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Proportional representation of individual activities in education 
What do you like most in music lessons? You can choose from more than one answer 
(question 7)
In view of the activity concept
singing 60,19% 
vocal 
skills
playing musical instruments 
17,88% 
instrumental skills
I can learn new things about music 
13,78%
Listening to music pieces 
30,41% 
listening skills
movement 
9,28% 
musical movement skills

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77
M
USIC
A
CTIVITIES
– T
HEIR
R
EPRESENTATION
IN
THE
E
DUCATIONAL
P
ROCESS
working with computer 
11,56%
something else 
6,83%
From our real life experience we know that singing skills of pupils of the second 
stage of primary schools are quite weak, which is also true about the willingness of 
pupils to sing. Nonetheless, 60,19% of respondents claimed that it is just singing that 
they like most. Also the percentage of children that are attracted by listening is high. 
Acquiring new information about music, working with computers and other activities 
need to be captured in the context with the other activities. 
How much time in a lesson do you usually spend on music activities (singing, playing 
musical instruments, movement)? (question 8)
0-5 minutes 
8,96%
5-10 minutes 
11,58%
15-20 minutes 
23,78%
20-30 minutes 
22,83%
more than 30 minutes 
15,92%
If we compare this with the previous question it is possible to state that the major 
part of a lesson is devoted to activities – vocal, instrumental and musical movement; 
altogether this makes from 15 to more than 30 minutes, it is 66,53%.
Questions regarding listening to the classical and popular music were asked sepa-
rately (in order to fi nd out which type prevails). But, at this place we work with the 
average value, as listening to both types of ‘classical and pop’ music is one and the 
same activity. The majority of children stated that they listen to both classical and pop 
music altogether 0-5 minutes. We think that pupils gave only the length of the music 
extract, and, in many a case, not quite precisely, since the length of listening com-
positions included in the curriculum for the second stage of primary schools extends 
the time limit. But listening activities do not only mean the very act of listening but 
they include all activities related with the music piece that pupils listen to – motiva-
tion, analysis of the composition – learning music expression means, connection with 
playing the Orff instruments, movement etc. Even singing falls within the listening 
activities – as work with folk and artifi cial song. Through them pupils get to know 
basics of music theory which considerably helps to comprehend more complex mu-
sic works. The question if pupils listen more to pop or classical music is a matter of 
which study topics are involved in which grades.

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78
B
LANKA
K
NOPOVÁ
The choice of music works may differ from teacher to teacher, which depends on 
used textbooks and, mainly, on the elaborated ‘school education programme’. But the 
basics of working with a listening piece should remain the same:
– respecting of artistic perspective
– correct methodology procedure, listening needs to be comprehensible in a wider 
context in relation to individual music expression means
– respecting of the ‘adequacy’ principle in terms of content and form
How much time do you spend on listening to the classical – pop music in an average 
lesson? (questions 9 and 10)
classical music 
popular music 
average
0-5 
minutes 50,39% 48,68% 49,53%
5-10 
minutes 
31,82% 25,71% 28,76%
10-15 
minutes 
10,11% 11,37% 10,5%
15-20 
minutes 
4,81% 6,43% 5,5%
20-30 
minutes 
1,66% 3,90% 2,7%
more than 30 minutes 1,22% 
3,90% 
2,5%
There was a control question to the preceding ones:
Which activities prevail in your music lessons? (question 19)
a) learning new things 
44,65%
b) singing 
71,47%
c) dance and movement 
7,97%
d) listening 
45,73%
e) watching music fi lms 
13,78%
f) other 
11,79%
As the offered possibilities of answers do not fully correspond with the previous 
questions, the comparison is not so easy. It is to be found in the following chart:
What you like 
which activities prevail how much time in a lesson you
in your music lessons
spend on music activities
(vocal, 
instrumental, 
movement 
activities)

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79
M
USIC
A
CTIVITIES
– T
HEIR
R
EPRESENTATION
IN
THE
E
DUCATIONAL
P
ROCESS
Vocal activities 
60,19% 
71,47% 
62,53%
Instrumental activities 17,88% 
62,53%
Listening activities 
30,41% 
45,73%
Musical movement 
9,28% 
7,97% 
62,53%
activities
This overview shows that the vocal activities prevail in music lessons (also in 
connection with the instrumental and musical movement activities). The representa-
tion of listening activities is quite high, too. Less attention is paid to instrumental and 
musical movement activities.
In order to make a comparison, I will mention results of the research that I carried 
out in 1989 as part of the candidate dissertation (K
NOPOVÁ
1989). The research invol-
ved 153 schools, 1365 pupils and 125 teachers. Function of one of the questions was 
to fi nd out the representation of individual activities in the process of education. We 
found the following:
a) vocal activities 
57,9%
b) listening activities 
17,5%
c) instrumental activities 
12,9%
d) musical movement activities 
11,7% 
If the representation of individual activities in music lessons after more than 
20 years time is compared, we must state that there has not been any signifi cant shift. 
Vocal activities logically make the core of music education, the representation of 
instrumental and musical movement constituents is comparable, listening activities 
are now more frequent than they were in 1989. (The vocal constituent in connection 
with the other ones is represented in a time range of 20-30 minutes in case of 40% of 
teachers) 
In this paper we have studied only one of many monitored spheres of the exten-
sive research. From this perspective we can conclude that the representation of 
music activities in education corresponds to the activity concept of music education. 
Though, the results which show the indifferent attitude of pupils to the subject of 
music education and the standard of their music education are hardly acceptable for 
music pedagogy.
Summary
The content is focused on the range of the course contents and teaching hours. It 
follows the representation of musical activities in teaching. Data for comparison of 
activities based on research conducted by teachers of the Department of second level 
Primary School.

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80
V
LADIMÍR
R
ICHTER