Principles of Z. Kod'aly's music education: view from the XXI c

Zoltán Kodály is a hungarian musician and teacher, who created the conception of music education in Hungary in the first half of the XXth century. Kodály's ideas became the impetus for the development of Hungarian music pedagogy and still form the basis for music education. This article explores Kodály’s pedagogical views, based on his literary works, publications and training exercises. All the quotes are translated by the author of the article. Today we can say that the objects of this conception are similar to many systems of music pedagogy of the XXth c. However, Kodály elected his own way. Kodály paid attention to music education. In his works one can see the well-elaborated concept of music education in the whole country, based on knowledge about the “native” musical material - the folklore; and on the introduction of children into the world of music, in order to later lead them to great samples of the world music. Based on the ancient Greek ideals, Kodály refers to music as one of the main subjects in school curriculum, so the comprehension of musical notation and choral singing is needed not only by professional musicians, but by everyone without exception. Thus, the concept aims at education of people’s personality. Over the years of its existence, the concept got quite a number of variants and interpretations. The purpose of this publication is to turn to the original texts by Kodaly and get familiar with the ideas that form the basis for music education in Hungary.