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poeticity and comprehensible tune make folk song a meaningful tool in the education 
of the national youth.’ (K
OZEL
1914: 21) In chapter ‘On aesthetic education’ he claims 
the following: ‘The goal of education is a purposeful and thought-out development 
of both physical and mental capabilities of a pupil. In the mental sphere, not only 
brain exercising and directing to good values is needed, but also educating of emo-
tions, these mighty motives of pursuit, from which one’s acts shall shine one day.’ 
(1914:23).
Josef Křička and Eduard Novák (1936: 8) perceive the qualities and signifi cance 
of folk repertoire as follows: ‘A lot of folk songs let us take a look not only at place, 
but also at time of their origination. Time of our ancestors passed in a much slower 
pace and there were more opportunities for singing than now. Our times, the hectic 
period of advance, makes us busy all the time and does not suitable atmosphere for 
originating new folk songs. Let’s preserve the beauty of national songs, cherish and 
sing them, since our ancestors’ souls speak to us through them, no matter how ver-

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UESTIONS
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OCAL
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EPERTOIRE
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USIC
E
DUCATION
bally and musically simple they are.’ Though, let’s stop giving concrete quotations 
and say that the link between the start and end of the thoughts of nearly all authors of 
music educational texts written in Czech literature till now, is the intended pointing 
out to these facts: 
1. the basic music material for vocal education and related intonation activities 
is a folk song,
2.
insuffi cient number of music lessons and different standards at different sta-
ges of education and types of school,
3. aesthetic educational pursuits shifted to the emotional, intellectual, moral, 
patriotic and other meanings,
4. necessity for though-out systematic approach to music educational activity.
Framework Education Programme for Primary Education really does not come 
with any revolution changes to the sphere of Arts and Culture education, when it says 
on page 57: ‘Vocal activities include working with voice, during which singing and 
spoken expressions are cultivated by means of the application and reinforcement of 
proper singing habits’. If the detailed description involves breath control, articulati-
on, pitching and creating a tone, dynamically differentiated singing among the vocal 
skills, if the effects of voice hygiene and expanding one’s vocal range are considered, 
is must be evident to a teacher with an average erudition in the vocal skills that mee-
ting the objectives is only possible through the vocal presentation of folk songs of 
adequate parameters in all relevant categories. The absolutely fundamental position 
of a folk song in the general vocal education (as well as in the fi rst stages of educating 
professional performers) is given by the music qualities that suit the physiological 
development of the vocal apparatus, which is a fact that does not change in time. The 
gradual alienation of folk lyrics from the present life reality is evident; they become 
a matter of more general meaning and message. As ensues from one of the above 
quoted citation, this phenomenon is not new either. All the given statements shall be 
understood as a fully positive defence of the presence of folk song in education.
Another topic, whose meaning in life of the young generation is gaining on im-
portance in view of music education, is the popularity of modern pop genres. Neither 
this topic, which has been recently expanding into the sociological sphere, is a new 
phenomenon. The following appeal was published as early as 1933 in the magazine 
Hudební národ (The Music Nation) in an article called Let’s cultivate music and 
singing: ‘It is up to you, the young generation, to fi ght against worthless ‘hits’ and to 
replace them with a beautiful folk song.’ (C
ENEK
1933: 151). Similarly, e.g. F. Lýsek 
warned against the ‘hit’ danger. The approach to the implementation of so called non-
classical genres in music education is open nowadays again. Songbooks and music 
textbooks include songs that are found popular and suitable for work with pupils only 
by the generation of the books’ authors, but pupils will not see any substantial dif-
ference between the works of Jaroslav Ježek, Jiří Šlitr or Beatles, all of that is music 

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ICHTER
of the past to them. So the vocal education needs to solve the following disharmony 
between the selection criteria of a suitable repertoire: while for pupils, the primary 
motivation lies in the contemporary popularity of performers, or sometimes a longer 
popularity of evergreens, the teacher should take into account not only the content 
aspect, but also its vocal suitability of the music structure. The defence of the teach-
er’s choice is not easy: the given aspects are many a time in a complete disharmony. 
Here we can apply the thesis about the predomination of non-artistic (non-music) 
features in functioning of the sphere of show business production. In relation to this, 
it is noticeable that capturing of the wide range of works that would be popular with 
children could really be a quantitavely unreal task to teachers.
If we accept the overall conservative music-educational standpoints formulated 
above, we need to raise a question of whether and how the ideas are accepted in real 
time and real school environment. In the assessment of the state, we need to bear in 
mind the close relations with vocal educational or singing topics. The foundations 
that we consider important include:
1. music activities remain the main content of music lessons,
2. teachers regard folk music as the most frequent genre,
3. 98,52% of respondents among teachers believe that folk songs are a suitable