Orff-Schülwerk
(Taken from the American Orff-Schülwerk Association website)

"AOSA supports and promotes Orff Schulwerk as a model for music and movement education in schools in the United States because it offers a potential for active and creative music making by all children, not just the musically talented. This approach to learning, developed by Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman, builds musicianship through singing, playing instruments, speech, and movement. Active music making is the core of this philosophy, supporting both the conceptual and affective development of children. Active learners develop more thorough and better long-term understanding of the material and ideas involved. Children who regularly improvise and create their own dances and musical settings are uniquely prepared to solve problems in many other contexts."


Orff Schulwerk music and movement pedagogy contributes to development of the individual far beyond specific skills and understandings in the arts. These skills and procedures have a wider application and value in several areas:

• Intellectual: The critical-thinking and problem-solving tasks involved in Orff Schulwerk call upon both linear and intuitive intellectual capacities. The carrying out of creative ideas calls upon organizational abilities as well as artistic knowledge and skill.
• Social: Orff Schulwerk is a group model, requiring the cooperative interaction of everyone involved, including the instructor. It is important that artistic development occurs within a satisfying and supportive human environment. Tolerance, helpfulness, patience, and other cooperative attitudes must be cultivated consciously. The ensemble setting requires sensitivity to the total group and awareness of the role of each individual within it. Problem solving, improvisation, and the group composing process provide opportunities for developing leadership.
• Emotional: The artistic media involved—music and movement—provide the individual with avenues for non-verbal expression of emotions. The exploratory and improvisatory activities can provide a focus for emotions, a means for release of tension and frustration, and a vehicle for the enhancement of self-esteem.
• Aesthetic: As knowledge of and skills in music and movement grow, students will have opportunities to develop standards of what is considered “good” within the styles being explored.

The Teaching Process
The prototype of the active music and movement model known as Orff Schulwerk is the spontaneous play of young children in which imitation, experimentation, and personal expression occur naturally and unconsciously. In the Orff Schulwerk process, aspects of play are developed consciously to involve learners with the elements of music and movement.

These categories of activity, through the use of speech, singing, movement, body percussion, and instrumental play, include the following:

• Preliminary Play: Guided experiences in spontaneous exploration of the materials under focus
• Imitation: Accurate replication (echo response of a given pattern)
• Exploration: Guided experiences in applying suggested ideas
• Improvisation: Invention of original material

Integration
Children learn about and interact with the world in a holistic way; educational experiences that replicate this learning style provide natural, optimal learning. Children’s play serves as the prototype—speech, song, movement, dramatic situations, and often instrumental play as well, join and overlap as appropriate. The Orff Schulwerk model maintains the concept of integration, combining music, movement/dance, speech, and drama as natural extensions of each other. The process of integration complements the development of skills in each area, stimulates creative imagination, and offers an opportunity for individual strengths to be used and recognized. Integration of these areas results in a unique, elemental synthesis of the performing arts.


Music Literacy
In the Orff Schulwerk approach, learning music by rote processes is considered valid in its own right. Learning to read music notation is seen as a logical extension of being able to make music. No particular method of teaching music reading is recommended. In the United States, moveable do with tonic sol-fa and the Curwen hand signs have come to be used frequently for vocal development. Letter names must certainly be employed in playing the barred instruments and recorder. Experimental graphic notation, hand levels, the hand staff, scale numbers, rhythm syllables—all these and more—have been used effectively in developing literacy skills; different situations will call for different means. The guiding principles are that notation and reading be built on known musical materials and that sound precede symbol.

The purpose of Orff Schulwerk is to awaken the artistic potential in every individual and offer a context in which this can be exercised. The Orff Schulwerk approach as a model for learning involves a much broader spectrum of artistic activity than is traditionally included in music. It is “never music alone but forms a unity with movement dance and speech.”1 It is not intended to develop highly accomplished performers. The emphasis is on process rather than performance; on participation by all, each at his or her own level; and on the cultivation of skills for creating and developing ideas within music and dance rather than reproducing set forms. Learning results from the mutually stimulating interaction of instructor and students, the freedom and opportunity to take risks, and the accomplishment of creative tasks appropriate to each stage of development.

1Carl Orff, “Orff-Schulwerk: Past and Future,” in Orff Re-Echoes, ed. Isabel McNeill Carley (Cleveland, OH: American Orff-Schulwerk Association, 1977), 6.


