Academic Folk Instruments Education: Ukrainian and Western European Practices

The purpose of the article is to analyse the specifics of the formation and current functioning of the academic folk-instrumental educational space in Ukraine compared to neighbouring European countries. Methods. The article’s main methodological principle is the comparative and historical method, which allows comparing the trends in educational processes for folk instruments in Ukraine and Western Europe during the 20th and early 21st centuries. Results. The article outlines universal folk instruments that are prior in the special and higher education of the countries mentioned above. These are accordion (bayan), guitar, tsymbaly, string-plucked instruments of regional character (bandura, domra, kankles, etc.). The author has presented the characteristics of the sequence and specificity of educational processes in academic folk-instrumental art in Ukraine, its main repertoire priorities. The article emphasises the importance of perfection and chromatisation of folk instruments for their introduction into educational processes, competition-festival movement, and the publishing of methodical and educational-didactic literature, forming the sphere of folk-instrumental art for the future. The scientific novelty of the article is the comparative characteristics of the representation of folk instrumental art in Ukraine and European countries on its borders in educational processes, carried out at the levels of analysis of folk instruments (universal and regional, related and unrelated) in programme subject areas