11 minute read
Introducing the Kodaly Approach
Jimmy Rotheram
The Kodály Approach is in many ways traditional - often teacher-led, knowledge rich (at least procedurally), at times formal, as you would suspect from an approach which Kodály started to form nearly 100 years ago. However, at other times the approach is very progressive, based as it is on inclusivity, play and being very conscious of holistic child development. A Montessori teacher may use the tools and sequencing in a very different way to an educator of a more Govian disposition, but their Kodály practice will share common elements.
How far down the rabbit hole you want to go is up to you. Whether you’ re a deep diver who studies precise methodology for a decade in Hungary or someone who dips their toes in more casually and goes to the odd course, there are some very useful tools and strategies from the Kodály Approach which you can start to use straight away. Many principles are shared by other effective approaches to early music education, such as Orff Schulewerk and Dalcroze.
There is a world of several lifetimes of learning out there, but here is a quick run down of some of the fundamentals of the Kodály Approach.
Learning through play
Playful learning is at the heart of all good early music programmes. Kodály said that music education should always be joyful and “never a torture”.
Many of us have probably had music education experiences where a teacher will tell us to try something again and again as our boredom and frustration increases. Play based learning reverses this - the children want to play again and again long after the principle you were teaching has been mastered. Play can be free and child led, or very structured, for example using movements to reinforce understanding of pitch relations or to practice a particular rhythm. In this way, understanding music theory is fun, and based on concrete experience. Additionally if children are focused on a game, they are not self-conscious about singing whilst they play, leading to a good natural singing style.
Prepare, present practice
For me , “The 3 ps” are the most powerful element of the Approach for ensuring deep learning and understanding of concepts through sequential, scaffolded learning. It can also be applied to learning concepts in other subjects. The preparation stage can often be missing from musical learning. The preparation stage is experiential and based on the familiar. A new element will then be added to those that children are already comfortable with. Children will absorb the new concept unconsciously, and already have a good practical understanding in the concrete world of experience before the unfamiliar, absract, theoretical conceptualisation is attempted. For example, in teaching semiquavers over several weeks they would hear, play games, move to and learn songs with semiquavers without naming or seeing them (rote learning). They would possibly recognise that there is a new rhythm and it that it is different to the quavers and crotchets they are familiar with.
In the second, presentation stage, We would then add the rhythm syllable (tikatika), then a simplified version of what they look like notated (stick notation). We can then start reading the symbol as a “tikatika” (of use alternative syllables e.g. Takadimi), which we already know the sound of with familiarity. The practising stage, or course, lasts for a lifetime musicians of all levels practice semiquavers. Over time they will learn to read the above with pitch information attached, on a stave, with other rhythms, and so on.
That example takes several weeks, but we can also use the three ‘ p ’s in the short term. A warm up activity could prepare the rhythmic elements of the song you are going to sing next. A later song might reinforce these rhythms. They can also overlap, so can be juggling several concepts in different stages of the learning process. It can lead to some satisfyingly joined-up lesson and curriculum planning.
Sound before Symbol
In keeping with the “three ‘ p ’ s” principle, any aspect of musical notation must come after children have experienced and internalised the sound best example of this principle can be shown if I try to verbally and graphically explain to you how dotted crotchets, syncopation and compound time work, before you had even heard a musical example of them, and were able to internalise and reproduce that sound. Many would struggle to understand the abstract symbols of notation if they have no aural context..
Age/Developmentally appropriate materials
Can all the children in your class comfortably sing a song at the pitch on a recording or from your demonstration? Nursery rhymes in particular can be very difficult for nursery aged children to sing as they can be musically complex and with a range that children find impossible to sing. Songs that children can easily sing with accuracy will get better results for tuneful singing and understanding music. There are plenty of songs in the folk traditions of children’s singing from many cultures which form the basis of the Kodaly Approach.
Start as early as possible.
Many people say music education begins in the womb. Kodály went further, saying it began “9 months before the birth of the mother” - as the mother is the first music teacher of the child (whether they think they are or not), her musical experiences are the starting point. Also, children will come to school with songs and musical experiences that they have had at home, and if they are appropriate, these can be a rich source of fertile soil in which to start growing musical lives.
Singing should be central to musical development and precede instrumental work
Zoltan Kodály said “Nobody can play well if he does not feel and know where the essence of the melody is, and if he cannot bring it to life with his voice... To teach... an instrument without first... developing singing... is to build upon sand”. Singing helps to internalise musical understanding of pitch, and movement (especially, in my opinion, if combined with Dalcroze Eurhythmics) helps to internalise the concepts of rhythm, pulse and tempo)
Inner Hearing
Inner HearingAlso known as “inner thinking”, “audiation” and “thinking voice”, internalising and imagining the sound is as vital a component of Kodály musicianship.
