S2: E54 Three Things I'd like to thank Orff for

Season Two
Episode 54
Three Things I'd like to thank Orff for

Several years ago I was in a teacher slump.  I needed something to re-energize my passion about teaching, to give more purpose to what I was doing, and to simply grow again as an educator.  I was given the opportunity to pursue a levels course and choose whether to take another Kodaly level or try something new so I went for the new and began taking Orff Level I.  I think all of us have that thing that inspires a spark inside of us and reignites our passion for what we do - my Orff Level I course at SMU was that spark for me. And truly changed the trajectory of my teaching.

Carl Orff was an educator in Germany who wanted to merge movement and music together.  He began to create a concept called elemental music and experimented with it. Then Orff met  Dorothee Gunther and they worked together at the Guntherschule teaching college age women. Throughout his time there he tested out his theories about music and movement.  While at the Guntherschule he had a student named Gunild Keetman. She stepped alongside Orff and together they began testing out new instruments (recorders, xylophones) and what could be done with these instruments within ensembles for children.  Students performed on barred instruments and recorders with singing and other percussion for a Bavarian Radio Show in the 1940s. Together Keetman and Orff wrote musical examples into what are known as Music for Children Volumes and other publications to demonstrate what could be done with the instruments.  Their ideas of elemental music using singing, movement, instruments, improvisation,and play developed into what we now call the Orff Approach.

Orff believed that:

1- Music should be learned the same way that language is learned 

2- Rhythm is the most important element of music; it’s what movement, speech, and music all share.  Rhythm brings all of these together to create elemental music

3- The easiest transition for a child is moving from speech to rhythm to song

4- Students’ creativity and their own creation of music is one of the goals of the Orff approach

I really like the definition that Nick Wild, the past president of the Northeast Chapter of AOSA, gives.  If put into once sentence, he describes Elemental music as a pattern-based music built on natural speech and body rhythms, familiar melodic patterns, and simple forms that can be learned, created, understood, and performed without extensive technical or theoretical musical training.

Orff dedicated his life to bringing expression, creation, and experimentation into music education for children.  What we now have as the Orff Approach began with Keetman and Orff, but has been continued to be experimented with as others have taken their ideas and created with these ideas.

I’m going to look at three areas of the approach that have changed my teaching in the classroom.  These three areas are: exploration - improvisation - composition.

EXPLORATION

How many ways can you move your arm?  Your leg? Your body? Can you make sharp motions?  Smooth motions? Strong? Weak? Can you walk slowly?  Quickly?  

Can you sing this song in a quiet voice?  Loud voice, but not shouting?  

Let’s try the song here (starting on a lower pitch).  Let’s try the song singing up higher starting on this pitch (choose a higher pitch).

Students love to explore.  They are curious. They want to test out what they can do and giving them freedom within boundaries gives them the acknowledgement that they can try things without having one expectation of what that will look like.  There isn’t one way to do things - there are many. Students love this. In the book Play, Sing and Dance by Doug Goodkin, he shares that the purpose of movement in the music classroom is to shape the body as an instrument of expression.  

As students grow older, exploring different ways to play a four-beat rhythm or playing a specific rhythm, but creating the melody that goes with that rhythm.  Students can also explore what it sounds like within a pentatonic scale when the home note is Re or So instead of always Do. Experimenting with sound qualities!

I love that exploration can lead to improvisations.  The more comfortable we are in asking guiding questions like ‘what about this…’ or ‘let’s try this and what did you notice,’ the more comfortable students will be in experimenting and exploring without feeling like there’s only one right answer.  That there’s only one way to do things. It allows them to explore sounds, melodies, rhythms, and musical elements.

IMPROVISATION

This can be an area that takes some time to become comfortable in.  I share with students that just like any other skill, improvising is something that should be practiced.  Yes, you’re creating ‘on the spot’ but there are ways to bring comfort into this improvised space.

When improvising there are two key components that have helped me begin.  The first is to start simple.

1 - Start simple

With young students, improvisation can look like changing words to a song.  

Ida Red - great song to create improvisatory verses by changing the color and then finding ways for it to rhyme

Ida Red, Ida green - prettiest girl I’ve ever seen..

http://kodaly.hnu.edu/song.cfm?id=507

For recorders, improvise using only B-A-G

For melodies, sing using only D-R-M

For barred instruments, play in a pentatonic scale

For drumming, provide students with examples of what to play.  This could be done by providing building blocks or selected rhythmic patterns.  Students who are comfortable creating different rhythms other than what is displayed will be more adventurous and students who need something to hold on to will have a starting point so they can feel comfortable in a more familiar space.

The second is to set boundaries.

2 - Set boundaries

To keep improvisations from being too broad or overwhelming for students, give perimeters.  Plus it will be easier for them to create within a structure!

“Using only ta and titi, create a four beat pattern.”  “Using notes B-A-G, play a four beat pattern.”

COMPOSITION

Composition can be built off of improvisations!  Write down what students created and rehearse their creations so that it becomes an original composition.

Again, I believe that composition can thrive under boundaries and small steps.  

Composing melodies

• Pentatonic scales
• Find a short poem to teach and then ask students to create a melody to that poem

Composing rhythmic pieces for drums or percussion or body percussion

• Building blocks
• Topics - leading to word chains

Composing over chord roots

• Could be as simple as a I-V chord structure or intricate using I-IV-V-vi or beyond that
• Playing with roots - moving from steady beat to an ostinato
• Playing with roots and thirds - same process
• Playing with roots and fifths - same process
• Playing with passing and neighboring notes
  
  

http://www.neaosa.org/defining-elemental-music.html