Many Seeds, Different Flowers

the music education legacy of Carl Orff

edited by André de Quadros

Cost: $33.00 inc GST plus postage

 

When 24 authors from around the world interpret the teachings of one man, the result is a fascinating and diversified collection of articles. This book presents a kaleidoscope of music education practice and material. Different musics (Canadian, Native American, Cambodian, Kenyan, Klezmer, Indonesian, Namibian, English and Japanese), styles and processes are represented.

The authors are: Lois Birkenshaw-Fleming, Judy Bond, Bryan Burton, Patricia Shehan Campbell, John Drummond, Peter Dunbar-Hall, Carol Cartrell and Emily Akuno, Doug Coodkin, Wolfgang Hartmann, Gregory Hurworth, Jon Madin and Heather McLaughlin, Minette Mans, Kathryn Marsh, Ellen McCullough-Brabson, Anne Power, Mary Shamrock and I Nyoman Wenten, Sue Snyder, Tatsuko Takizawa, Dorothy Taylor, Judith Thomas and Susan Katz. Preface by André de Quadros.

The editor at time of publishing was Associate Professor André de Quadros, Director of Performance in the School of Music-Conservatorium of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He is now (2005) Professor André de Quadros, Director, School of Music, Boston University, also, Artistic Director, Boston University Tanglewood Institute and Chairman, Board of Directors, ALEA III. 

Contents
Preface
Brief Biographies of the Contributors
Acknowledgments

The potential reader may well wonder whether this is yet another standard Orff-Schulwerk book or whether it is something new. The reader seeking an Orff text which outlines the history of the Orff approach and then offers a classroom curriculum with sequential activities will be disappointed. This task has already been undertaken most successfully by several writers, particularly in the USA(1).

The inspiration for this work came from Orff's birth centenary and from the occasion of ORFF 100: International Conference of Music and Dance, which was held in Melbourne in July 1995. At this conference there was a large contingent of presenters who had a commitment to, and a sympathy for the Orff approach, some of whom were not Orff-Schulwerk teachers in the widely accepted sense. Their presentations demonstrated how much the Orff-Schulwerk approach had contributed to music education in general; in some cases, principles of Orff were so deeply embedded that their presence could easily be overlooked. Orff's contribution to music education has been so immense that there is virtually nobody practising in the field of music education who has been untouched.

In the sixty or so years since Orff began his work, many teachers, musicians and artists have encountered it and have gone on to teach, write and organise based on this influence. While some have made it their business to wave the Orff flag and to identify themselves as Orff teachers, many have developed a more eclectic teaching that nonetheless shows its origins from or affinity to the Orff approach. The title of this book was chosen with this latter phenomenon in mind. Many seeds of Orff-Schulwerk have indeed been sown. These seeds have grown into plants so differentiated by their educational environments, their classroom priorities, their song and instrumental heritage as to make their flowerings vastly different and endlessly fascinating.

The differences between the many interpretations of the Orff approach since the earliest writings of Gunild Keetman until now are partly due to the fact that Orff wrote very little about what should be taught in the primary or elementary school. His own experience of working with children was in fact outside the classroom, in such activities as the organisation of the music for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and the school broadcasts of the 1940s(2). The Schulwerk's principles evolved rather from the work in the Guntherschule, where Gunther and Orff developed the teaching of theoretical subjects in music and dance, as well as the teaching of gymnastics and dance (Orff 1976, 15). Although the Schulwerk philosophy was born out of the work from this important period of Orff's career, the students at the Güntherschule were all adult women.

Much later, after the Second World War; the successful radio broadcasts of children's compositions led to interest in the development of the Schulwerk as a music education model for young children. Unlike other approaches to music education, which had their origins in the classroom and where the originators devised and developed the curriculum, it was left to Orff's collaborators and successors as well as to his many followers worldwide to interpret his approach for their own contexts. This lack of clearly established pedagogy and an established sequence by the approach's originator has been a continuing source of controversy and confusion for some, but for others it is the Schulwerk's greatest strength. It has enabled a broad base of interpretation and has compelled music educators to use their own imagination in filling their students' needs. Orff himself drew the analogy to seeds, flowers and organic growth precisely in relation to his omission of sequencing whilst nonetheless meeting the needs of children, of schools and of music teachers.

