ARTS IN CULTURAL DIALOGUE

Abstract. Since the 1980s, electronic keyboards have become widespread in everyday music-making worldwide. This has created a demand for instruction, resulting in numerous teaching methods, training courses, and graded skill requirements for beginners.
Many music colleges and universities in Western countries offer electronic keyboard programmes. Both amateur and professional training emphasise jazz, pop, and rock styles, along with interactive features (auto accompaniment, arpeggiators, etc.) that rely on the rhythmic ostinato typical of popular music. Professional artists also use these interactive modes, which limits the instrument’s presence on the philharmonic stage.
The dominant Western concept of the electronic keyboard can be described as applied – it aims to involve young people in the music industry, where mass musical culture prevails. Russia, however, has developed a different academic concept, focused on developing music in its highest artistic forms.
Its key features are:
– priority of original sound material of electronic music;
– reliance on three part communication (composer → performer → listener);
– pedagogical interpretation of interactive modes;
– emphasis on the musician’s technical mastery;
– use of classical and original repertoire.
While the first concept has made electronic keyboards widely accessible in amateur music making and popular genres, the second can turn these instruments into worthy successors of their mechanical predecessors, thereby giving new impetus to the development of musical art.
Keywords: electronic keyboard, music education, philharmonic concert, mass culture, academic music.

Krasilnikov I. M.: Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor, Professor of the Department of Pedagogy, V. S. Lednev Institute of Educational Content and Methods, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: krasilnikov.im@instrao.ru

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