Kodály’s Legacy: The Power of one – The Power of a Few – The Power of Many by Dr. Jerry-Louis Jaccard

Keynote speech given at the 2005 IKS Symposum

Welcome to the other G-8 Summit! We are here to discuss Music, which for the cultural anthropologist, Claude Lévi-Strauss, was “the supreme mystery of human knowledge. All other branches of knowledge stumble into it; it holds the key to their progress” (Claude Lévi-Strauss quoted by Gardner, 1982, 91). This suggests to me that if we could get the music part of our world right, then we could probably easily get the peace part right. We, as humble musician-teachers, are the peacemakers of our world.

Have not you been on the school playground lately? Have not you reached out and helped two belligerent little boys put their world back right again? And did you not bring them together to unite in singing something beautiful in music class? Are not many nations of our world behaving like such boys on the playground who need the softening effect of sweet music in their hearts? So here we are gathered together in perhaps one of the most important international meetings of the world in order to discuss how to unify mankind through something beautiful called music. We are asking the leaders and followers of the world – if only they were listening! – to join us in an exploration of the supreme mystery of music. United in such a cause, there could only be peace, for that mystery will keep us all so busy that we won’t have time to fight! As our friend and colleague, László Dobszay, has reminded us, music is a mirror of the order of the Universe that “reflects order” and “creates order” within us (1992, p. 83). And, from Zoltán Kodály, “Souls cannot be reshaped by administration. But souls reshaped by beauty and knowledge are easy to administer” (Kodály, in Bónis, 1964, 147). You can see how we already have some concrete solutions for what is troubling the world.

We are gathered in this hall today most likely because we have personally benefited from the gifts of one the great minds and souls in the history of music, Zoltán Kodály. His legacy to us is constructed upon five pillars:

  1. A vision of the role of music for the individual, society and the world
  2. The heartfelt belief that music is for everyone
  3. The relentless quest for musical literature of enduring value
  4. A nationwide example of Music for Everyone in action
  5. His example of personal integrity

Kodály was indeed a remarkable individual – the power of one – whose lifework continues to motivate us. The inheritance we have accepted from him is a work yet unfinished. We are the power of a few through whose hands his work is being continued. That is the raison d’être of this Society. My presentation today intends to explore how the strength of these pillars continues to increase with the passage of time. I declare today that we are standing on a firm foundation, we are not alone in our position, and our cause is just. “We are standing on the threshold of a new era, in which music will play a greater part than ever before” (Kodály in Ádám, 1944, 1971, p. vii).

A Comprehensive Musical Vision…

We live in the fickle Age of Possession, where price is confused with value, outward appearance is judged instead of interior depth, immediate gratification is substituted for lasting rewards, and a fulfilled life is equated with having lots of things. How slow we moderns are to remember lessons understood millennia ago. When his grieving people built Beowulf’s memorial mound, they wisely decided to bury out of sight and out of mind the hoard of gold he had wrested from Grendel, the dragon:

Into the hill then did they the rings and bright sungems

And all such adornments as in the hoard there

The war-minded men had taken e’en now;

Beowulf’s treasures let they the earth to be holding,

Gold in the grit, wherein yet it liveth,

As useless to men as e’er it first was

Unlike gold, genuine music cannot be possessed as a material commodity. It is to be lived and enjoyed as a condition of the human spirit. And that is why there is such a tension between what we are trying to share and the world’s general disinterest in it or commercial corruption of it. We live in a world that has forgotten how to live a musical life.

The cause is confusion about what constitutes lasting value. Kodály proclaimed: “Powerful sources of spiritual enrichment spring from music. We must spare no effort to have them opened for as many as possible” (in Bónis, 1964, p. 120) and “Music is not a recreation for the elite, but a source of spiritual strength which all cultured people should endeavour to turn into public property” (in Szabó, 1969, p. 4).

We almost daily confront those who would like to see music disappear from the curriculum. According to Alfred North Whitehead, the attempt to develop barebones intellectuality by economizing the curriculum only results in “a large crop of failure” (Whitehead, 1929, 1957, p. 40). He sees this happening because “you cannot, without loss, ignore in the life of the spirit so great a factor as art” (Ibid). For Whitehead, “the claim for freedom in education carries with it the corollary that the development of the whole personality must be attended to” (Ibid). Without undue outlay for material resources it would not be difficult to ensure that our schools “produce a population with some love of music, some enjoyment of drama, and some joy in beauty of form and colour” in their general life (Ibid, p. 41). Otherwise, ” …our concentration o¬n technology threatens to push to the periphery of education those aspects which nurture the feelings and the spirit…” (Dobbs in Bachmann, 1991, v).

Along those same lines, Keith Swanwick said “This is where the ultimate value of music lies. It is uncommon sense, a celebration of imagination and intellect interacting together in acts of sustained playfulness, a space where feeling is given form, where romantic and classical attitudes, intuition and analysis meet; valued knowledge indeed” (1994, p. 40)

“Of what value is imagination?” micromanagers might ask. The answer came from the American 9/11 Commission after three years of investigating how the U.S. intelligence services could have missed the possibility of such an attack: “This was…  above all, a failure of imagination” (MSNBC, 2004, npn). Make no mistake; their report was not about placing blame but about fixing a societal problem, the inability to think in many directions at once, to foresee consequences, to follow a theme to its ultimate cadence. Who knows but what some well-taught sol-fa lessons on the Art of the Fugue could rectify that weakness! “Man without music is not complete, but only a fragment of a person” (Kodály, 1966, p. 74).

Music is for Everyone!

Kodály made it clear that “Music must not be the exclusive property of the few, but should be accessible to everyone. This is the supreme idea, which, for several decades, many of us have tried to find ways and means to put into practice. This we have tried to do through children” (Szabó, 1969, p. 4). And, “every sound child with good eyes and ears is able to learn music and should learn music. The ancient Greeks made us believe that” (in Herboly-Kocsár, 2002, p. 3). These were bold declarations in their day and it is now very gratifying to observe how recent discoveries continue to verify and uphold them.

Educational psychology has shifted to a more constructive, developmental view of individual musical capacities that support Kodály’s implication that all people are naturally predisposed to music. For example, Frederick Turner reports how “Behaviorism as a tenable explanation of human psychology has completely collapsed; human beings do appear to have a nature after all. Studies of newborns show that we come into the world with a formidable array of predispositions” (1995, p. 20). Moreover, those predispositions include music.

[C]ross-cultural and neuropsychological studies of the arts reveal that the classical genres of the arts – pictorial representation, musical scale and tonality, poetic meter, narrative, and so on – are built into our makeup as human beings and cannot be lightly ignored by a culture without damage to its young and a loss of meaning and value for its adults. A natural classicism is emerging, which implies greater canons of value in the arts” (1995, pp. 20–21)

Kodály’s colleague, Hungarian piano pedagogue Erna Czövek, wrote that “…Virtually everyone can be useful in some capacity in the field of music, it is a matter of finding where…  one must know the music, know the pupil, and work towards and coordinate the essence of each” (1979, p. 90). The answers are in the student, the teacher and the music, or, as Howard W. Hunter reminds us: “’The learning process lies within.’ Five little words. Learning is a drawing-out, not a pouring-in process. The word ‘education’ has its roots in the Latin word educere – to draw out” (in Wadhams, 1986, p. 9).

Others, too, have determined that musicality is a universal human trait. Psychologist Helmut Moog defined musicality as the “ability to experience music… not a ‘special ability’ but… the application of general abilities to music” (1976, p. 45). Victor Zuckerkandl elaborated on this theme:

[M]usicality is not the property of individuals but an essential attribute of the human species. The implication is not that some …  are musical while others are not…  [M]usicality is not something one may or may not have, but something that …  is constitutive of man…  Music is the concern of all, not of a privileged elite, and if musicality represents an asset, it is not the prerogative of a chosen few, but an endowment of man as man (1973, pp. 7–8).

You can see that the power of one has indeed become the power of a few as Kodály’s singular voice has been joined by other great ones. The conclusion can only be as Kodály stated:

Outstanding talents will always be rare, and the future of a musical culture cannot be based o¬n them. People of good average abilities must also be adequately educated, for in the near future we must lead millions to music, and to this end we shall need hundreds if not thousands of good musicians and teachers (in Szabó, 1969, p. 33).

Musical Literature of Enduring Value…

Kodály’s mandate for the education of musical taste and the discernment between good and bad music flies in the face of today’s anchorless moral relativism. It is not a popular stance to take. Throughout history, popularity has rarely had anything to do with rightness. As the folk proverb goes: “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, ” especially where such great laws as govern musical taste are in effect. These great laws are the grand themes of Kodály’s lifework: “Feeding on art results in spiritual health. Those who develop a taste for what is good at an early age will become resistant later to what is bad” (Szabó, 1969, p.4). “The elementary schools will fulfill their purpose when they teach not only how to read but also how to distinguish between good music and bad music” (in Herboly-Koscár, p. 79). “Perfect morality always projects true art, while the cult of trash is always an indication of moral unrest” (p. 81). “Strictly speaking there are only two kinds of music: good and bad” (p. 87).

There are many musical trends and voices in the world around us. We must be careful not to back the wrong horse where there is so much at stake for our young ones. Frederick Turner wrote “One of the fundamental assumptions of avant-garde art is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” This is a denial of “the classical position, that beauty is a reality in itself” (1995, p. 16). It is also a denial of spiritual values, for “The way that art changes society is through hope …  [H]ope uplifts us. Hope involves an imaginative estimate of possibility, an intellectual leap into the future” (pp. 28–29). Curiously, that future leap is anchored in the past, for the original music of society is folksong. “Folkmusic is not a class art. As into a reservoir, many springs have flowed into it during the course of centuries. There is no layer of humanity, no experience, which has not left its trace in it. It is the mirror of the people’s soul” (Kodály in Vikár, 1969, 5).

I never thought I would see the day when a pop star would reinforce our cause, but while waiting to see the dentist one day, I read an astonishing article in a magazine. The singer Natalie Merchant, in describing her new CD release The House Carpenter’s Daughter, told of her discovery of traditional music and its influence on her new CD:

“I had been doing research through the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts [at Lincoln Center], and I’d listened to a lot of old field recordings. I also took a course in American folk music… People have told me, ‘I don’t know this music but I feel like I do and I feel like I should.’ This is the foundation of the music we listen to today and we’re drifting further away from it…” (2003, p. 10).

Whitehead stated another great law of learning related to values inherent in the microcosm of folksong: “The best education is to be found in gaining the utmost information from the simplest apparatus… ” (1929, 1957, pp. 9–10). Kodály applied that law in this way: “Logical teaching methods demand that we should start from what is simple and proceed towards what is complex…  Our ear must first get accustomed to simple musical experiences before it can pursue more intricate forms (in Szabó, 1969, p. 5). It is easy to recognize how completely folksong fulfils these requirements. The “simplicity” of folksong makes a direct connection to the “complexity” of masterworks in three ways: 1) “A good folk song is a perfect masterpiece in itself” (in Herboly-Koscár, 2002, p. 23); 2) Folk music and art music are not “two different businesses; during the whole history of music, they never missed finding each other’s voice” (VIkár, 1993, p. 4); and 3) “[M]usic history and folk music are such twins that they really belong together [and] complete each other. All research into music history sources end up in folk music, and all the peculiar national styles can be traced back to folk music” (Vikár, 1969, p.5) or, as Kodály said it, “The national musical culture of every people rests on a healthy relationship between folk music and composed music” (Kodály in Bónis, 1974, p. 222, edited for clarity).

I have come to understand another reason why folksong and its companion customs, celebrations, rituals, dances and games are so important to education. They simply constitute the natural way human beings make and learn music! They are the genuine product of mankind making music intuitively. How was that astounding Old English epic, Beowulf, handed down to us? All three thousand one hundred and eighty-two lines of it were handed down for centuries by oral transmission before ever being written down. Like all other epic poetry, they were most likely sung and danced, if the great linguist, Edouard Sievers, was correct (1912, p. 36). Neuroscience is discovering why we tend to make music, meter and rhyme out of everything, because we all seem compelled by “the deepest tendency or theme of the universe,” including “complexity within simplicity,” “rhythmicity,” and “hierarchical organization” (Turner, 1995, pp. 218–219).