Looking back I should like to describe Schulwerk as a wild flower ... As in Nature plants establish themselves where they are needed and where the conditions are favourable, so Schulwerk has grown from ideas that were ripe at the time and that found their favourable conditions in my work. ... It is an experience of long standing that wild flowers always prosper; where carefully planned, cultivated plants often produce disappointing results. (Orff 1963, 3)

The international dissemination of the Schulwerk has been thoroughly documented by Hermann Regner in various Orff Informationen and by Shamrock (1995), and therefore need not be repeated here. But its growth worldwide is testimony to Orff's statement of the dynamic quality of the Schulwerk-

Most methodical, dogmatic people derive scant pleasure from it, but those who are artistic and who are improvisers by temperament enjoy it all the more. Every phase of Schulwerk will always provide stimulation for new independent growth; therefore it is never conclusive and settled, but always developing, always growing, always flowing. (Orff 1963, 3)

Indeed, the dispersal of the approach continues to be so pervasive and extensive that its influence on contemporary music education can never be appreciated fully. The 'elemental' concept developed in the days of the Güntherschule is one of the most profound contributions to music education; this concept is clearly represented in all the articles of this book. This most fundamental aspect of the Schulwerk is the hallmark of the Orff approach, and superseding the simple use of pitched percussion instruments, or of pentatonic material of the Orff approach. However; the reader seeking the general way in which the Schulwerk has influenced music teaching will find many examples herein.

In inviting writers to contribute to this book, I specifically did not limit myself to those people who are exclusively identified with the Orff-Schulwerk approach. This book aims to display the influence of the Orff approach not only in the traditional Orff classroom (if such exists), but also in contexts where the teaching is more general and the resources more eclectic. All the authors delve into the philosophical underpinning of the Schulwerk, some describing it by method and some by example. Six chapters discuss cultural paradigms, thematic teaching, children's creativity and new directions in music education. Two chapters outline Orff's legacy and its impact on current directions in music education both globally and locally. Ten chapters explore the cultural contexts of musics from different geographic regions and ethnicities, including lesson plans, songs, dances and instruments. Two chapters examine how the Schulwerk can be used in lessons dealing respectively with marimbas and with texts.

Thus, the book itself becomes a statement on the remarkable adaptability of the Schulwerk's teaching not only to the musics of the world, but also to a variety of musics from other European styles and periods. As the move from a content-specific curriculum to a process-specific curriculum becomes more widespread, so also is there a move to include music of the whole world as a stimulation for new independent growth, and a recognition that an approach such as the Schulwerk, which allows for non-Eurocentric music education, has a strategic place.

It is frequently maintained that musical practices establish, define and perpetuate a sense of community and a sense of self within groups and that these musical practices constitute and are constituted by their cultural contexts. Orff-Schulwerk exists within a community of players and is nourished by the individual as part of the group. This approach, therefore, has created its own musical context different in some respects from the average classroom, with a distinctive harmonic language and using rhythmic material and instruments which do not belong to the mainstream of Western music. The Orff musical culture is nonetheless constituted by our Western culture by virtue of the traditional nature of the texts and the linearity and structure of its melodies and arrangements.

If the essentials of musicmaking and musicianship contain within them aspects of self-growth, self-knowledge, musical enjoyment and self-esteem, then the Schulwerk material in this book goes a long way towards cultivating these essentials. However, the Schulwerk goes further; its improvisational element makes each classroom experience unique. This particularity of the musical experience can be a unique source of self-knowledge. As students in the Schuiwerk environment are always and covertly constructing musical works and developing their musicianship, the degree of achieving self-knowledge may therefore increase as musicianship improves.

Unlike other classroom teachers, Schulwerk teachers write about uplifting experiences, and also about extending the range of expressive powers during the activities of formulating emotional expressions, creating representations of people, places and things and expressing cultural-ideological meanings. The importance given to the inclusion of texts increases the possibilities of giving musical form to thoughts, knowledge, values, beliefs and feelings and thus challenging the listeners' understandings. The texts and other material in this book, which are consistent with Orff's recommendations, are aimed at self-improvement for the player; dramatically increasing the value of the musical formulations beyond the simple growth of skill in musicmaking.

The Orff approach believes strongly that all children have a natural ability to make music and to develop musicianship. It follows that they should all be taught as reflective practitioners, with a curriculum based on artistic musicmaking and listening through performing and creative work, and, as the chapters in this book would indicate, with a very broad scope for individual artistic expression and exploration. Furthermore, the teacher with knowledge of Orff's philosophy is able to offer varying levels of challenge so that each student does indeed reflect on what is being produced.

