Children’s orchestral set “Harmonika” by H. T. Statyvkin as a source of developing initial skills of ensemble and orchestral music playing for preschool children

Abstract

The figure of Hennadii Tymofiyovych Statyvkin as a reformer of the methodology of teaching the button accordion has always interested researchers for its versatility: ideas of restructuring the educational process of primary music education; experimental introduction of new methodological principles in the educational process; introduction of a seven-year period of training for button accordionists in children’s music schools; production of special training children’s selectable and ready-made button accordions; development and publication of a new curriculum and teaching aids. The above-mentioned ranges of H. Statyvkin’s activity have been covered by scholars at different times exclusively from the point of view of changing the methodology of teaching the button accordion from a selectable to a ready-made instrument. The problem of studying the structure of children’s accordion instruments created by H. Statyvkin has never acquired the format of a special separate study. The proposed article aims to reveal the design activity H. Statyvkin by analysing the design features of children’s musical instruments created by him for ensemble and orchestral music for preschool children. The scientific novelty of the research results is due to the introduction of some facts about the design features of the children’s orchestra set “Harmonika” into the scientific circulation of musicology, which made it possible to reveal the specifics of H. Statyvkin’s design thinking. Based on the analysis of the system of sound disposition at the right keyboards of the “Solo-1” and “Solo-2” instruments, we can conclude that H. Statyvkin’s system corresponds to the right keyboard of the piano-type accordion, but in the button version. Unusual for the button accordion disposition of the sounds at the right keyboard and grouping of major and minor triads in one row of the left keyboard is based on ergonomic and physiological data of preschool children (height and width of the chest, length of hands and forearms). It was this design that made it possible to reduce the overall sizes of the instruments and to make them in accordance with the physiology of a preschool children.