Ukrainian sacred music” developed by L. Moskovchuk (with blessing of Eminent Theodore, archbishop of Kamianets-Podilskyi and Gorodotskoie) [3]. As the author mentioned the purpose of this subject study is familiarization of pupils of a general education school with sacred (church) music, Christian traditions, mores and valuables of the Ukrainian nation; promoting formation of integral, sacred adult personality – the citizen of Ukraine – by means of cognition and acquirement of the centuries-old acquisitions of sacral musical art by pupils youth; formation of respect for the national and world intellectual culture.

In recent years some interesting programs of sacred music study at elementary school were created by Russian musicians-pedagogues. For example I. Koshmina has developed “Russian sacred music” courses (the 1st-3rd years of study) and “Sacred music: the world of beauty and harmony” (the 1st-4th years of study). The main thing of these programs created for use in secular public schools is not knowledge of religion, but knowledge of art related to religion [4]. The author specifies that the purpose of her program is to provide pupils with the general idea about sacred and religious culture, to help to find their bearings in its images, plots, symbols, to teach conscious listening to a sacred music, to create a basis for future self-development and self-education of children in general.

Taking into account topicality and increasing interest to the matters of development of Ukrainian sacred music and also considering that this material is included into the course of the history of native music and is studied at pedagogical higher educational institutions, the authors have created a study guide for students –future music masters.

According to the content the study guide of Ukrainian sacred music is composed of the following sections:

1. Essays of the history of Ukrainian sacred music in which the historical evolution of canons of Ukrainian Orthodox Church is represented briefly (from the earliest times of Christianity adoption in Ukraine-Rus to the present day):

- periodization of the history of Ukrainian sacred music;

- evolution of significant chant as a principal form of Ukrainian liturgical singing;

- forms of Ukrainian sacred music recording. Kriukova’s notation, its peculiarities and evolution. “Kyivske znamia”;

- part choral singing of the ХVІІ – turn of the ХVІІІ century. Introduction of Kyiv notation. Canticles. Part choral concerts;

- prosperity of Ukrainian sacred music in the middle of ХVІІІ – turn of the ХІХ century;

- ways of development of Ukrainian sacred music in the ХІХ – ХХ centuries;

- present-day stage of development of Ukrainian church music.

2. The sacred music creators (42 personalias). Biographical data and brief review of the creative work of Ukrainian artists who composed and compose music compositions of sacred theme and religious-hieratical destination till now are represented in this section. Users can familiarize themselves with creative achievements of Baroque composers (М. Dyletskyi, S. Pekalytskyi), masters of choral sacred concerts of the mid-to-late ХVІІІ – turn of the ХІХ centuries. (М. Berezovskyi, А. Rachynskyi, S. Degtiarov, А. Vedel, D. Bortnianskyi etc.), workers of Ukrainian musical culture of the end of the ХХ century (М. Leontovych, К. Stetsenko, composers of Peremyshl school М. Verbytskyi, О. Nyzhankivskyi and others), with spiritual legacy of the modern Ukrainian composers (І. Aleksiichuk, G. Gavrylets, L. Dychko, V. Stepurka, М. Shukha etc).

3. Genres of sacred music (32 articles) which are interpreted as cultic- ceremonial (if compositions are played within an act of worship) or concert ones (when composition is played in a concert-hall losing a ritual constituent). Apart from the genres of orthodox music (Vesper, Liturgy, Canon, Part choral concert, stikheres etc.), the most widespread genres and canticles of the Catholic cult are included in this section (Mass, Contakion, Motet, Requiem, Choral etc.).

4. Orthodox holiday calendar is a section containing historical data for the mots prominent orthodox holidays and scenarios to their celebration within educational out-of-school measures:

• the 7th of January– Christmas;

• the 19th of January– the Epiphany, Water baptism-day;

• the 15th of February – Candlemas;

• Easter;

• Feast of the Holy Trinity;

• the 6th of May– St. George the Victorious - day;

• the 24th of July– St. equal to the apostles princess Olga - day;

• the 14th of October– the protecting veil of the Holy Mother of God;

• the 19th of December - Saint Nicholas Holiday, archbishop of Myra of Lycia miracle worker.

The section was created for the purpose of aid rendering to teachers and organizers of out-of-school activities, each scenario is accompanied by note and musical material recommended for use.

5. Glossary (dictionary of 123 the most used musical and religious terms).

6. Collection of sacred music (125 compositions of various composers and different genres in mp.3 format).

7. Video fragments of sacred music playing.

8. Music box (45 compositions).

9. Three slide shows devoted to musical traditions of the spiritual center of Ukraine – the Holy Dormitory Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, the Holy Dormition Pochaiv Lavra and the Holy Dormitory Sviatohirsk Lavra.

10. Tests and musical quizes elaborated for reinforcement and review of knowledge of Ukrainian sacred music. Among test questions there are such which require knowledge of one or another fact (to find response among the proposed variants), and also tests for matching and regular string. The musical quiz is created traditionally – you should listen to a fragment of the music piece and define its title and author (to select a correct answer among several proposed ones).