However, the most compelling argument for seeking out the very best music of our civilization is because of the lasting impression it makes deep within the individual, especially during the impressionable years we call childhood. An experience of Gustav Eckstein’s, a renowned animal physiologist at the University of Cincinnati, illustrates this point. He had spent eleven years researching the relationships and behaviors of a family of canaries through several generations of their existence. The birds were so accustomed to him that they were not kept in cages, but allowed to fly free in his laboratory. Dr. Eckstein loved music and often listened to symphony broadcasts o¬n the laboratory radio or played the piano in his laboratory, both to which the canaries would enthusiastically sing along in their own way. He also noticed how the canaries had developed a habit of poking seeds through holes in the window screen to feed sparrows on the outside. This caused Eckstein himself to fall into the bad practice of opening the screen once a day to throw out leftover birdseed to the waiting sparrows. He later wrote “I was aware of the danger, because you could see how the canaries were getting interested in being out there with the sparrows.” one night, someone left the screen completely open and almost all of the canaries flew out. “What was I to do?” wrote Eckstein. “At least it seemed good sense to start playing the piano, and this I did.” At first, nothing happened. on the second day, he noticed that the canaries were coming nearer. Eventually, the oldest male canary flew in and began singing “as if to burst his throat” after which all but one of the others came back inside. This was no easy feat, for in order to come back into the laboratory, the canaries had to pass through the sparrow’s territory, “and that took great courage” (Eckstein, 1942, pp. 31–33). I find this to be a powerful metaphor for why we want our children to learn the best music of our civilization, to take the high road of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. We cannot control all of the musical input into a child’s life, but we can make sure they are regularly instructed so that their view is of the highest peaks of the art; we have to give them something to come back to even if they are temporarily enticed away by socially “in” music or succumb to the fickle trendiness of those who profit from it. Another proverb: “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”

A Nationwide Example of “Music for Everyone!”
Let us first set the record straight about what Zoltán Kodály did not do. He did not create a method! His vision was that teachers would solve that problem individually based on their own deep understanding of music as a body of literature, their equally deep grasp of child development, and their particular circumstances. His onetime student, László Dobszay, warned that “Anyone who is hopeful that Kodály evolved a pedagogical system or ‘manufacturing process’ by which the ideal music education infallibly comes about, has no idea of Kodály’s way of thinking and is in for a big disappointment” (Dobszay, 1972, 16). Instead, we see Kodály himself researching, observing and waiting over the years, nudging certain teachers this way, others that way. He encouraged individual problem solving and re-directed those who wandered into easier and less effective pathways. We must also not forget that Kodály was himself a teacher, much appreciated for helping young composers find their own styles and voices.

The American journalist, Frank Smith, once observed how “People who do not trust children to learn – or teachers to teach – will always expect a method to do the job” (1992, p. 441). Herein lies another danger we must continually confront; there are those whose aim is to politicize music education by placing noble ideals into tidy methodological boxes in order to maintain power and control over national systems. Sometimes our own teachers, blindsided by the glitter of commercialism, succumb to this siren call of possible fame and fortune. We are again reminded of Beowulf’s lesson as expressed in another English folk proverb: “All that glisters is not gold.” What seems to be innocent enough can often be musically deadly in the wrong hands. Frank Smith calls specifically prescribed methods “the systematic deprivation of experience” (p. 441). Some of our colleagues avoid this trap by publishing well-researched and organized collections of song materials, quality choral arrangements, and curricula. A curriculum organizes a body of music into an interrelated flow of activities and elements for teaching and learning, but then it becomes up to teachers to deliver the curriculum. This is where a teacher’s musicianship, insight into the students, intuition and creative spontaneity must work the magic of true child-sensitive musical education. Such things cannot be written down for others to copy. They must be found deep inside the intelligence and character of the teacher. As John Curwen observed, “No written method can provide for all cases. Each particular class is a study in itself” (Curwen, 1875, 27).

Erna Czövek was even more adamant about the matter:

“The teacher-to-be should get to know the music and the child and then himself develop the proper connection between them in the name of human values and morality. Personal tricks can be devised in a moment of inspiration; but to copy these or any kind of personal habit without conviction and concoct a teaching method out of them for one’s own use is not ethical.” (1979, p.49).

What Kodály did do was to musically mobilize an entire country even though Hungary was under the harshest of political and economic duress. And even though we hear sad reports of decreases in time allotted to music instruction in some Hungarian schools, we cannot deny what has been accomplished. We also know that Hungarian music education was always and still is a work in progress in which, as in all countries, the best and the worst teachers can be found. But several facts remain: Hungary did implement a music curriculum that is nationally unified in content but locally diversified according to the individual teacher. Hungary did develop a successful folksong-to-masterwork singing musical culture. Hungary did create a multi-tiered, childhood-through-adulthood path for musical instruction that is available to almost all of its citizens. Hungary did successfully address the issues of music teacher-education for a complex, multi-tiered system. And Hungary did develop a national choral singing culture. And Hungarian musicians and teachers are in demand around the globe. These monumental achievements stand on the shoulders of Bartók, Kodály, and hundreds of musicologists, composers, conductors and teachers who learned how to work together toward a common vision. We may stand aside and criticize all we want about the details, but the fact remains that here is something worth emulating. only when the world beats a path to our own national doors just for the purpose of learning how our music education works will we have license to criticize. As an aside, I have to tell you about meeting a Hungarian Communist Party official in 1980 who, with obvious pride, told me about the “brain drain” we Americans were causing in Hungary because of “all the teachers we were inviting” to teach in our Kodály courses!

Another great Hungarian music education achievement was the creation of the Singing Primary School. Kodály took his inspiration for this from the Greek and Medieval “humanities” school concept (1966, p. 74). After the first such school proved that devoting more time to music would not diminish achievement in other subjects, many more everyday singing schools proliferated. With music as the central subject in a correlated curriculum, these schools directly fulfilled Whitehead’s vision: “The solution which I am urging is to eradicate the fatal disconnection of subjects which kills the vitality of our modern curriculum. There is only o¬ne subject-matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations” (1929, 1957, p. 7).

In all of the Hungarian music education efforts, so much has had to depend on the teachers, and that is why authentic Kodály teacher-education programs are rigorous. We all recognize that the Hungarian musical establishment has had to produce a different kind of musician-teacher than we are generally used to seeing in the public schools. Erna Czövek, one of the chief architects of Hungarian piano pedagogy during the Kodály years, articulated the essence of that difference:

“It is not enough for the teacher of the arts to have a feeling for art and teaching; he must be knowledgeable, too. First and foremost he must be able to recognize and follow the essence of a work: the consciously planned combinative work of the artist… the way the work has been formed… What grips us in art is the creative artist’s form-giving power, by means of which he conceives the whole work as an entity and fits it together logically from the sequence of details… a Beethoven sonata or Bartók’s music in the way the whole is built up out of the movements, and the movements take their shape from the interplay of the motives without the slightest break. The macrocosm and microcosm lie hidden in all true art. The work’s totality consists in the interplay of motives and their logical interconnection. It is the primary task of music teaching to get this across”. (1979, p. 13).

Zoltán Kodály: An Example of Personal Integrity

We have now arrived at discussing the power of many in today’s global community. We can only collect such an army one-by-one based on the power of one, our own example. Yet another folk proverb: “There are only three ways to teach: example, example, and example.” The essence of Professor Kodály’s leadership seems to be that he duplicated his influence over and over without duplicating himself. This he did by delegating tasks and responsibilities to students and colleagues. This was the power of one becoming the power of a few and eventually the power of many within his country.

Notice that the power of many is totally dependent on the power of one. Each of us here today is that power of one in our own sphere of influence. It may not be our foreordination in life to be a national hero like Kodály, but what does matter, is that we do make a difference whoever and wherever we are. Our solitary example will generate the power of a few and they will eventually accumulate the power of many. Marjorie Pay Hinckley, one of the honoured mothers of our State of Utah said: “We all have a responsibility to make a difference, to be an influence, to lift someone” (2003, npn.).

Sometimes we will feel that we are not making any progress. All great people with great ideas experience discouragement. When those times come, the following story about a university literature professor will help:

Many years ago I interviewed one of my college professors for the school newspaper. He was a gentle giant of a man who rescued baby birds flung from their nests during West Texas windstorms, picking them up from the sidewalks and carrying them home wrapped in a handkerchief in his shirt pocket… “If you write about that,” he said, “Be sure to say not to do it. They always die.” His eyes were misty. “Then why do you do it?” He said nothing, gesturing helplessly. “Are you going to keep doing it?” He nodded, looking almost shamefaced. “He can’t help himself,” said a brisk voice from behind me. It was his wife, a tough, smart woman. “He always thinks ‘what if this time I can save one.’”

Her husband was George Carter, a literature teacher. He and many like him are unsung heroes, on the front lines of a battle against relativism and nihilism. They profess the truth. They insist that aesthetic principles are more than mere personal tastes. [They have] an unfashionable attachment to the oft-maligned canon…  [T]hey get relegated to lower-level courses, where they try to teach incoming students to recognize good literature—and this is excruciatingly difficult for the student whose tastes have been formed by one poor fiction after another, and who has been assured all his life that his opinion on anything is as valid as anyone’s.

…They rescue as many baby birds as they can (Wittingshire, 2005, npn, edited for brevity)

Like George Carter, YOU are the power of one. If you rescue only two baby birds, then together you are the power of a few. In due time, the three of you can become the power of many. Of course it will be hard work. Again from Alfred North Whitehead:

All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of the mastery of details …  There is no royal road to learning through an airy path of brilliant generalisations …  The problem of education is to make the pupil see the wood by means of the trees (1929, 1957, p. 7).
Never underestimate what you, the one, can do. Never underestimate how much more we, the few, can accomplish. As Margaret Meade, the eminent cultural anthropologist said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.” My dear friends and colleagues, we are that “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens.” We are the power of o¬ne and the power of a few. Let us become many more!

Dr. Jerry-Louis Jaccard
Vice-President of the International Kodály Society
Brigham Young University School of Music
Provo, Utah, United States of America

References and Bibliography

Adám, J. (1971). Growing in music with moveable do – A manual of systematic vocal instruction. New York: Pannonius Central Service, Inc. (Originally published in Hungary in 1944 as Módszeres énektanítás a relativ szolmizáció alapján).

Bachmann, M.-L. (1991). Dalcroze today: An education through and into music. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Bónis, F., ed. (1964). The selected writings of Zoltán Kodály. New York: Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.

Curwen, J., Rainbow, B., editor. (1875, 1986). The teacher’s manual of the tonic sol-fa method. Clarabricken, County Kilkenny, Ireland: Boethius Press.

Czövek, E. (1979). Music and the child. Budapest: Zenemúkiadó.

Dobbs, J.P.B. Preface in Bachmann, M.–L. (1991). Dalcroze today – An education through and into music. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Dobszay, L. (1972). “The Kodály method and its musical basis.” Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientarum Hungaricae, 14, pp. 15–33.

Dobszay, L. (1992). After Kodály – Reflections of music education. Kecskemét, Hungary: Zoltán Kodály Pedagogical Institute of Music.

Eckstein, Gustav. (1942). “The Flight into the Night” in Friends of Mine. New York: Readers Club of New York.

Gardner, H. (1982). Art, mind and brain: a cognitive approach to creativity. New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers.

Heaney, S. (2000). Beowulf – A new verse translation. Bilingual Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

Hinckley, M.P. (2003). Unpublished Devotional Address. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University.

Hyde, D. (1998). New-found voices: Women in Nineteenth-Century English music. Third edition. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Kodály, Z. (1966). Mein Weg zur Musik – Fünf Gespräche mit Lutz Besch (My path through music). English translation by Jerry L. Jaccard [2002], publication pending. Zürich, Switzerland: Peter Schifferli Verlags AG «Die Arche».

Kodály, Z. in Herboly-Kocsár, I., ed. (2002). Music should belong to everyone. Budapest, Hungary: International Kodály Society.

Marchant, Natalie (2003). Interview re CD “The House Carpenter’s Daughter” in Woman’s Day, July 8, p. 10.

Mason, L. (1854, 1967). Musical letters from abroad. New York: Da Capo Press.

Moog, H. (1968, 1976). The musical experience of the pre-school child. Translated by Claudia Clarke. London: Schott & Co. Ltd.

MSNBC News broadcast on 22 July 2004.
Sievers, E. (1912). Rhythmisch-melodische studien (Melodic and rhythmic studies). Heidelberg, Germany: Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung.

Smith, F. (1985). Reading without nonsense. Second edition. New York: Teachers College Press.

Swanwick, K. (1994). Musical knowledge: Intuition, analysis and music education. London and New York: Routledge.

Szabó, H. (1969). The Kodály concept of music education. New York: Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.

Turner, F. (1985). Natural classicism: Essays o¬n literature and science. New York: Paragon House Publishers.