1 The books written by Frazee. Steen and Warner are excellent examples.
2 Orff had accepted a commission straight from the Olympic Committee to compose part of the music for the Olympic opening ceremony of 1936. The enormous significance of this project lay in the fact that this was the first time that his musical work had had direct and substantial contact with school children. Approximately 6000 children from Berlin schools had participated in the music and dance performances which were the result of a collaboration of Wigman. Lex, Günther (as choreographer), and Keetman who was responsible for the musical direction of the performance. This was the bridge from Orff's earlier explorations with adults to his later work in schools.

REFERENCES

Frazee, Jane
1987 Discovering Orff a curriculum for music teachers. New York: Schott

Orff, Carl
1963 Orff-Schulwerk: Past and Future. In Orff Re-echoes: selections from the Orff Echo and the supplements, ed. Isabel McNeilI Carley, pp. 3-9. Lakemont GA: American Orff-Schulwerk Association

Shamrock, Mary
1995 Orff-Schulwerk: brief history. description. and issues in global dispersal. Cleveland OH: American Orff-Schulwerk Association

Warner, Brigitte
1991 Orff-Schulwerk: applications for the classroom. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall

Article Title

Contributor

Page

Orff-Schulwerk seeds and flowers: Editor's preface

ANDRE DE QUADROS

6

Acknowledgements

9

Orff-Schulwerk in canada: changing the way music is taught

LOIS BIRKENSHAW-FLEMING

10

Sound alert: diversity for ears and minds

JUDY BOND

1 9

Voices of Turtle Island: Native American music and dance

BRYAN BURTON

28

Chhoungs, Chhings, and Khmer Things: lessons from Cambodia

PATRICIA SHEHAN CAMPBELL

40

A voice for all to hear: the Orff legacy and the 'new' music education

JOHN DRUMMOND

50

World music, creativity and Orff pedagogy

PETER DUN BAR-HALL

58

Two children's songs from Kenya

CAROL GARTRELL and EMILY AKUNO

67

Orff-Schulwerk in the new mythology

DOUG GOODKIN

79

Creative playgrounds-music by children

WOLFGANG HARTMANN

94

Strategies for coping with Klezmeritis

GREGORY HURWORTH

100

Accessible instruments, accessible music: homemade marimbas in the classroom

HEATHER MCLAUGHLIN and JON MADIN

11 2

Epera and oudhano: creating a sense of holism in the classroom with Namibian music and dance

MINETTE MANS

124

Creative processes in Australian children's playground singing games: beyond the ostinato

KATHRYN MARSH

144

I walk in beauty: music of the Navajo

ELLEN MCCULLOUGH-BRABSON

165

Orff, action learning and Nepean innovations

ANNE POWER

I 77

The challenge of "Kotekan"

MARY SHAMROCK and I NYOMAN WENTEN

186

Weavers and weaving: a thematic unit with many learning options

SUE SNYDER

196

Orff seeds in Japanese musical culture

TATSUKO TAKIZAWA

205

Great oaks from little acorns grow: the Carl Orff legacy in English primary schools

DOROTHY TAYLOR

212

Make a joyful word

JUDITH THOMAS and SUSAN KATZ

222

Contributors

232

EMILY AKUNO is a music lecturer at Kenyatta University, Nairobi. She gained a BEd Arts Hons degree from Kenyatta University and subsequently an MMus from the Northwestern State University, Louisiana. She is currently researching for her PhD at Kingston University, sponsored by the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission, which has awarded her an Academic Staff Scholarship. Her aim is to develop a curriculum for primary music in Kenya based upon Kenyan children's song.

LOIS BIRKENSHAW-FLEMING graduated from the University of Toronto in Canada and the Royal Conservatory of Music, and was head of the Orff programme for the Toronto Board of Education and taught at York University. She presently teaches Orff courses at the Conservatory and has given lectures and courses across Canada and the USA, in England, France, Finland, South Africa and Austria. She has written many articles and several books, among them: Music For Fun, Music For Learning, Come On Everybody Let's Sing, Music For All, and is the editor of An Orff Mosaic From Canada I: Orff au Canada: une mosaique.

JUDY BOND is Coordinator of Music Education at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in the USA and a member of the summer faculty at the University of St Thomas Institute for Contemporary Music Education. She is a Past President of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association and has taught many Orff Certification courses. She is an author of Share the Music, the 1995 music textbook series published by Macmillan/McGraw-HiII.