Only the best is good enough for a child
People often regret not learning an instrument. We have a moral duty to ensure children receive a thorough musical education. Whatever your thoughts on private education, over 50% of fee-paying schools have dedicated concert halls and take children’s progress in music and the arts very seriously. Why should an education rich in the arts be the preserve of the wealthy and the aspirational middle classes? From classical times to Einstein, great thinkers have advocated for music to be an essential at the heart of any education system. Our current system does not provide this for all children. It’s too easy for schools to brush musical learning under the carpet, but to be fair to them they often feel under systemic pressure to do so. However, all the arts rich schools mentioned in the Arts Council’ s report have excellent academic standards benefitting a wide cross-section of society, so cutting the arts for core subjects is a fallacy.
Tools for a better understanding of music
Relative Solfa makes both playing by ear and understanding the functional music theory side of things SO much easier, and when combined with hand signs for each note, can link the aural to the visual in a scaffolded way which makes reading music easy. Unlike a fixed -do system where notes are given letter names A-G or where do is always C, relative solfa sees the root of major key pieces as always being ‘do’ - the second is re.
Musical snacks
Finally the songs and games are often quite short, and the classroom teacher can pull them out at any point during the day when the class needs livening up, calming down or even when they need to revise times tables or phonics. See them as little snacks of learning you can eat between meals.
Feversham headteacher Mr Idrees is enthusiastic about the approach being used as a core part of overall learning, and to also support the wider curriculum.
Criticisms of the Approach
“Methodolatry” is a portmanteau term which fuses the words “methodology” and “idolatry”. It’s defined by Collins Dictionary as “Worship of a method that employs it uncritically regardless of everchanging particulars and steadfastly ignoring past negative results.” Critics of Kodály point to the limitations of adhering to a strict method, which takes children down a chosen musical path of Western Classical music, uses children’s folk songs no longer sung by children, and is sometimes seen to potentially limit children’s musical experiences. The religiosity of some adherents is not helped by talk of “revelations” when undertaking the training, nor by talk of Kodály’ s “disciples” and their “evangelism”. When such methodology helps the children to enjoy music more, learn to read and write notation, learn to develop their musical ear and memory, and play close heed to their developmental needs, it is easy to become swept up in “methodolatry”.
However, like religions, it’s open to different interpretations and changing conditions. What did Kodály mean by “only the best is good enough for a child and “high quality”. Did he mean only Western Classical music is good enough for a child, or only the best teaching? What would Kodály’ s thoughts on the importance of the mother tongue be if he were teaching a very multicultural cohort rather than Hungarian children necessarily sharing a commonly familiar repertoire and similar home lives. Do we base repertoire on what is familiar to the child, or what is familiar to Kodály teachers? Would Kodály now see advertising jingles and computer game music as more familiar starting points than playground games which most children don’t get to do as much these days? Does the Super Mario Brothers now count as a “folk” tune?I think these are important questions to ask, and there are many different answers. This is part of the fun.
Some people will become scholars and priests of the church, others will become apostates or form splinter groups. Personally, I’m the sort of person who cherry-picks. I can learn about expressive improvisations and embodied cognition from the Dalcroze Approach and incorporate more of that. I can steal ideas about instrument work and composition from Orff practitioners. I can put the blues scale into my sequence and branch off into jazz. Why not?
We need our undbending keepers of the faith but we also need our innovators, our frontier folk. We need to keep the integrity of approaches, and conversely we need our innovators who shake it up and learn from adaptations and other approaches.
In the same way, I can adapt the repertoire to not use songs with offensive or racist lyrics (many of which exist in the historic Kodály repertoire which practitioners need to be aware of.) I can start with “m r d” rather than so/ mi if I want a less childish starting point for older beginners or if children have a recorder or trumpet unit next term. I can do musical storytelling and dancing (which aren’t excluded from the Kodály approach but not necessarily an integral part of it).
Another criticism is that children do not learn in a linear way, or all develop at the same speed. However, I don’t see this as an issue. Firstly, an approach does not necessarily define a whole music curriculum or programme. A good programme can provide linear certainty for all children, and at the same time provide the space for exploratory musical learning, or for developing skills beyond where the class is up to in the programme. There are no limits to what a creative teacher can include in a programme or a lesson, but sequenced learning can provide a good structure to pin everything on, This is another argument for giving enough time to music education, so that it can be truly “broad and balanced”. The approach was always meant to be flexible and adaptable to the needs of the specific children we teach rather than a set-in-stone method. Some may disagree. The important thing is that we value music as an integral part of every child’s education and develop our practice using the best approaches and tools available to us. This is how the approach was developed by Kodály, his colleagues and the next generations - it was never one man dictating how music should be, but rather the act of taking good practice and adapting to new knowledge and understandings. It’s the reason so mi became the starting point, based on knowledge of verbal communication and child development, rather than the subject centred logic of starting with do re mi. But you can start with do re mi if you want.
Evolving approaches
I now use a range of approaches but Kodály Approach makes the great spine of my chimerical beast. Thanks to my Kodály training, I will always prepare, present, practice, I will always teach using play as a learning tool, I will scaffold learning from the simple to the complex over time. I will repeat the mantras that music is for absolutely everyone and should never be a torturous experience. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use Orff activities or Dalcroze improvisation, jazz experiments or child-led project work.