Turner, F. (1995). The culture of hope: A new birth of the Classical Spirit. New York: The Free Press.

Vikár, L. (1969). Folk music and music education. Paper presented at the Dana School of Music Teacher Training Workshop, Boston, MA.

Vikár, L. (1993). Interview with Jerry L. Jaccard at the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, West Hartford, Connecticut.

Wadhams, R.A. (1986). Course disclosure and related information – Curriculum and instructional Science 603. Provo UT: Brigham Young University.

Whitehead, A.N. (1929, 1957). The aims of education. New York: Free Press.

Willems, E. (1975). La valeur humaine de l’éducation musicale. Bienne, Switzerland: Éditions «Pro Musica».

Wittingshire (March 9, 2005). http://wittingshire.blogspot.com/2005/03/what-i-learned-from-mr-carter.html

Zuckerkandl, V. (1973). Sound and symbol volume two: Man the musician. (Translated by N.Guterman). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Only art of intrinsic value is suitable for children by Michalis Patseas

The choice of music literature appropriate for education according to Kodály’s principles.
Keynote speech given at the 2005 IKS Symposum.

Abstract:

The Kodály Concept is the major music pedagogy philosophy that the 20th Century has bequeathed to the 21st. Methods must be based on deep philosophical roots and must provide fresh answers to old and new questions. We must find scientific and persuasive arguments for our ideals. ‘Well-organized music lessons in the curriculum of general education’ is not automatically accepted as essential when MP3, Fame Story and Eurovision Junior appear to have realized the “Music must belong to everybody” motto. “Musical mother tongue” cannot easily be defined when Anglo-American pop music is the dominant sound. The “music specialist” does not appear to be a necessity when the average teacher can handle a CD player and can conduct a discussion about music appreciation. The choice of music literature is not an easy thing in the era of music abundance. The motto“only art of intrinsic value is suitable for children” has been pointed out as “politically incorrect”. For lots of people the weekly Top Ten, the Grammy Awards and MTV is the epitome of music democracy and we are music ayatollahs! How can we fight against similar arguments? By making clear that there is no real choice without knowledge. By acquiring a vast knowledge of the literature, in order to be able to pick the very best of those that are appropriate for a specific class at a certain moment. Finally by believing in the force of the ‘intrinsic value’ of quality music.

Full text:

Dear colleagues,

My main duty is to analyze some of the principles to which the music teacher should adhere in order to decide what to teach. In so doing, we are going to travel through some of the basic principles of Zoltán Kodály followed sometimes by my humble remarks.

1. Kodály and the 21st Century…

Zoltán Kodály was a genius but nevertheless a child of his time. He received the best high-school, university and music education that a young citizen of the Austrian Empire belonging to the Hungarian “upper middle class” could get. He was nourished with the best ideals: classical antiquity, humanism, Christian faith and the awakening of the Hungarian Nationalism. He was born and raised in a multi-national and multi-cultural empire; he lived his most productive years surviving the birth of the Hungarian nation-state, one socialist revolution, one fascist dictatorship and two world wars and he finally managed to put into practice his long-planned ideas during the communist regime. The Hungarian people honoured him. All the Hungarian governments had to pay respect to him, praise him and decorate him, although none of them trusted him because he never conformed. He was loyal to the nation and not to any party or politician!

The last quarter of the 20th century was full of rapid political, social and economic changes. Changes occurred also in the various fields that concern our work. There is a whole new field called “Education Sciences”. “Music Education” is becoming the newest branch, scattered among music universities and academies, departments of music studies, as well as music departments in teacher-training colleges and universities. New musicological branches emerge such as “Social Musicology.” The latter together with new ethnomusicology branches deal with “Popular Music” as well.

In this turmoil, we were the luckiest. The Kodály Concept has been a very good philosophical background. We have inherited some ideals that I think can be valuable for the future generations as well, provided we constantly find new scientific and persuasive arguments for them. For me, the Kodály Concept is the major music pedagogy philosophy that C.20th has passed to the 21st. Proving my claim is a very good theme for a doctoral dissertation, so I will only try to share some of my thoughts with you.

2. Music is of universal value…

“Music must belong to everybody” has been accomplished. Music is everywhere: It comes through radio, television, stereo, Walkman, MP3, ringtones in mobile phones, loudspeakers in supermarkets, elevators, cafeterias and restaurants. Music making is available to everybody: everyone has a chance at a karaoke party, and why not in Fame Story and Eurovision Junior. Obviously I am joking, but they are not. I have received similar answers from politicians, scientists, and educators.

Kodály has warned us about this danger: “The radio can only offer a substitute. If it is taken for real, then true live music will never be appreciated… it leads to total passivity…The contact with real music will be more and more shallow and unnatural”.

And he insisted that “The only way to be receptive to the experience of sounds is through (musical) reading and writing” .

I agree with Kodály in insisting that without reading and writing there is no literacy today, without literacy there is no knowledge, and with no knowledge there is no choice. The key word is “choice.” That is why we need well-organized music lessons in the curriculum of general education. I will return to the notion of “choice” at the end of this lecture. Until then, remember that music is of universal value.

3. Musical Mother Tongue and Folk Music…

Another important legacy that we have from Kodaly is that one “Musical Mother Tongue” exists (for every nation) and that it is necessary to begin education based on it. He believed that as o¬ne first learns and speaks a mother tongue and through that one later approaches the other languages, the same way one should first formulate a Musical Mother Tongue. He believed for example, that for the Hungarians this tongue consisted of Hungarian folk songs. He pointed out that the best connection between music and language exists in folk songs. He declared that “a good folk song is a perfect masterpiece in itself”.

For us these ideas are commonplace, but not for everybody else. Let us meditate a little upon four points related to “musical mother tongue and “folk music”:

(i) We must be aware that the notion of “Mother Tongue” is common in the ideas of 19th and 20th century nationalism. At that time Hungary was still in the process of forming a nation-state and of course nationalist ideas were very popular even among progressive people. The appropriation of these ideas by “Nationalists” and Fascists makes everybody cautious today but it does not allow anybody to condemn them entirely.

In any case, human beings always try to find characteristics that help them identify themselves as a member of a group. The procedure of forming a personal, local, national, cultural, etc. identity is essential and healthy as long as it does not lead to discrimination.

Kodály was a good example even during the dark years. In 1939 he points out that the folksongs not only “provide a great artistic benefit for the music life of the whole country” but play a very important role in social solidarity as “they help to change the false picture upheld by the urban population about peasants.” In 1937, at the preface of the “Bicinia Hungarica” he points out that once one possesses a mother tongue, the next step is to learn “as many foreign songs as possible, in the original language.”

(ii) A mother tongue functions as such when and because one learns it from one’s parents during the first years of one’s life. A lot of our critics emphasize the fact the folk song is not sung any more at home. Well, it was not even in Kodály’s time, at least not in the cities. He dreamed that it could be possible to “restore” Hungarian folk song as the “Mother Tongue” by introducing it in the elementary education.

Although it was proven very romantic, I have realized that even if the children do not regard folk music as their “musical mother tongue”, they spontaneously react well to it, provided it is well presented to them by their music teacher. Of course, the earlier this happens, the better the result.

(iii) In Greece we have experienced a “folk song revival” during the past 15 years. The foundation of 40 Music High-Schools and the introduction of traditional music as a compulsory element gave an even greater impetus to this folk song revival. Young people form groups and play original folk songs on traditional musical instruments. It is a positive fact but it did not have a greater impact in the society nor did it lead the people involved to broaden their interest with other forms of art music.

[It may be interesting for you to know that Greek Traditional Music is divided into Folk Music, Byzantine Church music and “Laiki” (=urban popular) music. The latter stems from the famous “Rebetika” songs and applies conventional temperament and harmonizing. Folk and Byzantine Church music still apply the traditional modes, temperament, intervals, monophonic structure and drone accompaniment. Last but not least, our traditional Byzantine Musical Notation, more than a thousand years old, updated during C.19th is still in use, giving us direct access to the music of hundreds of composers of those times.]

(iv) The last point concerns the use of folksongs in creating new art music.

We know that folk and art music have co-existed, interrelated and influenced each other in most cultures. Folk song has always been an endless resource for art music. Some well- known examples are the early Motet, the Baroque Suite form, the early Protestant Choral etc. Mozart, Beethoven, all the Romantic composers and last but not least all the composers of the various national schools have used folk music in every possible way: they have added piano or orchestral accompaniment to folk songs, they have arranged folk dances, they have used folk melodies, or they have incorporated folk melodic and rhythmic elements into bigger forms of art music.

Ethnomusicology became a science only after 1900. So, the main difference between the previous examples and Kodály is that he possessed a deep scientific knowledge of folk music, based on field research, whereas the others (eg. Brahms and Liszt) couldn’t tell the difference between a folk song and a popular song.

To close this subject for now, we can only point out that the use of a folk song by a composer doesn’t make it better or worse. It simply transforms it into another form of art, where new criteria apply. A teacher may very well decide to teach a folk song, a composition stemming from a folk song or both.

4. Art of Intrinsic Value…

Among the pictures decorating the “Bartók” room at the Greek Kodály Conservatory and Institute there is a Hungarian engraving named “Only from clear springs” [Tavaszi, Noemi: ‘Csak tiszta forrásbol’ linoleum]. It is the last phrase of Bartók’s “Cantata Profana”. I have discussed many times the possible interpretations of this phrase with my students. We decided that it is the poetic equivalent of the phrase that is the motto of this lecture:“Only art of intrinsic value is suitable for children”.

Whenever I quote this phrase, there is an immediate reaction from the public. As a genuine ‘agent provocateur,’ I expect this reaction. The words “only” and “intrinsic” (chosen by the translator of the Selected Writings) usually alert the audience. Very often the phrase is condemned as “nationalistic” or “politically incorrect.” once I was even called “music ayatollah!”

The word “intrinsic” was unknown to me. I looked it up in a dictionary and found plenty of possible synonyms. I kept three of them for you: Inherent, indispensable, essential. In fact Kodály really used a Hungarian word meaning “of high artistic” value. Each one of them could be used instead of “intrinsic” but the effect would be similar. The real question is: Who defines what is “art of intrinsic value”?

Kodály refers quite often to the notion of good and bad music. “There are only two kinds of music: good and bad… Why could we not provide the best to someone who has no recognition of either good or bad yet? … That is why teaching in the schools and indeed already in the kindergartens should be of high quality from the start.” This notion is derived directly from Plato’s “Republic” where the Greek philosopher speaks about the revolutionary power of music. He points out that a change in the rules of music may even cause change in the laws of the state! Plato is taking over the Pythagorean idea of “ethos” in music, an idea still predominant in Greek traditional music until today. It is obvious that Kodály refers to this “ethos” when he says “Good music certainly has a general character forming influence as it radiates responsibility and moral solemnity. Bad music lacks in all these. Its destructive effect can go as far as to undermine the faith and standards in moral law.

So what is good music? Should we vote? Should we follow the “Top Ten” of the month or the results of “Grammy” or the “MTV” awards? Should we follow the “market,” which is considered nowadays to be the epitome of democracy?

I see Kodály with an ironic smile on his face. Let us read his last quotation the other way around: “Good music is the music that has a general character forming influence as it radiates responsibility and moral solemnity”. Yes, “good music” is a matter of personal choice, but there can be no real choice without knowledge. I mentioned that at the beginning of this lecture; I repeat it now. As far as it concerns education, the choice belongs to the teacher. The teacher has the legal right to chose as he is appointed for that reason by the state, the director or the parent. The teacher has the moral right and responsibility to chose because that is what he is trained to do.

5. The Choice of Literature…

Where is the teacher going to look for the quality material that he needs? (1) In the traditional (folk and art) music of the region and the country, of the neighbouring countries, of the whole world. (2) In the masterpieces of Art music of all the countries and eras.

It is advisable to avoid “exercises” that don’t have an obvious artistic value, as, in art education, whatever lacks artistic value lacks educational value as well.

It is also advisable to avoid “Pop Hits”. Students obviously have enough of it during the day so there is no reason to spend some of their precious 45 minutes in repeating something they already know so well! This music occupies the rest of the world. Let us keep our little classroom free. We don’t have to “sanctify” this kind of music by bringing it into the classroom.

The choice of music literature is not an easy thing in the era of music abundance. one has first to formulate a coherent philosophy of his own about what music is “good enough” for the children, one has to acquire a good knowledge of the general and special literature, in order to be able to recognize and pick the very best of those that are appropriate for a specific class or lesson at a certain moment by applying esthetic, scientific and pedagogic criteria.