We should note that “Ukrainian sacred music” study guide is developed with the use of culturological but not religious approach, as a rule common to sacred music teaching at Sunday schools and ecclesiastical seminaries. Culturological approach is traced in the structure of a study guide: the matters of confession in process of training are not discussed and are one’s own funeral; the main subject matter is the musical art (and not the law of God), each composition of which is considered as an object of art study and not as an attribute of cultures; choirs- prayer are studied as special genre models with correspondent means of expressiveness with the use of historical and art (and not doctrinal) approaches to material study.

The proposed electronic study guide of Ukrainian sacred music has interactive multimedia structure which includes the following: hypertext, illustrations, video- and sound bites included into educational material of the course of the history of Ukrainian music.

The manual’s materials are represented in DVD-ROM disc. It is necessary to determine the system requirements to a computer which are needed for work with a manual:

• Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 operating system

• Pentium 4 Processor 1,6 GHz or analogous Athlon

• RW memory 512 Мб (recommended 1024 MB)

• 1,5 Gb free hard disc space

• Video display adapter with memory 64 MB

• Sound unit DirectX 9.0с-compatible

• Accessorial player DirectX 9.0c, Adobe Flash Player, Adobe Reader, Silverlight, QuickTime (are applied ay a disc)

• Reader unit for DVD-discs

• Internet browers Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome

Up-to-date requirements for designing of electronic training resources are included in a study guide and state-of-the-art Information and Communication Technologies are used, as follows:

1. Use of interactive cooperation between a student and a computer is executed with the help of a Hypertext and Hypermedia - execution of passages is carried out by references. Different types of hyperlinkes (a reference to text-based documents of other sources, to musical illustrations in audio and video formats, to note sources) are used in the manual.

2. Use of multimedia technology based on association of various information environments – texts, illustrations, audio music recording, video fragments, note samples, slide shows etc.

3. Conduct of knowledge and skills control with the help of tests which check knowledge of basic concepts and definitions of Ukrainian sacred music and musicology in general (testing of book knowledge); knowledge of musical compositions of sacred musics of various epoches proposed for listening (check of music listening skills and musical-and-hearing erudition). Test questions and tests are proposed for self-check of knowledge by students.

The study guide is recommended for use by students of pedagogical higher education establishments majoring in “Music master”, when studying of Ukrainian sacred music included to the content of the course of the history of Ukrainian sacred music and is also engaged for study of “Choral studies”, “ Conducting” and some historical and cultural special courses of study.

Introduction of the electronic study guide into study of the history of Ukrainian music promotes solution of certain pedagogical tasks:

• awareness of the Ukrainian sacred music as an aesthetic phenomenon, artistic-and-cultural values which embodied spiritual experience of the nation, incarnated its religious, philosophical-ethical and moral standards;

• reinforcement of knowledge about directions and styles of musical art: historical aesthetic-style evolution from Middle Ages, Baroque, classicism to modern avant-garde flows are fixed in the compositions of religious- spiritual native legacy;

• enrichment of musicological world view, acquaintance with the art of present-day Ukrainian composer – masters of sacred music;

• development of emotionally-sensuous sphere of young people, figuratively-associative thinking and artistically-creative capabilities of future music masters;

• an education in artistic-aesthetic taste, necessity for communication with "high" art and mastering of values of the world culture;

• worldview enlargement, formation of cultural-and-educational space of every student;

• development of informative culture of young people.

Materials of the study guide can be used:

• as an information source: the essays of the history of Ukrainian sacred music, illustrative material, audio and video fragments, glossary, information about life and work of authors of sacred music;

• as means of demonstration of theoretical-historical information: numerous multimedia-components allow to look thorough illustrations, slide shows, icons reproductions and to listen to the pieces of music.

• for independent listening to a music;

• for abstracts and reports preparation;

• for reinforcement of material in preparation for practices in the history of Ukrainian music;

• for self-assessment of theoretical knowledge by means of tests and knowledge of music aurally adv by means of musical quizes.

Thus, the purpose of the electronic study guide "Ukrainian sacred music" is to help to strike into religious-spiritual art of Ukraine from the times of its origin to the present day, to realize the artistic value of the best patterns of Ukrainian sacred music, to extend the aesthetic world view and develop spirituality and improve the informative culture of future music masters.

References

1. Kamedia М. and Shestopaliuk О. “Electronic study guide on the interactive basis”, available at: http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/portal/Soc_Gum/peddysk/2007_02/kademiya.pdf.

2. Koshmina I.V. (2001), Russkaya dukhovnaya muzyka Kn.1. Istoriya/ Stil/ Zhanry. Noty. Kn.2 Programmy. Metodicheskie rekomendatsii [Russian sacred music. Vol.1. History. Style. Genres. Vol.2. Programs. methodological recommendations], Vlados, Moscow, Russia.

3. Moskovchuk L.M. (2010), Ukrainska dukhovna muzyka [Ukrainian sacred music], Aksioma, Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine.

4. Volynskyi V.P., Krasovskyi О.S., Chornous О.V. and Yakushyna T.V. (2011), “Designing and subject matter of electronic manuals by educational and operationally- pragmatist material”, Kompiuter u shkoli ta simii, no. 2, pp.44-49.