The Role of Cultural Heritage in 21st-Century Music Education

Cul­tural her­it­age is an in­teg­ral part of Hun­garian music edu­ca­tion. Folk tra­di­tions and folk songs are taught in every school, from the cap­ital city to the smal­lest vil­lages. Thou­sands of songs were col­lec­ted by Zoltán Kodály and Béla Bartók, who ad­op­ted them in their clas­sical com­pos­i­tions. With this they earned fame for Hun­garian folk music and tra­di­tions. Zoltán Kodály also com­posed a series of music read­ing ma­ter­i­als, mainly based on folk songs, which is cur­rently used on all levels of Hun­garian music edu­ca­tion. Not only the Kodály concept, but the Táncház-method was also se­lec­ted in the Re­gister of Good Safe­guard­ing Prac­tices of UN­ESCO Cul­tural Her­it­age. In our di­gital age, the net-gen­er­a­tion, un­like the pre­vi­ous stu­dent pop­u­la­tions, can have dif­fer­ent habits, which is the reason why stu­dents’ music skills were tested with tech­no­logy-based meth­ods and tools. They are sur­roun­ded by pop­u­lar media; however, the value that folk tra­di­tion of­fers should be in­ev­it­able in their edu­ca­tion. The find­ings of our re­search provides input for the edu­ca­tional sys­tem about Hun­garian stu­dents’s music lit­er­acy, and their fa­mili­ar­ity with its vari­ous ele­ments, es­pe­cially with cer­tain com­pon­ents of their cul­tural her­it­age.