“In the overwhelming chaos of music produced today only a true master can find his bearings. It is a hundred times more difficult to acquire sureness of taste today than it was a hundred years ago. Often the genuine can scarcely be distinguished from the counterfeit. But a good musician knows what good music is. He is guided by his familiarity with literature, his theoretical and practical knowledge and his educated taste, all acquired over the course of many years.”

It is time to finish this lecture. In the future, before you make a decision about any teaching material, please remember to meditate for a second upon the truths that: (1) Music is of universal value. (2) It is still good to use folk music and it is advisable to begin with folk music of your own country. (3) The choice is yours, provided you do not forget your moral duty to ensure quality.

I would like to thank, the Organizing Committee and the Board of the British Kodály Academy for their invitation, Dr. Floresca Karanasou and Dr. Paul Lalor for their inspiring comments, practical assistance and friendship, Dr. Jerry-L. Jaccard for editing this paper and my wife Kati for being my best interactive audience.

I should acknowledge that most of the Quotations of Zoltán Kodály that I have used can be found in the valuable I.K.S. collection “Music should belong to everybody,” compiled by my former teacher Prof. Ildiko Herboly-Kocsár and that a lot of the newer translations are done by our I.K.S. Executive Director Mrs. Márta Vandulek.

Michalis Patseas: Director of the Greek Kodály Conservatory and Institute. Conductor of its choirs and orchestral ensembles. Vice-President of the Greek Kodály Society and Secretary-Treasurer of the International Kodály Society. Valentinos Patrikidis was his first music teacher. He studied theory of music, composition, Byzantine church music, singing, choir and orchestra conducting at the National Conservatory of Athens, the Vienna University of Music and the Zoltán Kodály Pedagogical Institute of Music in Hungary. He graduated from the latter with an Advanced Diploma of Post Graduate studies in Music Pedagogy and Choir Conducting with Peter Erdei as his professor. He is also a graduate of the Department of Law and a PHD candidate of the Music Department of the Athens University. He has taken part in 20 musicology and music pedagogy congresses (in Greece, Italy, France, Denmark, Hungary, Finland and USA) mainly as an invited lecturer (15 lectures). He teaches conducting, music pedagogy and singing at the GKCI and at the International Seminars of the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét. He has also taught at institutions of higher education in Cyprus, and at the Music Department of the Athens University. He conducts choirs and orchestral ensembles. His choirs have appeared at the Megaron – The Athens Concert Hall (43 times) at the Herodes Atticus Odeon, at the Ancient Theatre of Epidauros, at the Olympic Zeus Temple and elsewhere. He was the first conductor of the Greek Radio Children’s Choir (1995-1999). The Hungarian Ministry of Culture has awarded him the Pro Cultura Hungarica award and the Hungarian President has decorated him with the “Officer’s Cross of the Order of Honour of the Hungarian Republic” (2003).

Zoltán Kodály’s Inspiration and the Challenges of the 21st Century by Gilbert de Greeve

Keynote speech given at the 2005 IKS Symposum

In line with the Conference theme I would like to invite you to some reflection about Zoltán Kodály and the Challenges of the 21st Century.

Before saying anything else, let me emphasise the fact that these “challenges” do not relate exactly to the moment that the century started.

Of course the turn of a millennium, whether it was on January 1st, 2000 or 2001 – who cares – is a reference point that appeals strongly to our imagination. And, without any doubt, it is a good moment to deeply think about the future, about what is coming up and how one can deal with it.
Looking forward is a necessary and positive move. But let us also not forget “to remember” what we “had” and what “was” good. It may help to better understand the forthcoming challenges and prevent future generations from “re-inventing” the wheel over and over again.

As I mentioned already, “new” challenges are not depending on “historical timing” but on “historical happenings”. Most of the times it were “revolutions” or –in the better cases– “evolutions” of one or another nature.

Since this particular Conference is focused on the 21st century, I would say that the most important happenings of the last 50 years, causing new and big challenges, were the beginning of the exploration of space in 1957, generating an enormous technical and industrial revolution in electronics and informatics; 1968, when the happenings in Paris and elsewhere inspired the whole world to reflect on spiritual freedom, resulting in a number of new philosophical and ethical approaches of life and society, and 1989, when the Berlin wall came down and the whole political world landscape changed. Most probably, a number of the educational challenges of today are more or less directly related to these 3 “evolutions”.

The exploration of space drastically speeded up the invention of powerful and more powerful computers and smaller and smaller computer chips. And one of the important issues to be addressed nowadays is “how” to use this technology in a meaningful way in education. I also think that it is no longer a matter of “whether” computers should or should not be used. That question is completely past time.

The pro’s and contra’s have been well known for many years already. I can have sympathy for both as long as the “pro’s” give a clear picture on the didactics of using the tool and the “contra’s” do not only start from ignorance or aversion.

But personally I am tempted to think that the use of new technologies cannot and should not be avoided. Furthermore, intrinsically a “technology” is not good or bad; it all depends on how it is applied.

It will be an important challenge to investigate whether there has been enough consideration given and reflection done on this issue. Consideration and reflection going beyond personal opinion and based upon serious and profound research.

Do not expect clear answers from me today. I do not have them. My goal is to raise the questions, hoping that it will provoke the necessary thinking. In fact the questions about new technologies and their suitability in education is a topic that deserves a Conference on its own.

But two things I can say with great conviction: (1) computers should never be a “replacement” for the teacher (unfortunately these tendencies exist) and (2), computer programmes should not create false expectations, such as pretending that a child can be a “composer” by pushing button A for an automatic second voice to a tune or – even worse – button B for a full orchestration.

There must be good and meaningful ways to use informatics in music education. But the danger is again that in the development of the programmes the “commercial” objectives strongly prevail above the aesthetic and educational ones. Perhaps we are not aware enough of what is going on in that field and should learn from Robert Schumann, for whom Kodály –as we know– had a great admiration and often pointed to as a source for his inspiration. Therefore let me quote Schumann for a moment. He wrote: “I am affected by everything that goes on in the world and think it all over in my own way, politics, literature and people, and then I long to express my feelings and find an outlet for them in music.” (Unquote).

Musicians and music educators should be “involved” in the development of educational computer programmes, instead of waiting on the sideline to see what will come out. Already in 1953 at the so important UNESCO Conference on “The Place and Role of Music in the Education of Youth and Adults” one of the commissions wrote: (I quote) “In view of the technical developments of means for the mechanical reproduction and diffusion of music, and because of the influence which these can have upon the growth of the musical taste of young people and adults, this commission recommends that through the intermediary of Unesco and its National Commissions, strong representations be made to those public and private authorities responsible for production and diffusion in these media of mass communication that: Greater consideration be given to the choice and transmission of works of the highest musical quality. Programmes and recordings be prepared in close consultation with music education specialists so as to assure the best interest of community music education”. (Unquote). It is clear that it is not a “new challenge”. And it is also clear that the right answers have not been found yet nor have they been implemented. More, much more research and engagement of the music world will be needed. Perhaps yet another task for the International Kodály Society: to take a lead in this process and to continuously raise attention that “quality” should never be “optional”…

When in 1968 students in Paris and subsequently almost everywhere else began their philosophical and ethical revolution, soon it became clear that the world would never be the same again. Many books were published –and many more will be– about the “raise and fall” of the world since then. But not even the most nostalgic people can deny that the “spiritual liberation” of the second half of the 20th century was a blessing in many ways. However, it has also led in certain areas to an unfortunate decline of established values. That is quite understandable because the process concerned a “reaction” against the whole “establishment”. But, as it was so often the case in history, some of these reactions exceeded limits that cannot be exceeded without paying a serious price for it.

One of the most unfortunate reactions concerned “ethics”. Suddenly the word “ethics” became the enemy, a meaning associated with parental and school authority, often also with dogmatic issues and respect for the law.

Nowadays, even the greatest protagonists of 1968 have to admit that a society cannot function in a total and unconditioned freedom. There is more needed. For instance self- and mutual respect or professional integrity, to name just these two.
Again we can turn to the inspiration of Zoltán Kodály who was, as Professor Alexander Ringer wrote it so well, a “Vir justus”, a “right man”. Let me refer to o¬ne passage of that article: (I quote) Kodály was unfettered by extraneous considerations, answering only to the firm commands of his unswerving conscience and creative impulse and thus a lasting blessing to all who believe in music as the crucial cornerstone of the entire humanistic enterprise. (Unquote).
The way in which Dr. Ringer describes Kodály does not only refer to his writings and speeches but also to his compositions and research. In fact it concerns his complete lifestyle. A lifestyle that was “inspirational” to those who closely worked with him, a lifestyle that gave him the authority to stand up and speak freely at a time when these “human liberties” were not at all evident in his world.
This is another big educational challenge for the future: to find the most suitable ways of teaching “ethics” to children, especially in a media-dominated world with an overvalued focus on material things. Besides, there is this most dangerous evolution of “social isolation” –people retiring themselves almost totally before a screen, be it a television or a computer– and the sometimes extremely refined indoctrination of the media, promoting programmes filled with complete emptiness or, even worse, with violent, disgusting – so-called – “reality”. These presentations thoroughly denigrate the thinking and questioning capacity of the masses.

On the other hand the situation becomes even more dangerous when it concerns “steered” programming to plant seeds of fanaticism and extremism of whatever kind they may be. Only “education” can change that negative tendency, and to live in a more peaceful world by 2025, the process must begin immediately.

Again do not expect concrete suggestions from me. It will be a long and difficult time. But the role of the educator will be crucial and, without any chauvinism, the music educator’s contribution will be even more crucial, because ethics and aesthetics have to go hand in hand.

Once, when Kodály was asked: “what is that, a good teacher”? His answer was strikingly short and clear: “a good teacher is an inspired personality”. Reflecting on that sentence, there are two obvious key words: “inspiration” and “personality”, and one “hidden” meaning: “example”. A good teacher must be exemplary to his/her students. But to be exemplary requires a development beyond methodological and didactical skills. It requires great vision and the courage of permanent and continuing study. It is an enormous responsibility, in particular in a society that rather inclines towards hedonism instead of idealism.
Nothing new of course. I remember a survey done in New York City in 1969. One evening around 10 pm, about 300 homes were telephoned with the intention to research whether the parents knew where their growing up children were at that moment. In more than 70% of the calls they got hold of growing up children that did not know where their parents were. Today, with both parents working, almost a necessity in the present society, it may be worse, transferring the responsibility of educating children even more to the school and the teachers.

And then 1989, when suddenly the whole political landscape changed. Even more surprising than the fact “that it happened” was “the way” in which the evolution occurred. When the euphoria was over it became clear how big the challenges were and, unfortunately, because of many promises that were not kept, most of the challenges are even bigger today.

A good friend, former Minister of Foreign Affairs in Belgium –and an excellent amateur musician– mentioned more than 30 years ago that the “problem” of the future would not be the West-East issue but the North-South one. How prophetic these words were can be witnessed today. A great part of the world’s population is living in poverty and every day thousands die of starvation or a lack of the most basic medical care. This situation would be terrible if it was unavoidable. But it is not, and that makes it criminal.

And again, the only way out might begin with “education”. Quality education for which –as so often stated nowadays by governments– is no more money available. In some cases it may be true; in other ones it is absolutely not. But in “all” cases it is certainly not the “only” problem.

Zoltán Kodály spoke wise words when he said that “not the emptiness of the purse is the problem but the emptiness of the mind”. Wise words indeed and a clear indication to the force of imagination and invention.

Long before CDs and DVDs were common goods, I attended a class of Music Analysis in the Antwerp Conservatory. The Professor, a composer and remarkable personality, had nothing but an old record player at his disposal. However, his way of illustrating a score, singing, humming, grumbling and whistling the different parts of the orchestra (depending on their timbre) whilst tapping with hands and feet different rhythmical patterns –all in real time– gave us, his students, a unique insight in the score. We became, as it were, “a part” of the performance. Whenever I hear Stravinsky’s Petrushka I am tempted to compare it with the one-man version of our Professor. And in many cases I am not sure who wins, thanks to his enormous enthusiasm that I remember.

All this said, it is time –I assume– to become very realistic. The Hungarian Music Education Model was –and most probably still is– an example for the whole world. It was and is the fruit of a vision and of great engagement of one of the most important composers of the 20th century: Zoltán Kodály. It was, and is also the result of those who were inspired by him –in Hungary and abroad– and carry on his educational concept, a process that has now spread all over the world.

