Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Monday, September 6, 2010

Talking about approaches to teaching elementary music can sometimes resemble a discussion about religion! My purpose here is to share a way that's worked for me and not to bash another approach. In fairness, here's an email I recently received. Elementary music teaching is a big world. Orff-Schulwerk is the area I'm exploring, but it's not the only part of the universe. Dive in. The water's fine. Here's an email comment...

Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Monday, July 19, 2010

Curwen hand signs and Kodaly's rhythm syllables are not part of Orff-Schulwerk, though I've seen some Orff instructors use both. In theory I'm opposed to using both, especially at the K-1 level. K-1 children are concrete thinkers. Give them something real and not something abstract such as a TA. They wouldn't recognize a TA if it walked up and tapped them on the arm. They would recognize a peach or a bee. If the goal is tea...

Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Friday, July 16, 2010

I took a slight detour in my personal study today. I picked up a book that was a freebie in a box of teacher materials. It was The Kodaly Method by Lois Choksy. Her report of music in Hungary in the early 70's was fascinating. If only my classes met 5 to 6 times each a week. She believes that we can get a somewhat similar result by teaching a modified version of the Hungarian curriculum, using American folk songs as the bas...