BRYAN BURTON is Professor of Music Education at West Chester University of Pennsylvania in the USA. He is the author of Moving within the Circle: Contemporary Native American Music and Dance, When the Earth Was Like New, a contributing author to Multicultural Perspectives in Music Education, as well as numerous professional journals and teaching anthologies. Dr Burton has presented workshops and lectures for music education conferences in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

PATRICIA SHEHAN CAMPBELL is Professor of Music at the University of Washington in the USA. She has lectured and published widely, and is author or co-author of nine books, including Lessons from the World, Music in Childhood, Roots and Branches, and Music in Cultural Context. Her most recent project is Songs in Their Heads: Music and Its Meaning in Children's Lives, was published by Oxford University Press. Campbell is an associate conductor for the Pacific Children's Choir in Seattle, where she is engaged in the use of Daicroze eurhyhmics to teach musicianship to children ages six through ten years.

ANDRE DE QUADROS is Coordinator of Performance in the School of Music Conservatorium at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He lectures in music education and music performance in the School of Music Conservatorium. He has conducted and taught internationally including engagements in the USA, Canada, Russia, Germany, the UK, Ukraine, Indonesia and Malaysia. He studied at the Orff Institute in Salzburg and has been President of the Australian National Council of Orff-Schulwerk.

JOHN DRUMMOND trained as a composer and musicologist in the UK and has been Blair Professor of Music at the University of Otago in New Zealand since 1 976. His main interests in Western music have been Mozart and opera: he has directed over 30 opera productions, composed over a dozen music theatre works and written a history of opera. He is involved in music education nationally in New Zealand and internationally through ISME.

PETER DUNBAR-HALL is the author/co-author of numerous music education texts and is widely published in the research literature of music education, semiotics, popular music, and Australian Aboriginal cultures. He lectures in music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney in Australia and has worked as a guest lecturer in New Zealand and the USA.

CAROL GARTRELL is Principal Lecturer in Music at Kingston University in England. She read Music at Surrey University. gaining a Bachelor Music and subsequently a PhD before becoming an Archivist. Subsequently she taught in both primary and secondary schools. Her interest and enthusiasm for world music in education was inspired by her experiences of music from other cultures and by the knowledge and skills developed within the School of Music within which she works.

DOUG GOODKIN is the music teacher at The San Francisco School, where he has taught music and movement to children between three years old and eighth grade (12 years old) since 1975. He regularly gives courses in Orff-Schulwerk throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Australia. He has published numerous articles worldwide on Orff in contemporary culture and is an author of the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill textbook series Share the Music.

WOLFGANG HARTMANN studied at the University of Würzburg and taught in Bavaria, Since 1976 he has written music educational programmes for Bavarian Radio (the station, where Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman started their Schulwerk programmes in 1948). He has given Orff seminars and workshops in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, Slovakia, Great Britain, Norway, Finland, Estonia, China, Taiwan, and the USA and was Lecturer at Musikhochschule Wien and Guest Lecturer at the Orff Institute in Salzburg.

GREGORY HURWORTH is Senior Lecturer in Music and Music Education in the Faculty of Education, Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His doctoral thesis was an ethnomusicological study of the Yami people in Taiwan. He conducts various ensembles and choirs, for whom he has arranged and composed various works. His training as both music educator and ethnomusicologist means that much of his work centres around training teachers to teach multicultural music. He is a confessed sufferer of Klezmeritis.

SUSAN KATZ, poet and author; is an internationally known specialist in the field of Language Arts. She has authored three collections of poetry and her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies. She served as Book Review Editor for the international literary magazine, Bitterroot, and has presented her work at colleges, universities and libraries. As an artist-in-residence, she has conducted poetry workshops with students and teachers for over 25 years.

JON MADIN has been the major leader of the marimba building and playing movement which has taken over Australian schools and community music. His background is in performance of folk music, including playing in the multicultural dance band "Shenanigans". He designs and builds marimbas, helps others build them, develops percussion music, and leads workshops, festival parades and performances around Australia. His innovative instrument designs have inspired many thousands of children and adults.

MINETTE MANS teaches at the University of Namibia, where she is Senior Lecturer. She teaches both Music Education and Dance, in a blend based upon ngoma. Her field of research is the music and dance of Namibia and extends into the past, exploring connections with ancient rock paintings. She is also deeply involved in the reform of arts education in Namibia.

KATHRYN MARSH is a lecturer in music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney in Australia, where she teaches subjects relating to primary and early childhood music education, multicultural music education and music education research methods. Her research interests include children's musical play, children's creativity, and multicultural and Aboriginal music education. She has written a variety of academic and teaching publications and has been actively involved in curriculum development and teacher inservice training for many years.