The Hungarian model is built upon 3 major pillars: the use of quality materials, quality teacher’s training and frequency. It is “that” model that the whole world has wanted to copy after it became internationally known at the 1964 ISME Conference in Budapest. It is “that” model that has been implemented successfully in many countries –be it sometimes with a very different methodological curriculum. It is “that” model that is known as the “Kodály Method” or the “Kodály Concept” or –often also used– as the “Kodály Philosophy”.

I have never met one serious musician or music educator who questioned the value of the Hungarian model and I am sure that I will never meet one.

But there is a hard reality attached to it: it can only be optimal if the 3 pillars are intact. Every loss of quality (be it in the use of the materials or in the teacher’s training) or of the frequency will diminish the value of the Hungarian model. It does not mean that it becomes worthless. No, it can still be good, even very good, but it will “not” generate the “same” results as those that the Hungarian schools achieved for decades.

Interestingly enough, on 2 of the 3 pillars musicians and music educators can have a big impact: the materials and the teacher training. It is something where the involvement of the music world is direct and substantial. For the 3rd pillar however, the “frequency”, vision is needed of people outside the music world: politicians, administrators, school boards and principals and –not to forget– parents. Without any doubt it is the most vulnerable of the 3 pillars.

Of course, I know that there are countries that never had more than 1 or 2 music lessons a week. It is a mere “fact” and I have the greatest respect for teachers who achieve the best possible results in the given circumstances. But it should not stop the music world from advocating in every possible way the necessity of making music a “normal and fully-fledged school subject” of the curriculum, taught on a daily basis as an exquisite emotional counterweight against a more and more intellectual approach of smaller and smaller children. That was Kodály’s dream.

I am aware that in most places it might be a struggle for the next 50 years or more. But just imagine that there would be, somewhere, one enlightened politician –who knows– who would understand the crucial importance of a well-balanced “human” education and would have the statesmanship to pursue his conviction. It might be the first little snowball that could grow into something beautiful and extremely important for future generations. After all, when Zoltán Kodály launched his vision on music education, the situation in Hungary was worse than in many places today.

Therefore, Ladies and Gentlemen, one should not only be inspired by his method or concept or even philosophy – if you want – but also and foremost by the “man” the “whole man”, of whom Professor Dénes Dille once mentioned to me, that he should be considered as the greatest human personality of the 20th century.

Is the “Hundred Year Plan” still timely in the 21st century? by Ildokó Herboly Kocsár

Keynote speech given at the 2005 IKS Symposum

Zoltan Kodály wrote his article called “The 100 Year Plan” in a music teachers’ periodical in 1947. Ever since its first appearance many different references have been made in many places questioning its strange title. What purpose did Kodály have in mind when he wrote these thoughts nearly 60 years ago?

The first words of his article are:

“The aim: Hungarian musical culture.

The means: making the reading and writing of music general, through the schools. At the same time the awakening of a Hungarian musical approach in the training of both artist and audience. The raising of Hungarian public taste in music and a continual progress towards what is better and more Hungarian.

To make the masterpieces of world literature public property, to convey them to people of every kind of rank. The total of all these will yield the Hungarian musical culture which is glimmering before us in the distant future.”

After this opening Kodály writes a short review of what had happened in the 50 years before. In the second half of the review he sets out the tasks; the changing of general attitudes and the importance of the use of the pentatonic scale as a focal point.

In the final paragraph he makes a reference to 1868 when Statute XXXVIII (38) was brought into force whereby singing lessons were made compulsory by law in every school curriculum.

The closing paragraph of the article:

“We cannot prophesy, but if the principle of expert tuition comes to be realised in practice by 1968, that is to say a hundred years after the birth of the primary education act, it may well be hoped that by the time we reach the year 2000 every child that has attended the primary school will be able to read music fluently. Not a tremendous achievement. This, however, will rightly bear the name Hungarian musical culture.”

It is evident to all of us that the thoughts Kodály put to paper in 1947 in connection to music education is relevant not only to Hungarians.
We have to admit and accept that the plan anticipated for the next 100 years has not yet been realised. Sadly, in 2005 not every 14-year-old Hungarian child can read music fluently although Kodály had done all that was possible to achieve this goal.

It has been proved that his concept and philosophy is a fine music-teaching tool. The effectiveness of Kodály’s philosophy has been backed by scientifically proven facts and results. The past fifty years have also proved that the “concept” can be realised not only in Hungary but also anywhere in the world from Australia to Japan to the United States of America.

What is the problem?

Why was this aim not possible to fulfil?

Was this only a dream?

László Dobszay was looking for the answers to the same questions in 1990 in his article entitled “the Actuality of the 100 Year Plan”.

László Dobszay is a professor and musicoligist at the Music Academy in Budapest, a practising musician and the founder of the Schola Hungarica vocal ensemble.

As a solfege teacher he wrote in the 1960’s a series of solfege (exercise) books that are still the finest today. They are called “the World of Sound” and follow Kodály’s pedagogical philosophy to the smallest detail.

I would like to quote a few thoughts from these writings of 15 years ago.

“…Kodály found the way to teaching through his own experiences of value alone, through being affected by the intellectual values found in folksongs, the masterpieces and music in general, (what ‘deserves to be called music’), and the love deriving from it. Love is just diffusivum sui (something that strives after its own diffusion) and only this quality can inspire any genuine teacher and teaching.”

“…Kodály represents an age old European tradition in this respect, which may be one of the reasons why his message seemed to be so new. The meaning of ‘humanism’ is, however, very clear in this tradition. It signifies something other than charity work, sympathy or nobility of thinking. It stands for an attitude that asserts the rights and demands of humanity. Humanity includes all those values that make man human, raise him above the level of other living creatures and safeguard the integrity of the spirit and the coordination of the spiritual and physical life. This humanity is centred around four values: truth, goddness, beauty and holyness. They embrace a cultivated mind, the properly oriented and disciplined will, the well-ordered emotional sphere and the reverential openness of man towards a being higher than himself.”

“…the role Kodály entrusted to music cannot be exclusively justified by its refreshing qualities and communal character, nor with the value of musical heritage alone. No genuine spiritual life can be conceived without music or, as Isodorus’ book, this encyclopeadia of the Middle Ages, stated: Without music no discipline can be perfect. Without music man remains uncouth and unrefined.. In contrast, music makes him more generous, polite, joyful, amiable, more apt to create loving relationships, or as the medieval pupil learnt: ‘reddit hominem liberalem, curialem, laetum, jocundum et amabilem’. No one would deny that this holds true for good music representing spiritual values. To reverse this statement: bad music destroys man’s spiritual integrity, renderes his inner being friable and disrupt the structure of humanity. This pedagogical hierarchy has an effect on music education as well. Though the infiltration of dilettantism wounds the very heart of music teaching, the final objective is not the transmission of the knowledge of the musical profession. It is the integration of the intellectual force of music, or more precisely, as Kodály put it, of the masterworks, into the human spirit.”

“…the Kodályian educational model could not score outstanding results in its days of glory because it remained isolated within school, culture and society alike. To be more precise, a certain presentiment of belonging came to be expressed by a spontaneous respect of many and for other the Kodályian achievement could have been a model and an inspiration in their own field. But the conscious recognition and the thorough intellectual and practical elaboration that could have raised the Kodályian inspiration to a cultural movement were missing.”

“…the state takes eo ipso a stand in matters of culture and the values represented by it whenever it functions normally. A national curriculum or examination system makes sense only if there exist a standard which is the expression of values considered to be positive. The contribution granted by the state for the maintenance costs of a museum is an expression of the appreciation of Rembrandt’s paintings, for example. The issue at stake that must be continually clarified, both in principle and in everyday affairs, is to what extent and in which area it is fair that the state should support cultural-humanistic values.”

We have to admit that the past 15 years has not brought about any changes either.

With the speeding up of economic and technical advancements at the forefront, culture is continually forced to be the last to be considered.
Social recognition and the aim for a higher quality of life are all measured by purely materialistic means. Education is like a servant of culture and less and less significance in countries with a wealthy society.

A new set of values has developed at the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st. Instant result have become the units of measure so that long term investment and nurturing of the arts has become unprofitable and superfluous. In the view of the people who have control over these matters, music education is becoming dispensable.

These people (who themselves as children, have clearly missed out on the magical effect of music) do not recognise the effect of music education towards the development of healthy, even-tempered, well-balanced harmonious human beings.

This tendency is unfortunately a world phenomenon. We can draw some interesting comparisons between peoples general daily timetable of 100 years ago and today. In the old days most people worked all day and for most people that was physical work.

With technical advances modern workplaces have allowed people a lot more free time. To fill this leisure time, a new continually expanding industry developed: called the “entertainment industry”.
The feeling of well-being and of achievement resulting from successful work satisfaction was replaced by a “live it up” attitude. This new lifestyle has received a continues to receive a great deal of support from different forms such as media attention, films, TV programmes, video games etc. Unfortunately much of these are full of aggression and negative forces. The bulk of our teenagers are daily consumers of this new “culture”.
The “so called” music that accompanies these films, TV programmes and video games is typically very brassy, full of weak harmonies and unimaginative melody and all played at a thumping volume with overpowering drum beat and bass lines.

It is almost impossible to find public places, shops, shopping centres and even transport that are not contaminated by this form of music.

What can schools do to counterbalance this? Can they do anything at all?

One of my favourite professors at the Music Academy, Lajos Bárdos, told us as students to observe people after a concert and how they never quarrel at the cloakroom, at the bus stop or in the street.

We now have to redefine the term used 40 years ago “after a concert” to after “serious music concert”. In the old days we only called these events “concerts” (Today all events where instruments appear are called concerts).

In a single sentence of Professor Bárdos an entire philosophy of upbringing had been summed up: “people who have been brought up in a suitable musical doctrine do not violate the rules of harmonious social living”.

Let us compare a 45 minute long music lesson of 30 – 40 years ago with one of today’s 45-minute lessons. The experience gained during a music lesson then, made a much longer impression, remembered longer by the student, had other strong positive effects and had a lasting impression till the following lesson.

The experience, or adventure, of a music lesson of today, – leaving aside the school building – immediately seems substandard by comparison.

The youth of today are part of a “mob culture” and equipped with state of the art equipment and listening to the most modern products of music. These “innocent”, not yet matured, easily lead consumers are the largest commercial marketplaces. They not only want to fulfil the trendy musical ‘culture of the day’ but they mimic the example of their peers with their dressing, behaviour and even their speaking.

The music teachers are providing a low quality service when they try to compete with this thankless challenge. Lets just think about what tools are available for the teachers to counter these modern trends so that they can seduce the teenage students with a Mozart melody.
In many cases they can only rely on their influence as a teacher as the family background provides little or no support.

The numbers of students who bring from their families the love of high quality and important music are minimal. The minority for whom the enjoyment of reading a good novel is more important than the watching of some inferior TV programme, and those who have the need for culture, or a cultural life.

We have to admit that the task of the music teachers’ appears to get increasingly difficult in everyday life.

It is not the Kodály concept that has got tired; it is not the Kodály method that has become drained. On the contrary! This is the very thing that could be the cure for this dying society whose soul is becoming extinct.

The number of music and singing lessons should be doubled, not reduced in the schools. We know that the correctly applied Kodály principles reap higher achievement results in other subjects too and that we could have a healthier society.

Intensive occupation with good music most certainly provides an antidote against inferior and cheap imitation music. It provides protection against the pollution of decent taste and the morally corrupting musical terror surrounding everyone today.

The experience and joy of music making together, singing together, safeguards against the infection of indifference. It develops attentiveness in young children towards each other, the responsibility to look out for each other and the perception and feeling of solidarity.

Kodály had formulated the importance of this more than 75 years ago: “Is there anything more demonstrative of social solidarity than a choir? Many people unite to do something that cannot be done by a single person alone however talented he or she may be.”

The world is in constant momentum. Huge distances are easily reached, faraway destinations can be reached within hours. With the lifting of border controls people have become mobile. Millions of people travel daily covering vast distances. Having reached their goal, many of these people return to their original starting point, while others look for a new home and embark o¬n a search in the world for a new home. These people settle in new countries and try to assimilate to their new surroundings.

We often see that assimilation is not so easy. The vast number of people find it very difficult to combat their feeling of loss of belonging, the trauma of replanting their roots and this becomes the basis of much conflict. Should they give up their ancestral traditions, should they adopt the customs and behavioural habits of their newly found hosts or should they stick strictly to their own heritage and foundation and traditions going back many thousands of years? These questions have become very prominent in the past few decades but unfortunately we are still unable to give a reassuring answer to them.

