Composing Melodies as a Pedagogical Method for Development of Music Thinking of Young School Age Children on Solfeggio Lessons
The development of the theoretical and methodological foundations for the use of composing melodies as a special method for the development of the musical thinking of students in solfeggio cla,sses is an urgent problem in the pedagogy of music education. The category of “musical thinking” in modern, studies is treated ambiguously. One of the trends is directed at the interpretation of musical thinking a,s a specific manifestation of the universal laws of general thought processes. With this approach, the specificity of this phenomenon recedes into the background. Another tendency is aimed at studying musical thinking as a phenomenon of the autonomous. Common is the recognition that thinking operates with senses. In this study, musical thinking is viewed as the focus of a single, in its nature, thinking process on the solution of special problems in the field of musical activity. Universal logical operations are performed over music-specific operands. In this capacity, intonational structures and musical text systems are considered. The composition of melodies is regarded as a peda,gogical method aimed at the sequential and gradual mastering of operands and forming of skills to use universal operators in a specific context. Its effectiveness was verified experimentally on the basis of the Voskresenskaya Children ’s Art School of Moscow. It was revealed that the method of composing melodies really allows increasing significantly the level of development of musical thinking of students. This is possible under certain pedagogical conditions: an intonational approach to the process of mastering the logical laws of musical art by students, integrating the composition of melodies into a complex system of pedagogical methods aimed at developing musical thinking, and understanding the significance for students of the aesthetic result of their creative process as a source of maintaining a high level motivation for this activity.