The present-day independent Republics of Croatia and Slovenia went through a number of changes and different socio-political systems in the 20th century. At the beginning of the previous century they were parts of Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy, then of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (the Kingdom of Yugoslavia), and after World War II they were parts of the socialist Yugoslavia. The most recent and very significant change occurred at the beginning of the 1990s, when Croatia and Slovenia became independent republics through democratic processes. All those social changes resulted with deep changes in education and, therefore, in music teaching, the subject of this paper. It is interesting to observe the manner in which the music-pedagogical profession coped with those changes and how much it succeeded in the improvement of music teaching in those respective periods. Since the beginning of the 20th century and in the period between the two world wars, a modest advancement or even stagnation in music pedagogy is noted. After World War II, however, conditions were created that lead to a significant improvement of the profession. The period from the republics’ independence until the present-day still waits for a thorough evaluation.

Social changes inevitably influence the development of education and, therefore, music teaching. As a rule, the ruling structures do not determine aims and objectives of music teaching, but create the environment in which those aims are determined. Each of the periods analysed in this paper brings new conditions that significantly influence the changes in music teaching.