Interest-based music instruction at elementary level art schools is a type of learning that is not mandatory. We are convinced that in spite of this, or perhaps due to it, empathy and human emotions should not be absent from this type of education. However, in musical instrument instruction there is often a tendency to emphasize students’ interpretive performance, overlooking how they are feeling. The aim of this research was to capture participants’ experiences with the phenomenon of teacher’s approach to musical instrument instruction, to reveal their feelings and the meaning they drew from the experience. We opted for qualitative research methodology, specifically phenomenological analysis. Eleven in depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with young adults who had, in their earlier youth, participated in an elementary art school’s musical curriculum. Data analysis (ranging from analytic induction to constant comparison; coding: open → axial → selective) produced the following nine categories: I remember…, or Story opening; Everything is about feelings, or What the student was feeling (including subcategories Child and fear, Unease as a type of fear); Teacher as a person, or Human dimension as more important than anything else (including subcategory Understanding brings amazing things); Teacher as an instructor; Selection of compositions, or The child also looks for meaning; Feedback; Alchemy of musical emotions or, Andrej’s esprit; Decision – “I don’t want to play anymore,” or “I no longer want to play with him”; Panta rhei, or Music – objectives – values. The results show that an instructor’s approach to students is deeply reflected in the feelings and internal experiences of participants. Reflecting teacher’s approach, a student’s feelings create an internal emotional climate that filters the educational content of instruction. Feelings of unease or even fear were able to distract the student from concentrating on the actual aim of instruction – music. Participants viewed kind, humane aspects of their teacher’s approach – partnership not only through artistic (including student’s participation in the selection of compositions) but also through personal dialogue – as especially positive. Negatively perceived teacher’s approach was the key factor that motivated the onset of student’s decision-making phase, resulting either in, “I do want to play, but not with him” (the problem was solved by replacing the teacher) or, “I no longer want to play” (student dropped out of instruction). These research results indicate that the area of students’ internal experiencing should be taken into account during music teachers’ preparation and education, since not every extraordinary musician is automatically an extraordinary instructor. Above all, a teacher of children should be a human for another human being.

Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) ranks among the most prominent German Late Baroque composers. His significance has been revealing itself fully only in the recent 3 or 4 decades. His talent manifested considerably as early as in his childhood. While studying in Hildesheim he composed an interesting song collection Singende Geographie TWV 25:1 using the lyrics of his teacher Losius. The Singing Geography for solo voice with the accompaniment of basso continuo collects 36 songs mapping the period geographic shape of Europe and the world, bringing also some mental and melodic-rhythmic features of the named countries. The architectonic structure and the melodic-harmonic proceeding of the songs are relatively simple; however, they already disclose the exceptional talent of their author. The collection is mainly designed for domestic music-making, as well as for teaching, but today it can be also heard at concerts as an equal musical piece. The overall musical character of the songs is bound with the affect theory and related musical rhetorics. The performer or the teacher using the collection in their teaching practice have to be thoroughly acquainted with both these general aspects of Baroque music.

The music composer, music teacher and violinist František Kováčik-Podmagurský from Vrútky, a representative of the regional musical culture of the popular style, is a prominent personality of the 20th-century musical culture of the Turiec region. He represents the generation of Slovak musical modernism composers. Operettas, songs, marches and instrumental pieces form the core of his work. The article presents comprehensive biographic and bibliographic information including a catalogue of the works of František Kováčik-Podmagurský.

Music As Speech – this title of Harnoncourt’s book tells us the basic truth about what we do composing, playing music and listening to its performance. We are communicating the others. Music work is a form of communication between people, the most universal and capacious speech, an essential element of human’s life. Being a sort of language, music has got a structure comparable to the linguistic rules, it uses some twin means. But its main mean remains sound, in previous epochs limited to pitches and their organization, later extended to sound and its properties.

The pitches’ organization may determine a contemporary music composition in several ways, as:

1) structurizing by pitches and their organization;

here belong a.o. regular twelve-tone series, Per Nørgård’s infinity row; also my composition Chromatic Fantasy (The Son is Scrumptious) for solo harpsichord written in 2003, in which one assemblage of pitches (without fixed rhythm, order, register etc.) determines both vertical and horizontal structure of the piece composed as a set of “variations”.

2) sound and timbre as an idea that determines music composition;

Tadeusz Wielecki’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2008) exemplifies his “technique of a composed trill” in which a single idea of trill determines several parameters of the whole piece; an extended interpretation of trill includes: repetition with variable speed; tremolandos and oscillation between numerous pitches; pulsation of sound-colors; a half-opened form of musical work.

3) the properties of sound (pitch) and instruments as a source of method of forming musical course;

The inspiration can be drawn from specific instrument and its features, including the electroacoustic means&sources, acoustic parameters of place of performance etc. Here one more musical dimension reveals itself: depth, a kind of counterpoint to horizontal time dimension (works of Scelsi, Crumb, Grisey and spectral composers, Feldman, Górecki, also Per Nørgård’s open hierarchy). Ambiguity of music perception: perception in time vs. perception in the present, moment, now, leads us towards the problem of musical form today.

4) timbre as a source of sound-color qualities (timbralism/sonorism, electroacoustic music, electronic transformations of sound).

Here one should mention timbralism (in Poland: sonorism), focused on the new sound quality, new sounding effects that form a ‘dialog of textures’ (Ligeti, Penderecki). The trend continued and renovated now by young generation.

Today the music seems to be an answer for current needs of sensitive people, open for new experiences and feelings, for whom the commercial products are not enough. The art is always exclusive, but the need of art still exists in people and nations all over the world, as the need of communicating the others remains in a single human heart. So, the music creation forms an individual, unique answer of a single artist for what the surrounding world ‘says’. An answer expressed in a language of languages, which is music.

The contribution reflecting the Slovak Teachers’ Choir (SZSU) and its history has been compiled on the basis of the documents from the publications Pamätnica of the SZSU published on the occasions of the Choirs’ jubilees and from archival materials of individual members of the SZSU and the Slovak Teachers’ Choir House located in Trenčianske Teplice. The author points to the years of its existence from the perspective of the history of Slovakia considering its place in the Slovak culture nowadays. He presents the composers, conductors and also the domestic and foreign achievements of the Choir. This prestigious vocal ensemble substantially contributes to the development of the Slovak culture. The Choir ranks among the best in the amateur vocal art in Slovakia and it stands for a model for many amateur ensembles. The Choir maintains a significant position in the regional culture as well. That was eventually confirmed by the jubilee concert organized on the occasion of the 95th anniversary of the Choir’s foundation in Bratislava.

[The contribution is available only in Slovak language in the printed version of the revue.]