One is bound to allow for and, indeed, to attempt to satisfy intellec-
tual curiosity and interest, but one must at the same time appreciate
that this very interest may become one-sided and may be the chief
enemy to the success of capturing the wholeness of the artistic
experience.
MUSIC EDUCATION
AND FOLK MUSIC
by
Halil Bedi YONETKEN, Professor, Gazi Institute, Ankara, TurkeyFolk music, one of the greatest and most powerfd factors in national
education, plays a very important role in teaching. The ear can be
educated through folk music, or at least by using it as a point of
departure.
Works belonging to this form of art should occupy a privileged place
in the education of a country whose music is totally different from that
of the West.
The schools of composition of the nineteenth and twentieth centu-
ries, from Glinka to Bartok, have drawn their inspiration from folk
music. By this path and thanks to national achievements in music a
vast public has been brought to know and love the music of the whole
world. Even today, in Turkey as in other countries, modern composers
are writing works influenced by folk music. The general public always
prefers to hear compositions inspired by national folklore, because in
such music it rediscovers its originality, its soul and its own image.
This music, then, plays an important part in the understanding of
the value and power of expression of the universal language of music.
As a former teacher and as a student of folklore, I should like, in this
brief statement, to emphasize its importance in teaching. Music edu-
cation is based on the study of modes, of major and minor tonalities
and Church modes. More rarely, pentatonic scales are used, and even