The results of the arrival of the previously mentioned technical wizardry, the discovery of scientific wonder-machines has a bewildering affect on the average person. It becomes progressively more difficult to handle the increasing new knowledge and technical information available daily and ones loss of identity and insecurity becomes increasingly prominent. Many people turn to psychologists, psychoanalysts to find the answers to the loss of their identity.

We can confidently say that this is the sign of our time in the so-called well off and comfortable society.

Can these spiritual problems be prevented; can any type of school education give any help towards this?

The answer is certain: the school cannot do this alone; preparing our children to handle and deal with the difficulties of the future can only be achieved by parental co-ordination and family involvement.

A good family background gives stability and well-balanced behaviour, it helps to answer questions of morality and to find ones’ way in the labyrinth and hierarchy of values (not prices). The family is the smallest and the strongest cell in the body of a nation. This is where a child learns and learns to live the meaning of belonging, the meaning of paying attention to each other, and the responsibility of looking out for each other. This is where they breathe in the traditions and customs of their past. If they arrive at the school bringing these foundations with them, then it is much easier for the teacher to continue to broaden this culture.
The music teachers’ place is a special one in the 21st century.

It is our experience these days – and in this I am sure we all agree -, that we receive less support in our work to achieve our goals than we used to.

I often wonder whether if those people who inflict pain and grief upon their fellow human beings have ever experienced or heard the music of Bach or Mozart? Could or would it have influenced their personalities if they had been touched by Gabriel Faure’s song of After the Dream, or the closing scene of Puccini’s” La Boheme”?

We all know that the best method of teaching, the best thought out syllabus and the best teaching books are useless in the absence of a good teacher.

Only those music teachers who have been blessed with musical talent and are well prepared for their lessons, are able to inspire children’s interest. only those teachers, whose personality reflects rays of sunshine are able to induce the musical emotions and open the children’s souls, to embrace music. only those teachers with these attributes and untiring enthusiasm are able to carry Kodály’s concepts into practice.

The ‘common denominator’ between those people, who have discovered the magic of music, is the individual magic that each one of them contributes to this magic and the radiating energy that passes between each one of these magical people.

The responsibility of the music teachers-training establishments is a great one: selecting, educating, and preparing the teachers for the future for this thankless but at the same time wonderful task.

As Kodály wrote 50 years ago:

“A man who has talent is required to cultivate it to the highest degree, so as to be of the greatest possible use to his fellow-creatures. Every human being is worth as much as he can turn to the advantage of mankind and to the service of his country. Real art is one of the most powerful forces for the uplifting of mankind and he who renders it accessible to as many people as possible is a benefactor of mankind”.

How Loud Is Too Loud? by Betty Power

from the BKA Newsletter, Summer 2002

Unless we are fortunate enough to live and work in an environment of peaceful, natural beauty, it is likely that most of us would agree that today’s world is a much noisier place than ever before. Our hearing is constantly exposed to a chronic din at the least, and noisy workplaces the worst – some by choice, others by chance: DIY, wearing personal headphones, smoking (!), children’s toys, the sounds from the street and underground…

Organisations have been established to raise public awareness of the dangers of noise and noise pollution, to help young and old understand the mechanics of the ear, and what they can do to prevent premature hearing loss. In May 2005, a European-wide Awareness Campaign was launched to raise awareness of one of Europe’s most persistent workplace health problems – noise at work.

As music educators, what are we doing to safeguard our students’ hearing in the classrooms, in the practice rooms, in the concert halls? What are you doing to protect your own hearing in your working environment? We have a responsibility to learn about the long-term effect of loud music on children’s hearing, and what we can do to ensure that the musicians of tomorrow will still be able to function in the future. Schools, youth orchestras, conservatories all have a vital role to play in providing information on hearing damage and protection, which could start as early as age seven, e.g. simply by eliminating fear of hearing tests.

Did You Know That……?

  • Students often play in environments with worse acoustics than professionals, but that the inner ear of the child is more sensitive to noise and may be susceptible to hearing loss for noise exposures that are safe for adults.
  • Noise levels when teaching are theoretically much lower than when in performance but still significant. (A peripatetic brass teacher was successful in a legal case against his local authority for hearing damage which was apparently caused by working in small practice rooms!)
  • Modern instruments are getting louder.
  • Research in audiology (hearing science) has documented a higher incidence of permanent learning loss in classical musicians than rock/pop musicians – incidence increase of 30% in rock/pop musicians and 52% in classical musicians!
  • Over 80% of musicians when tested following a performance had a temporary music induced hearing loss – damage will be permanent if exposed to loud noise too long or too often. Effects of too much noise may last for a few hours or even a few days.

How Loud Is Too Loud?

Protecting your hearing starts with understanding how noise works. The classic “formula” for assessing the risk of hearing loss is the intensity of the noise, measured in decibels (the danger starts at 85 decibels, roughly the sound of a lawn mower), multiplied by duration, the time of exposure. In other words, the louder the noise, the less time you should be exposed to it. Prolonged exposure to any noise above 85 decibels can cause gradual hearing loss.

Some common noise levels:

Whispering: below 35 dB

Talking with friends: 50-60 dB

Hair dryer low speed / 82 dBA

Flute playing lively folk tunes / 88 dBA

Underground train at 200 ft / 94 dBA

Output of bagpipes / 109 dBA

Music in a disco: 110-120 dB (amplified at 8 feet)

Symphonic music peak, some health clubs & aerobic studios: 120 dBA

Noise levels surpassing 140 dB will result in immediate and irreversible damage.

An EU directive has determined the legal limit for sound exposure is 85dB.

What’s That You Say? Signs of Hearing Loss

  • Reduced understanding of speech and accessibility to sounds
  • Tinnitus (i.e. ringing, or other perceptions of sound in the ear) that is associated with hearing loss and pitch perception problems, i.e. “A” heard as a “B”

Children might describe the following experiences:

  • Feels like you’re hearing through cotton wool
  • Difficulty understanding what people are saying
  • Ears feel like they want to “pop”
  • Hear ringing, or high whistling sound in ear.

What Is Being Done to reduce the risk of hearing loss due to exposure to loud music?

The professionals…

Last year the Musicians Benevolent Fund in cooperation with the Association of British Orchestras began a series of training seminars for orchestral players and management dealing with the issue of noise damage in orchestras. Initiated in response to the research project ‘A Sound Ear’ which was commissioned by the Association of British Orchestras in 2001. This thought-provoking report tackled the issues of potential hearing damage to orchestral musicians and the training seminars go some way to offering solutions. Many orchestras world-wide are affected by laws regarding noise levels and other countries look to the ABO for guidance on the subject. (The complete report, “A Sound Ear”, is available through the Association of British Orchestras (£10) and online ABO website “Symposia”)

(In) May 2005, the San Francisco Opera began providing each of its regular musicians a pair of custom-fitted “musicians’ earplugs”, originally created by Etymotic Research for members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. This new benefit program is in conjunction with H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers, a San Francisco-based non-profit hearing preservation organisation). Hear Tomorrow seeks to educate and promote awareness of the danger to our hearing from continued exposure to loud sounds.

What can we do for children?

  1. Reduce noise levels at source: raise the brass, reduce the amount of ‘noisy’ repertoire, choose lighter repertoire for smaller venues, hold sectional rehearsals whenever possible, establish the (correct) use of ear plugs and/or screens, never double rank the brass when it’s noisy repertoire, re-design pit orchestras
  2. In extreme situations, reduce noise levels at individual level by using hearing protection devices, e.g. ear-plugs or in-the-ear sound monitors
  3. Teach children that their ears are their most important musical instrument.
  4. Ensure that students receive age-appropriate hearing-health information at all stages of their development. Refer them to up-to-date websites, leading news articles to help them understand that investing in hearing health is just as important as investing in healthy eating and daily exercise! And that NOW is the most important time.
  5. Enlist the advice of an accoustical consultant at your school or music organisation, to approximate the noise risks. (NOTE: Danish primary schools have installed noise monitors in their classrooms).

Links
NOTE: The BKA provides links for information only and does not endorse products or companies. All links open in a new browser window.

1) For Parents, Teachers, Adults: Online factsheet available from RNID website:
www.rnid.org.uk/information_resources/ to find out about:

  • how we hear
  • different kinds of hearing loss
  • hearing loss caused by noise
  • tinnitus caused by noise
  • how can I prevent noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus?
  • what are the Noise at Work Regulations?
  • can I get compensation for noise exposure?
  • equipment to protect your hearing
  • reusable earplugs
  • where can I buy ear protectors?

2) For KS1-2

“Keeping Ears Safe From Noise”: www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetailsKids.aspx? p=335&np=152&id=1442

3) For Teens

www.hearnet.com a non-profit hearing information source for musicians and music-lovers.

4) For Music Professionals

British Performing Arts Medicine Trust (BPAMT)
196 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8JF
Telephone: 020 7240 4500 (London) or 0845 602 0235 (outside London).
Fax: 020 7240 3335
Email: bpamt@dial.pipex.com
Website: www.bpamt.co.uk

The Musicians’ Union
60-62 Clapham Road, London SW9 0JJ
Telephone: 0207 582 5566
Fax: 0207 582 9805
Email: info@musiciansunion.org.uk
Website: www.musiciansunion.org.uk

New Developments
(As printed in Hearing Health, volume 19:2, Summer 2003)

Sennheiser is taking a step toward taming fatigue-inducing ambient noise for commuters, travelers and pedestrians in urban or noisy settings. PXC 250 “Streetwear” mini-headphones for portable music players reduce noise above 1,200 Hz by 15 to 25 decibels. The foldable set tucks away into its own bag and comes equipped with Noise Guard™ compensation that can be switched on to lessen environmental noise on aircraft, trains and other motorized vehicles. It has the ability to cut sounds below 1,000 Hz, such as engine noise, by 15 decibels.

SoundEar® from SoundShip, a Danish company, is a noise indicator that uses a unique light display to warn of exceeding pre-set decibel limits. Awarded the Danish Design prize in 2000, the wall-mounted model is universally used in Swedish school cafeterias and in many European classrooms and workplaces. Recently introduced in the U.S., it seems an eminently sensible approach to teaching about the dangers of exposure to loud noise as well as safeguarding against them.

PocketEar®, a nifty little personal noise monitor, lights up when sounds exceed a decibel setting selected from three choices on the meter. It comes with a neckstrap, keeping it handy for checking for warnings, and also acts as a carrying case for earplugs! Great for concerts or workplaces that have variable noise levels.

A Year in Kecskemét by Barbara Jenkinson

from BKA Newsletter, Summer 2004

I first visited Kecskemét over ten years ago, and although I had already heard of the Kodály Institute, after looking around it, I realised how much I would like to study there. It was only after several subsequent visits, the summer school in 2001, and the award of the IKS scholarship, that I could finally achieve this ambition. I took the advanced pedagogical course there between September 2003 and May 2004, and have just returned to England. It was a great experience. The solfege class of Zsuzsa Kontra proved to be quite demanding and yet there were many times when I thought how lucky I was to be sitting within the walls of this beautiful old Franciscan monastery singing Renaissance motets and much more besides! Somehow there is a timeless quality to life in Kecskemét and long may it last. Of course as a new student I had to follow the whole pedagogical programme and one of the things that struck me first was how full that programme was compared to an English university or music college course. Well over twenty hours of classes a week in both semesters meant a busy schedule and lots of work! At the same time I was really impressed by the real love of good music that all the teachers demonstrated. (NB. Kathy Hulme described the contents of the course in detail in the last issue of the newsletter).

Of course Kodály’s approach means that all the areas of study are integrated, and through singing comes the development of musical skills and inner hearing. The study of conducting, for example, is so sadly neglected from most English music teachers’ preparation and yet here it is not only central but taught with an emphasis on good and exacting technique. I feel we have gone far too far down the road here in England of allowing students (at 16, 18 and beyond) to opt for areas they feel are their strengths, thus allowing such things as aural skills to be sidelined. It was a most salutary experience to see children in the third grade at the Kodály School memorising easily and in the sixth grade (our Yr7) being able to do tasks many of my A level students would have found a struggle. The standard of musicianship demonstrated by the children at this school is breathtaking, to say the least, and their dedication even more so.

My previous association with the Kodály School meant that they invited me to stay in a small flat in the school. As well as the many concerts that all the students are openly invited to, I often found myself in other interesting situations as well. For example, the auditions for entry into the school’s first grade, the kindergarten after-school music class, numerous choir rehearsals and concerts, lessons in the Gimnasium (secondary school) and the specialist music school. Here I could watch conducting classes for the pupils and the Music in English Class, an option for the oldest pupils (age15-18), where Kata Ittzes teaches a most impressive syllabus of English music repertoire and history, from the Old Hall manuscript to Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Britten and beyond. Later in the year, the János Starker cello competition occupied a whole weekend with outstanding cello students from all over Hungary taking part and a few weekends after, a seminar on music education took place with demonstration classes and concerts.

