Abstract:

In this paper we present the case of a teacher of a public High School Music sited in a village near Valencia city who, by means of traditional music and instruments, not only proposes that the awareness of musical heritage is a necessary cultural activity but also he uses this heritage as the axis to build his methodology in order to teach a basic musical language.
The career of this teacher goes from a musical training as a wind player – he was an amateur musician in a local band - up to his training as a graduated educator due to his teaching vocation, at the same time that he was part of a pop-rock group as a self-taught guitarist during his training process.

Initially he worked for some years in an adult school, however labor conditions were not good so he prepared and approved the public examinations for the High School in the specialty of music. It was then when he decided to deep into his musical training by studying piano during two years and also harmony and percussion. Teaching in secondary changed his conception of musical education as it required further formation to obtain a wealth of experiences and resources to motivate his teenager students.

His musical curiosity made him to explore and to investigate different traditional music, an educational resource taken from the inherited sense of our ancestors who transmitted old traditions and their knowledge in a ludic way while respecting their customs. Hence his interest in bringing the traditional music to his classroom, as it is a good example of interculturality which gathers all the knowledge that has passed through our land. However he works not only with the “Valencian” folklore but also with other Spanish traditional songs and even with music from European and non-European countries because he affirms that music is a cultural fusion and cannot be understood in a pure state.

In this paper we present the data obtained through a qualitative research, specifically a deep case study about how a teacher implemented the music curriculum in the High School classrooms by an ethnographic observation, in-depth interviews and the analysis of documentary evidence, made with the support of the Vice President of “Research and Science Politic” of the University of Valencia, in order to point out the good practices of the High School music teachers who develop working paths which are recognized by the community of teachers as the best practices that must be documented and implemented as models in various areas of the High School Master in the Art of Music.

Keywords:

Innovation, music, high school, folklore.