Arrangement competences of music teachers : readiness to meet unexpected

The article aims to ground the importance of acquiring arrangement skills by music teachers. Arrangement skills are recognized as important however they are often left without proper attention and specification in music teachers training standards and study programmes. Also abilities to arrange music are most often put together with abilities to compose music, yet it can be suggested that the competences of teachers-composers and teachers-arrangers should be distinguished. Arrangement skills appear especially useful when teachers have to collect the repertoire for the performing groups they work with. Important feature of music teachers' practice is that they face a necessity to arrange music for groups of a non-standard instrumentation. It is especially peculiar for countries without a wide network of school wind bands and orchestras. Lack of knowledge about instruments and absence of arrangement skills prevent teachers from exploiting instrumental resources and expanding the repertoire of their instrumental groups. Training music teachers to arrange for non-standard groups determines the necessity to prepare a special arrangement course for students in higher education institutions.