Another fascinating experience was accompanying the Miraculum Children’s Choir to Budapest to rehearse with the conductor Iván Fischer in songs for a memorial concert of music by the composer Pál Kadosa (1903-1983) in the new Millennium Concert Hall. Just before Christmas another trip with the choir was to the Austrian Embassy to sing seasonal music in the most beautiful setting, and in March I was fortunate to be invited to the performance of some works by Emma Kodály at the Kodály Museum.

There were many other concert trips, notably to hear András Schiff at the Jewish synagogue in Szeged, the Tallis Scholars and the Robert King concert at the Mathias Church in Budapest, the St Matthew Passion at the Liszt Academy, and in Kecskemét, the Banchieri singers, the Japanese Radio Children’s Choir, the Bohem Jazz Festival, the Spring Festival, Marta Sebestyen and a wealth of fantastic choral and instrumental concerts in the school. There always seemed to be something interesting happening even in the depths of the Hungarian winter!

The eminent composer Miklós Kocsár (born 1933) celebrated his eightieth birthday by a series of concerts across Hungary. The concert in Kecskemét in January consisted of choral and instrumental works, including the Salve Regina and Four Madrigals sung by the Miraculum Children’s Choir and culminating in a performance of his Magnificat for choir and orchestra with the Institute’s Pedagogical Choir and the Kecskemét Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Petér Erdei.

In June it was the turn of Erszébet Szönyi (born 1934). Two of her children’s operas were performed for a whole week in the Cultural Centre by the children of the Miraculum Choir, and a wonderful celebration concert (including a superb performance of her songs, by Katalin Szutrély) was given in the school as well.

The Ars Nova Choir was founded in Kecskemét by Dr Katalin Kiss and although the choir now performs more regularly in Budapest, on 16th March the choir gave a concert in the old Kodály School, celebrating the fiftieth birthday of Miklós Csemiczky. He is one of a group of ‘four’ composers whose work Dr Kiss champions, and the evening ended with three pieces written for the occasion by the other three (György Orbán, János Vajda and György Selmeczi).

With this feast of music making, I am wondering how I managed to do any work! But all these experiences seemed to enhance the coursework somehow. Seeing the practical implementation on a day-to-day basis made it all come to life. In any case, I did manage to do plenty of study and one thing of particular interest was the individual class I had with Kati Kiss, studying the choral music of ‘The Four’, and with Mihály Ittzes, studying other contemporary Hungarian composers.

It is most interesting to see how the work of Kodály has developed over the past fifty years, not only in the music of contemporary composers, but in the ‘Singing Youth’ Festival for Secondary school choirs (featuring eleven choirs just from the town!), the Bacs-Kiskun (County) Festival for primary school choirs (featuring even more but from a wider area), and two festivals I attended in the Hungarian-speaking part of Slovakia, where it is continuing energetically as well. There are so many excellent children’s and girls’ choirs in Hungary, and some boy’s choirs as well.

Ironically, it was Kodály’s visit to England in the 1920’s, when he was so impressed by the standard of choral singing and music training in schools, that led him to start his pedagogical movement. Drawing on his already established position as folk-music researcher and composer, he was in a unique position to establish a system that was all-embracing. Fifty years on the Hungarians have the advantage that their music education is now a strong and unfaltering tradition and whatever is happening elsewhere in Europe, they, at least, continue to train and develop good musicians in the most musical way.

So to Éva Vendrei, Sarolta Platthy, Orsolya Szabo, Roland Hajdu, János Klézli and those I already mentioned, enormous thanks for a ‘wonderful’ year and my thanks to László Durányik for inviting me to absolutely everything at the Kodály School. Check out the new website for more information, including a reunion of old Kodályan students in August 2005.

Congratulations to Barbara for being awarded an Advanced Diploma from the Kodály Pedagogical Institute! Barbara has over twenty years experience of music teaching at primary and secondary levels. She is now hoping to continue teaching part-time, whilst developing a free-lance career with Kodály workshops, classes, inset etc. She is also planning another tour for the Aurin Girls’ Choir, June 2005 and the Miraculum Children’s Choir, June 2006 If you are interested in hosting the choir(s) or with any other aspect of her work, including workshops etc please contact her on 01749 812708 or by email b.jenkinson@ukonline.co.uk

Reflections on a Year in Kecskemét by Kathy Hulme

from the BKA Newsletter, Summer 2004

I first studied Kodály musicianship with David and then Yuko Vinden in London. Although their teaching was of the highest quality I wanted to pursue a more intensive course of study in order to acquire the skills that the Kodály approach can bring. The obvious next step was to come here to the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét.

The Kodály Institute is an international college catering for up to 40 students a year. They offer courses at four levels, introductory, basic, general and advanced. In the first week of the course students are graded by written and aural exam and placed in the appropriate solfege group. On the basis of an audition in singing, piano and any other instruments, we are assigned to a piano teacher, a singing teacher and a chamber group. Depending on the course there are classes in methodology, Hungarian music literature, folk music, general music literature, conducting and score reading.

Overall the teaching is of a very high standard, particularly in the core subjects of solfege, singing and piano. I am fortunate to be in Éva Vendrei’s solfege group: BKA Summer School students will know what a skilled and patient teacher she is. I am a complete beginner at the piano and yet my teacher Roland Hajdu has taught me so much, he too is patient and never patronizing. All the teachers here demand the best performance whatever level one is at. They never divorce the theory or the technical from the music and never let you forget that music is the language of the soul and the emotions, something you’d rather forget on a dreary morning when your stomach is rumbling.

The methodology observations at the Kodály School are truly inspiring. A testament to what can be achieved when all the elements of the Kodály approach are in place. Hungarian language lessons are offered twice weekly, although progress can be slow as English is the lingua franca of the Institute. Trips to the local restaurants, cafes and swimming pool offer limited opportunities to practise the language. I’m proud to say I can now confidently order a cappuccino, and make sure it doesn’t come with a blob of synthetic cream in it, in Hungarian. That is no mean feat I can assure you.

Students have the option of living in the Institute or arranging their own accommodation, which is cheaper, but fraught with complications. I have opted for the luxury of living in, mainly tempted by the piano in every room. Apart from this luxury the accommodation is basic but fine. The main inconveniences for me are the tiny kitchen and the lack of a sofa.

At weekends Budapest provides an escape from Kecskemét. Going to the baths is a favourite trip and in the winter, ice-skating. It is easy to get to by bus, which takes about 1 hr 20 mins (unless you have the misfortune to get the slow bus, which takes 2½ hours).

Spending a year in Hungary is not as cheap as it used to be. The Hungarians are getting ready to join the European Union in May 2004 and will eventually join the Euro, so the exchange rate is not as favourable to Sterling as it was. While many basic things are much cheaper than in Britain, foreign imported goods are more expensive because of heavy sales tax. The fees for the year course are about £4-5000, and living expenses are about the same amount again. Scholarships are available from the IKS, details are posted on the Kodály Institute website www.kodaly-inst.hu

I am finding my year here very interesting and it is wonderful to have the time to practise. It is fascinating to be immersed in Hungarian music and culture. It is both an education in what makes Hungarian music particularly Hungarian, but also in what makes my background in Britain particularly British.

I would recommend this course to anyone who has an interest in Kodály and would be happy to answer any questions from potential students. You can contact me at kathyhulme@yahoo.co.uk. See you in Kecskemét!

 

Inspiration from Hungary by Liz Alexander

from the BKA Newsletter, Summer 2004

With the help and encouragement of Mary Place, I finally realised an eight year dream in February of this year, when I travelled to Hungary to spend a week observing Kodály inspired music classes in two schools and a Kindergarten. Having watched videos of Helga Dietrich and Eva Vendrei teaching on courses organised by the BKA, I was excited about the prospect of observing how teachers in Hungary were continuing to develop Kodály’s philosophy in the 21st Century.

Helga Dietrich had organised a morning in a Music Kindergarten and a morning in a Music Primary School in Budapest for me. There are about 20 Music Primary Schools in Budapest – there used to be nearer 40. There are also fewer Secondary Music Schools than there used to be. Some Kindergartens, (like the one I visited), also use Kodály teaching as part of their philosophy, but not all children attending a Music Primary School will necessarily have had Kodály experience in their Kindergartens. Children start school at the age of 6/7 years old, (our Year 2), and attend Kindergarten from 3 years old.

Helga had arranged for us to spend an hour in the Kindergarten at the beginning of the day, before the music class took place at 9 o’clock. We arrived at about 8 o’clock, but some children had been there since 7 o’clock. At this time of the day, the classes are organised so that there are mixed ages in each one. A family atmosphere exists, and talking to Helga, an important part of the Kindergarten programme, set up in 1972, is to develop children’s’ social skills and cultural awareness in these early years.

The children are allowed to choose from a range of activities, many of which reminded me of my own early years experiences: making a collage using rice and dried pulses of a snowdrop, (in flower at this time of the year); spinning using a traditional loom; working a puppet show; organising a kitchen; playing with large wooden bricks. The focus was on traditional activities; developing an awareness of nature; encouraging children to explore individually and in pairs with help if they needed it from their teacher. Everyday the children explore different activities through a set of 6 subjects: maths, singing, gymnastics, literature, and drawing/craft and environmental knowledge.

However, the children are not taught formally to read and write – they wait until they attend school. There is so much to explore and develop, and I couldn’t help reflect on the stress and pressure which children in the UK are continually being subjected to and at what cost to their personal development?

At 8.30, the teacher directed a gymnastics class, since the children have to do some kind of obligatory exercise every day. This included activities such as walking over bean bags and through trays of small pebbles; picking up the bags with the feet and carrying them to a central point; drawing circles with the feet; drawing with the feet – fascinating!

After breakfast, in which all the children are encouraged to help serve, (including 3 year olds carrying mugs of steaming hot chocolate and baskets of warm bread), the 5/6 year olds filed off to their music class with a specialist teacher. They have two classes a week, with the specialist teacher. Their kindergarten teacher also sings with them every day.

The class was almost an hour long, and yet the children remained focused and participated enthusiastically throughout the lesson. The main objectives of the lesson were to:

  • Reinforce conscious understanding of the crotchet rest.
  • Develop experience and understanding of form: 4 phrase song structures consisting rhythmically of ta, titi and ta rest units.
  • Practise interval relationships between pitches within do pentachordal and diatonic major scales.
    To achieve this, the lesson would be planned to incorporate movement as well as “thinking” work.
  • The children began the lesson by sitting in a circle and sang a greeting song based on s-l-s-m phrases.

A rhythmic clapping game followed. This was extended to include repeating the rhythms using the feet whilst keeping the pulse with the hands. Claves and two-toned woodblocks were then incorporated into the same activity. The teacher then clapped a known song, which the children were asked to recognise. They played the rhythm of the song on their instruments whilst singing. The song consisted of four phrases which included a crotchet rest at the end of the 1st, 2nd and 4th phrase.

The children were asked to show the rest by touching their heads, tummies or shoulders.

  • Next, the teacher introduced some puppets to help create and build a story through, which the next song developed. She introduced individual A5 size note cards with either a ta, ti-ti or ta rest on the front. The children were encouraged to build the rhythm of the song using the cards. She asked the children what the meaning of the rest was: “a silence” they replied. The completed song was sung with the rhythm tapped, clapped, stamped and sung to rhythm syllables.
  • A circle game followed which the children knew well. It involved 3 children playing a role in the game and singing short phrases. The song was based on a minor hexachord, and at the end of the game, the children were asked to order six large chime bars from lowest to highest, thus making the hexachord. The teacher then played a new song on the bars, which the children were asked to identify. Children then sang individual pitches of the song, accompanied by the chime bars played by the teacher.
  • A new set of puppets create a song based on la, so and mi. The teacher brought out a wooden tree, which she placed in front of the children. The tree stood on an A frame, about a metre high, and the song involved placing three bears on three of the tree’s branches to represent the three pitches. The children sang the song as the teacher pointed to the bears. She then changed their position to three new branches, therefore changing the pitch of the song, and the children sang again.

This activity was developed, as the teacher brought out eight birds, which she proceeded to place, first on five branches, to represent a do pentatonic scale, and then completed the branches to make a do diatonic major scale.

