Music teaching in regular class and extracurricular music activities in Croatia: State and perspectives

Abstract

In the last 30 years Croatia has been involved in an intensive period of educational reforms. Music teaching, as a compulsory subject, underwent some positive and negative changes. The so-called open model and contents remake bring the possibility for teachers to be more creative and for students to be involved to a greater extent, but unfortunately, music lessons come to just 1 h per week. As a part of the Croatian school system, the extracurricular music activities are implemented in the school curriculum which affects the acquisition of new knowledge developing students’ musical skills. This paper aims to present the today’s situation of attending music classes in regular and extracurricular lessons in Croatia. Moreover, it discusses the international research project Schools@Concerts: Tuning up for the Music Experience which influences the idea how to carry out another kind of extracurricular musical activity which suits the worldwide environment. The intention is to familiarize students with (classical) music during the work in the extracurricular activity and by visiting to a concert. The author presents her own idea how to realize the extracurricular music activity Listening to Music with Concert Experience carried out by a cognitive – emotional approach to listening to music which contributes to the students’ music appreciation and preservation, transfer, renewal and dissemination of cultural heritage.