ELLEN MCCULLOUGH-BRABSON, Professor of Music at the University of New Mexico in the USA, presents workshops on multicultural music nationally and internationally. She is a Regents' Lecturer, a title given for teaching excellence. She is co-author of the book Roots and Branches: A Legacy of Multicultural Music for Children and We'll Be in Your Mountains, We'll Be in Your Songs: A Navajo Woman Sings (University of New Mexico Press, Spring, 2001.)

HEATHER McLAUGHLIN teaches music to babies and preschool children, primary school music and courses for tertiary students and adults. She is President of Parents for Music: A Family Music Association in Melbourne, Australia. Study at the Orff Institute (Austria) and the Kodaly Institute (Hungary) gives her a broad understanding of music education. Marimba and percussion workshops are a recent passion, and she organises the annual Family Marimba Music Camps in Victoria.

ANNE POWER is lecturer in Music Education in the Education Faculty of the University of Western Sydney-Nepean in Australia, working in programs for early childhood, primary and secondary educators. Over a number of years, she has served on the Committee of the Orff-Schulwerk Association of NSW Inc and is at present their liaison officer for country regions. She has strong interests in computer-assisted composition. the sociological aspects of music and in programs for the gifted and talented. Her doctoral research is in the field of contemporary Australian opera.

MARY SHAMROCK, Professor and Assistant Music Department Chair at California State University-Northridge, holds a PhD from UCLA in Music Education/Ethnomusicology. She has served as President, Editor, and twice as National Conference Chair for the American Orff-Schulwerk Association. She has wide national and international experience as Schulwerk course instructor, workshop leader; conference presenter; and author; often integrating the Schulwerk approach with culture-specific materials.

SUE SNYDER is a teacher, author; consultant, and president of IDEAS-Inventive Designs for Education and the Arts: a company facilitating child appropriate educational programs. She holds a BS and MA in Music Education, a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction, an Orff Master-Teacher Certificate, and a Cooperative Learning Trainers' Certificate. She is an author of Macmillan/McGraw Hill's Music and You, Grades K-8; coordinating author of Share the Music, Grades K-6; Contributing Author of Glencoe's Choral Connections, and Author and Publisher of Integrate with Integrity and Teaching Music in the Elementary School: A Guide for the Classroom Teacher. She teaches at Hunter College, City University of New York.

TATSUKO TAKIZAWA is Professor at Aichi University of Education in Japan. She has received a research grant at the University of Singapore and has been a Fulbright Senior Fellow and Visiting Professor and the University of Washington, as well as undertaking research at Harvard University Project Zero. She has been a member of the World Music Project of ISME, 1993-I 996.

DOROTHY TAYLOR is a music educator; author and formerly lecturer in music education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Since 1 990 she has been Inspector for music in the Barking and Dagenham local education authority and County Music Inspector; Essex County Council. Returning to teacher education she is now course tutor to a School Centred Initial Teacher Training Scheme for Primary Teachers while continuing as a music education consultant and author/co-author of the year by year series 'Targeting Music' (Schott).

JUDITH THOMAS, Orff-Schulwerk specialist and arts coordinator; is well known in universities in the US and Canada. She has co-directed international courses in Austria and England and contributed to the American editions of Music for Children, as well as The Echo, and MEJ Journal. She taught in the Nyack. NY school district, is currently a guest adjunct professor at NYU and other universities. and is an author for Scott Foresman.

I NYOMAN WENTEN directs the Indonesian music program at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, California; he also teaches Balinese gamelan at UCLA. He holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology from UCLA, plus degrees from Java and Bali in Music and Dance. He performs both as a musician and dancer; and composes for gamelan and electronic media. He is musical director for a CMP Recording series of gamelan CDs.

The organising of this project began in 1995 on the occasion of Orff's birth centenary. Five years later; with the encouragement and assistance of many people, this book has finally come to fruition. Belinda Yourn was the first person from CIRCME to recognise the value of this project and, with Sam Leong's leadership, it has been brought to a concrete conclusion. The book would not have been possible without the ready assistance of Monash University in the form of a publication grant and in many other ways. Heather McLaughlin has been a continuing source of encouragement and assisted with some of the finer points in editing. The close involvement of Sue Simon, whose keen eye and knowledge have contributed vastly to this endeavour; is greatly appreciated. Bringing this project to completion would not have been possible without Victoria Rogers' tenacity and dedication. Editing a book with twenty chapters and twentyfour authors has been a much more complicated process than I ever imagined and, thankfully, my own family and friends have happily put up with me throughout the long process.

AdQ
Melbourne
March, 2000 

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