The children were encouraged to practise their understanding of interval relationships as the teacher pointed to the birds. The children sang in sol-fa with both hands, hand signing the relevant sol-fa. (The possibilities for developing interval work using the tree and puppets are endless. My partner Bill has made me an MDF version of an English Oak tree, complete with felt birds, which I have glued onto wooded clothes pegs. I am so excited about such a simple, but effective tool.)

The final activity of the lesson was a listening game. The children listened to a Tyrolean folk dance and moved round the room in any way they liked. As soon as they heard a specific rhythm, which the teacher clapped at the start of the game, they were required to freeze. The rhythms were based on ta and ti-ti units.

In discussion with Helga after the lesson had ended, she talked about the connections, which the teacher was developing in the children between brain activity “thinking”, and movement. She talked about how we had observed that the learning took place through oral, visual and kinaesthetic means, and that the teacher was developing a certain way of thinking in the children, which involved both the vertical and horizontal experience and understanding of musical concepts.

The following day I spent the morning at one of the Budapest Music Primary Schools, observing Zsuzsanna Molnár. The school ranges from First to Eighth Grade, and Zsuzsanna teaches the first four grades. A second music specialist teaches the fifth to eighth grades. Although the school is state run, parents apply for children to attend. The teacher carries out a simple assessment: it is important to have a clear voice; a simple rhythm is clapped and the children are required to clap it back; a simple s-l-s-m phrase is sung, and the children sing it back; the children are encouraged to sing a folksong if they know any from their Kindergarten; and the teacher also discusses parental attitudes to the value they place on music.

I observed a 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade class. Each class had on average 26 pupils. In the First Grade, (our Year 2), pupils have a lesson on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 45 minutes. The class teacher sits in on lessons, taking notes to back up what has been taught. From the 2nd grade, children have lessons every day for 45 minutes, and again, the class teacher sits in on the lesson. A choir takes place twice a week, from the 2nd to the 4th Grade.

Lessons take place in the pupils’ own classroom. Zsuzsanna carries round a roll-up blackboard, keyboard and glockenspiel, plus any teaching aids. However, there are 15 minutes between each lesson, and this gives the teacher some reflection time on the previous lesson, as well as subsequent lesson preparation time. (This would be so useful!)

Second Grade: known – do and la pentatonic and pentachords; syn-co-pa rhythmic element.

Recorder work:

  • Class started with circle game in the hallway – folksong – identified folk dance movements.
  • In class: interval work – all pupils have a set of interval cards: m2 M2 m3 M3 P4 P5 P8. Teacher sings 2 notes, and pupils hold card representing the interval they think it is.
  • Sing song with syn-co-pa. Identify song and rhythm. Sing song – clap rhythm and walk pulse. Draw syn-cho-pa on the board. (perfect notation – obviously very important to be neat and precise in notation). Sing several songs with rhythmic element. Includes Kodály Bicinium.
  • Text books: identify tonality of song as being “lah pentachord”. Pupils perform on recorder. Write notes on stave. Mi=A
  • Rhythmic dictation – includes syn-co-pa and quaver rest.

Third Grade: interval work; Ionian, Aeolian, Dorian, Phrygian modes known.

Recorder work:

  • Vocal warm-up: do hexachord – drmf drmfs d lsmfrd; do scale: drmfsltlsmfrd; d d’ s m r d; interval work: dr dm df ds slsfmrd – move up a semitone.
  • Interval work using cards.
  • Teacher sings “do” – then notes above or below. Pupils have eyes closed and hand sign note they think she has sung. Repeat starting on “so”. Teacher plays recorder – repeats activity.
  • Hand signs known song; identify; play on recorder; work out tone set of song, and write notes on board. = C to D’. Sing from board – F, G and B can be sharps and flats.
  • New song – Aeolian. identify -sing – play
  • 2-part song – sing in pairs
  • Sing walk pulse and clap rhythmic ostinato round the room.
  • Game – folksong

Because the pupils have music so regularly, I observed a huge development in skills between each year group, especially between the First and Second Grade. In the Music Kindergarten, I observed: ta ti-ti and “sh” as conscious rhythmic elements, plus sol-fa d – d’. At the school, Zsuzsanna starts with pre-conscious work, but can move more quickly since some pupils have conscious experience of rhythm names, (ta, ti-ti and “sh”) and sol-fa.

In the First Grade lesson, I observed lots of rhythm work including the minim (ta-a), and pitch work involved developing experience of l-s-m on a 5-line stave.

Rhythm activities:

Teacher taps 4 beat rhythm on tambour using tas and ti-tis: pupils are encouraged to make the rhythm using their bodies, (one person would be a “ta”, two people would form an arch to make a “ti-ti”), at the front of the class. One pupil would be in charge of organising their fellow classmates.

  • “Chinese whispers” with rhythms – teacher plus 6 pupils. The teacher taps a rhythm on the shoulders on one pupil. This pupil taps the rhythm they think they have felt, on the shoulders of the person in front of them, and so on. The last pupil claps the rhythm they think they have felt. The rest of class can see what is happening, and can judge the effectiveness of their fellow pupils’ ability to transfer the rhythm they think they have felt, correctly.
  • Each pupil had a set of single rhythm cards, and was encouraged to make clapped rhythms by the teacher.
  • Identify songs with given rhythmic phrase by the teacher.

Pitch work: use of felt boards with 5 black lines and felt note heads.

  • Place “so” on the board and make “mi” in correct place below, in a space or on a line.
  • Teacher plays a 4- note phrase on a glockenspiel and the pupils make it on their boards. They hold them up for checking.
  • Add in “la”. Teacher’s demonstration board has different colours for la, so and mi.
  • Identify a song with opening phrase that they have made. Stand to sing and hand sign. Find song in text books. Colour “la”, “so” and “mi” in different colours. Sight read a new song and colour in the notes. Sing the song to sol-fa and hand signs; sing to rhythm names; sing to words.

In the work of all the Hungarian teachers I observed, both in Budapest and Kecskemét, I was struck with the beauty and craft of their lessons. Teachers gently guided the children through each activity, and even though the lessons were in Hungarian, it was possible to see what skills and elements were being developed in each part of the lesson. Each activity dovetailed into the next with the preparation for subsequent work being completed in previous activities. There was always a sense of purpose throughout the lessons. Every child was involved and focused. The lessons were intensive, but all the children participated fully and enjoyed what they were doing, because they were fulfilled and more significantly, they were achieving.

The lessons were to me, perfect models of what I am trying to emulate in my own teaching. I don’t think I ever will reach such perfection, because it is not in my blood in the same way as the Hungarian teachers, who have grown up being educated this way. However, a gifted teacher such as Cyrilla Rowsell is an example of how a British teacher is able to achieve this. For anyone who has been in one of Cyrilla’s classes, you will appreciate her calm, systematic approach. She makes it look deceptively easy, but this is the true craftsmanship of a Kodály teacher. It is knowing what you are trying to achieve and being able to deliver a lesson in such a way, that all your pupils know exactly what they are learning at each stage of the lesson. Interest and concentration is maintained at each stage of the lesson through a multi-sensory approach, and pupils learn through individual, paired and group work.

For me, the more I learn and discover about this philosophy of music education, through courses, my own research and through the experience of actually teaching, the more I want to know and find out for myself. It is a journey, which I am enjoying immensely, and will hopefully, take a lifetime to fulfil.

Musical Experience – from Cradle (and before) to Grave? by Janet Hayward

A look at the power of music in old age when the mental functions may diminish by Janet Hayward (BKA Newsletter, Spring 2003)

A little while ago, I watched a television programme which I only came upon by chance but which made a considerable impression on me. It was a short Open University programme about the impact of songs, i.e. the combination of words and music, on our lives and our memories.

It started by illustrating the ability of babies to hear and remember music which has been played to them frequently while they are in the womb. Those of us who have been on the Sound Beginnings course know that there is now a wealth of research evidence to support this thesis. Several mothers talked about their own experience of playing a song to their unborn baby, and finding that after the birth, this song had the power to calm and quieten the child at times of distress.

The programme went on to remind us how learning in childhood can be enhanced by setting words to music, and cited examples such as trying to teach a child the alphabet, and finding it can be learnt in next to no time if it is made into a little song. I can bear this out from my own experience as a primary school teacher.

However, the time when songs have their greatest impact on us, according to this programme, is during our teenage years, and these songs are most likely to be the pop songs whose words echo the passion, joys and tears of adolescence. But in order for them to be remembered, we need to recall the music as well as the words. As evidence of this, a number of “baby boomers” i.e. those now in their fifties, were asked to recite the words of the Beatles’ song, “When I’m Sixty-Four”. Most of them had difficulty with saying the words, but once they were reminded of the tune and started to sing it, the words came back with little effort.

So great is the impact at this time, apparently, that the words and music of these songs stay with us for the rest of our lives. Further research has been undertaken on elderly people who are suffering from dementia, and therefore have some damage to their brain cells. This research has shown that they can still recall songs they knew from their youth, even when much else is lost in a fog of confusion.

I was particularly interested in this part of the programme, as my mother, who is 92, has recently been diagnosed with a condition known as Lewy Body Dementia. This strange name refers to a doctor called Lewy, who discovered in post mortem examinations that there were microscopic “bodies” on the brain cells of patients who had died after showing particular symptoms. These symptoms were confusion and loss of short term memory, as with other types of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s, but also hallucinations, which might be aural or visual, and Parkinsons’-like symptoms, i.e. shakiness and mobility problems. In addition to these symptoms, my mother is suffering from an untreatable eye condition known as macular degeneration, so she is nearly blind.

With all these problems, it is really difficult now to know how to amuse her. Her conversation is muddled and repetitive, and she refers constantly to the instructions and information, much of it malign, from voices she can hear. She has been a lifelong churchgoer, so we always try to watch “Songs of Praise” with her and have a number of CDs of her favourite hymns. Not only do these seem to calm her and give her enjoyment, but she also makes a very passable attempt, for someone of her age, to sing along, and manages to get much of the words and tune correct. She also seems able to express herself through rhymes and songs she learnt in her childhood and youth, although other language is an effort for her. For example, I recently pointed out to her that the sun had come out after a long spell of gloomy weather, and she began to sing: “The sun is a-shining to welcome the day, hey ho, come to the fair!” A little later we decided to go for a walk outside. As we rounded a corner, a cold wind hit us and she recited, word perfect, this little rhyme:

“The north wind doth blow and we shall have snow
And what will the robin do then, poor thing?
He’ll sit in the barn and keep himself warm,
And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.”

Not only did this amuse us both, but it seemed to give her a great sense of satisfaction that she could recall these words, when so often she struggles to string a sentence together.

So it may be, that, as we are involved in Kodaly learning and teaching, and building up our “bank” of songs and rhymes, we are doing more for ourselves and our pupils than we realise. Perhaps in addition to the more obvious benefits of a good music education, we are also preparing ourselves and those we teach to cope with the mixed blessings of living well into old age.

Teaching Tips: Two Activities by Helga Dietrich

by Judy Brindle (BKA Newsletter, Spring 2003)

1. “Hey Jim Along”* A song I new but never used because I lacked a “game”. Here is Helga’s: Stand in a circle & each think of a one syllable action word + action. In turn we set off the next version by singing our word & doing the action. Immediately everyone joined in performing the action (I think) at the beginning of each phrase. There were about 20 participants & we had “Ski Jim a long”, spin, drink. eat, as well as the usual walk, clap, and stamp. It was a relief when it came to my turn & no-one had pre-empted my version but then Helga let it run round the circle a second time. (I think the song had 4 phrases ABAB) So the song was repeated 80 times. We were all engaged, having such fun & maintaining the beat throughout.

2. The other idea that stands out was how Helga introduced a new singing game. I’d learned from Helga previously that in the Early Years “we don’t teach a song by echoing phrases”. But what exactly do you do? Standing in a circle, Helga sang a song with an action to the beat. Immediately, she repeated the song. Each time the song was repeated the action to the beat changed. We joined in with the actions & gradually joined in singing with increasing confidence. This was immediately followed by the game and of course we continued to produce a high standard of singing.

It is interesting to note that my SEN course has been well received by Early Years practitioners. I feel there is much common ground. We do lots of repertoire appropriate for mainstream EY KS1 & a little for KS2. We look at using the repertoire to develop musical skills & understanding with progression by small steps. I incorporate movement wherever possible.

Just before starting teaching in my special school I received some excellent general advice. “Imagine pupils with special needs are younger than they are.” My mainstream early year’s material was just right for my 11 year old pupils with moderate/severe learning difficulties.

Note: *”Hey, Jim Along” and other wonderful songs for pre-school and KS1 settings can be found in 150 American Folk Songs by Peter Erdei.