EDUCATION OF STUDENTS’ SPIRITUAL AND MORAL VALUES BY MEANS OF MUSICAL ART L. Auhadeeva 1 , A. Valiahmetova 1 , R. Akhmadullina 1 , T. Pimenova 1 , I. Salpykova 1 , N. Valiakhmetova 1 , A. Aukhadeev 2 1 Kazan Federal University (RUSSIAN FEDERATION) 2 Kazan State Power Engineering University (RUSSIAN FEDERATION) auhadeeva@inbox.ru, valiahmetova-alfiya@mail.ru, akhrimma@mail.ru, pimenova_ts@mail.ru, indimar24@mail.ru, nellyv1975@mail.ru, auhadeev@kgeu.ru Abstract In this study, the pedagogical potential of musical art which contributes to the education of students’ spiritual and moral values as well as students’ inner world and provides the formation of students’ active social position, was examined. The authors made an attempt to prove that the specificity of the perception of the world and the variability of activities, which the art academic subjects can offer, facilitate the education of students’ tolerance, humanity, readiness for mutual cooperation and a sense of human dignity, that is, moral values of students that are considered to be the essential elements of whole-person education. The ultimate goal of musical art is to convey positive spiritual experiences of generations concentrated in musical works. Therefore, while contacting with the contents of music pieces in class, students, through activities, perceive and actualize moral principles, form concepts, and build a paradigm of spiritual and moral values. The Music teacher’s mission is to guide classroom activities so that the spiritual and moral contents of musical works could reach the soul of students. In this paper, a copyright curriculum and teaching methods of musical education in modern school are presented. Music teachers’ professional competency is determined. The principles of personal and activity approaches became the methodological basis of the research. The leading research methods implemented in this study were: psychological and pedagogical sources’ analysis, data compilation, questionnaires, pedagogical experiment. The results, obtained during the experiment, were evaluated by M. Rokeach methodology aiming at the identification of a personality’s moral culture. The test measuring the level of moral education was exploited to evaluate students’ moral and aesthetic appreciation of music pieces. The authors’ research, due to the theoretical and experimental studies, resulted in revealing the pedagogical potential and the effectiveness of means of musical art for educating students’ spiritual and moral values. Keywords: musical art potential, musical education, music teacher, paradigm of spiritual and moral values, personality’s moral culture identification. 1. INTRODUCTION Nowadays the question of spiritual and moral upbringing of schoolchildren is one of the key problems, which faces the school and the state on the whole. The relevance of this problem is related with the fact that the modern socio-cultural situation presents a contradictory picture, which is dominated by negative phenomena and processes. The general state of anomie, predominance of pseudo art and pseudo culture over the real culture, the shifting of students’ interests from socially and morally important areas to the field of leisure and entertainment, the imposition of the cult of consumption and the penetration of product-market relations in all spheres of life form a generation without ideas about higher spiritual values. The deformation of such notions as “good”, “beauty”, “love”, “truth”, “justice” takes place today. All these facts demonstrate the need of strengthening the role of the education of students’ spiritual and moral values. Being the main principle of the state policy, the humanistic character of education in Russia stipulates the priority of the development and formation of a spiritually moral personality of a student. In this process, the major role can be played by music education since spirituality and personal values are formed through the absorption of the musical national and foreign heritage. In this regard, there is a need to improve and update the practice of spiritually moral education of students by searching for new approaches in the educational work of modern schools.