Performance
Though preparing music and movement material for presentation to an audience is not a primary focus of the Orff Schulwerk approach, the value of performance is recognized. As discussed above, the process of learning, developing, and creating material is foremost; however, the opportunity to refine and share this material can be highly motivating. It can also generate higher levels of skill development and lead to individual and group satisfaction and pride.

The Kodály Concept
(Taken from the Organization of American Kodály Educators website)

• Is a philosophy of education and a concept of teaching.
• Is a comprehensive program to train basic musical skills and teach the reading and writing of music.
• Is an integration of many of the best ideas, techniques, and approaches to music education.
• Is an experience-based approach to teaching.

Singing

• We should first learn to love music as human sound and as an experience that enriches life.
• The voice is the most natural instrument and one which every person possesses.
• Kodály called singing "the essence" of this concept.
• Singing is a powerful means of musical expression.
• What we produce by ourselves is better learned; and there is a stronger feeling of success and accomplishment.
• Learning through singing should precede instrumental training.
• It is in the child's best interest to understand the basics of reading music before beginning the difficult task of learning the technique of an instrument.
• What do we sing?
  • Folk songs and games of the American Culture
  • Traditional children's songs and games
  • Folk songs of other cultures
  • Music of the masters from all ages
  • Pedagogical exercises written by master composers
• Singing best develops the inner, musical ear.

"If we ourselves sing often, this provides a deep experience of happiness in music. Through our own musical activities, we learn to know the pulsation, rhythm, and shape of melody. The enjoyment given encourages the study of instruments and the listening to other pieces of music as well." (Kodály, 1964)


Folk Music

• Folk music is the music of the people. There can be no better material for singing than the songs and games used by children for centuries.
• Folk Music has all the basic characteristics needed to teach the foundations of music and to develop a love of music - a love that will last a life time.
• Folk music is the classical music of the people, and, as such, is a perfect bridge leading to and working hand-in-hand with-art music.

"The compositions of every country, if original, are based on the songs of its own people. That is why their folk songs must be constantly sung, observed, and studied." (Kodály, 1964)


Solfège

• Solfège is the best tool for developing the inner ear.
• It is an invaluable aid in building all musical skills:
  • Sight singing
  • Dictation
  • Ear training
  • Part hearing
  • Hearing and singing harmony
  • Perceiving form
  • Developing memory
• The moveable do system, highly developed in English choral training, was advocated by Kodály as a tool for teaching musical literacy.
• Use of the pentatone (do, re, me, sol, la) was recommended by Kodály for early training of children because of its predominance in their folk music.

Music and Quality

• We believe that music enhances the quality of life. So that it may have the impact it deserves, only the best music should be used for teaching:
  • Folk music, which is the most representative of the culture
  • The best music composed by the masters
• Quality music demands quality teaching:
  • Teachers need to be as well-trained as possible
  • Teachers' training must be well-rounded
  • Teachers need to develop their musical and vocal skills to the highest degree possible

"The pure soul of the child must be considered sacred; what we implant there must stand every test, and if we plant anything bad, we poison his soul for life." (Selected Writings, p. 141)


Development of the Complete Musician

• Kodály training is a complete and comprehensive approach to music education which meets the National Standards for Arts Education as published by MENC, © 1994.
• The development of all skill areas begins very early with simple tasks required of all the students. As knowledge grows, skills are developed further in a sequential manner.
• In addition to music reading and writing which are begun at an early stage, the following skill areas are also developed: part-singing, part-hearing, improvisation, intonation, listening, memory, phrasing and understanding of form.
• An awareness and knowledge of musical styles develops as skills become more proficient.

"The good musician understands the music without a score as well and understands the score without the music. The ear should not need the eye nor the eye the (outer) ear." (Kodály quoting Schumann: Selected Writings, p. 192)

Sequencing

• Presentation of materials, concepts, and development of skills can be done in a meaningful way only if the curriculum is well sequenced.
• A carefully planned sequence, well taught, will result in successful experiences for children and teacher. Success breeds success - and fosters a love of music.
• A Kodály sequenced curriculum is an experience-based approach to learning rather than a cognitive developmental approach.

"Music must not be approached from its intellectual, rational side, nor should it be conveyed to the child as a system of algebraic symbols, or as a secret writing of a language with which he has no connection. The way should be paved for direct intuition." (Selected Writings, p. 120)