Musical abilities of children and their development

Let's start, as the ancients said, ab ovo - from the egg, or from the very beginning. Ancient Roman physician Galen in the 2nd century BC. very accurately called the curious property of man, which we now call ability. Galen said this: “This is with the help of which ...” But even now, despite millennia of human studies by many sciences, psychologists argue about the origin of human abilities, their being.

Most are inclined to this reasoning: the main role in the formation of children's abilities is played by life experience, activity, training and education. And natural prerequisites (inclinations) favor the development of abilities, accelerate their development, and make it possible to achieve great success. Such an understanding is necessary and sufficient to determine the essence of musical abilities. Covering this topic, we will widely rely on the classical work on musical abilities, written by the Russian psychologist B.M. Thermal.108To begin with, we’ll examine two fundamental concepts of musical pedagogy - “musical talent” and “musicality”.

Musical giftedness is a qualitatively unique combination of abilities, on which the possibility of successful engagement in musical activity depends on: composing, performing, and perceiving music. These abilities include those that are directly needed for such an activity (for example, hearing), and those that are necessary for acting in music, and for many other types of human activity. This ability, for example, is attention. Accordingly, there are abilities that are needed for all types of musical activities, and others that are required only for some of them. Musical hearing, for example, is needed for all types of musical activity, and, for example, the ability to subordinate an audience to one’s will (performing will) is necessary only for a performer.

As part of musical giftedness, there is a complex of abilities that can be called musicality. These are the abilities that are determined by the nature of music as such. We will talk about them below, but for now we dwell on an important thesis: musical giftedness does not boil down to musicality alone. Endowment - a phenomenon incomparably broader. Take, for example, the personality of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov. To understand his giftedness, one cannot be limited only to an analysis of those of his abilities that are directly related to music.He had a rich imagination, the breadth of visual, in particular color, images and the connection of auditory imagination with the visual. The latter was manifested in his "color" rumor. That is why the music of Rimsky-Korsakov is brightly graphic.

This was due to a developed sense of nature. These features of the composer's giftedness undoubtedly go beyond musicality. However, musical psychologists have every right to include these signs in the concept of "musical giftedness", and not say that Rimsky-Korsakov, along with musical giftedness, still had a rich visual imagination or a strong sense of nature. Thus, musical talent means a qualitative combination of those abilities that affect the implementation of musical activity.

At the same time, these are common moments of musical giftedness, since they are inherent in both the musician Rimsky-Korsakov and many representatives of other fields of activity. By the way, these are also pedagogical abilities: imagination, visual vigilance, 109a sense of nature - without these abilities, a full-fledged teacher can hardly take place. In our further reflections on the nature of musical abilities, we will no longer go beyond the concept of "musicality" and the elements that make it up. The attempts made to describe the supporting components of the generalizing term "musical giftedness" were aimed at showing the ambiguity and versatility of concepts that are somehow related to the phenomenon of musical abilities. So, musicality is a component of musical giftedness, which is necessary for engaging in musical activity, unlike any other, and, moreover, is necessary for any type of musical activity. The main sign of musicality is the experience of music as an expression of some content. Absolute non-musicality is unlikely and is characterized by the fact that the music is perceived by the subject simply as a collection of sounds, expressing nothing decisively, similar to what a symphony orchestra produces, tuning. And such a perception of music, as observations show, is very, very rare in a normal person. At the same time, we note that the more a person hears in sounds, the more musical he is. The center of musicality is the ability to emotionally respond to music. But musicality also implies a rather subtle, differentiated perception, hearing music is musical ear. These are two main aspects of musicality. Following B.M. Thermal conditionally call them emotional and auditory. They have no meaning, taken on their own, one without the other: the finest distinction between the individual sides of the fabric

They have no meaning, taken on their own, one without the other: the finest distinction between the individual sides of the fabric of music is not musical perception yet - the dog perceives sounds better; at the same time, an emotional experience will only be musical when it is a reflection of the expressive meaning of musical images, and not just an experience of emotions while listening to music.

Sources used:

• 1.    Безбородова Л.А. Дирижирование. - М., 2000.

• 2.    Мелик-Пашаев А.А., Новлянская З.И. Концепция и проект программы общего художественного развития школьников первого года обучения // Искусство в школе. - 1994. - № 2

• 3.    Шермухамедова, Н. А. (2016). ПРОБЛЕМЫ МОДЕРНИЗАЦИИ СИСТЕМЫ ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ И КУЛЬТУРЫ В СОВРЕМЕННЫХ УСЛОВИЯХ. In Культура диалога культур: постановка и грани проблемы (pp. 342-353).

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