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A Musical Approach to Learning Instruments

By Klondike Steadman

Chapter One

Foundations

The fundamental guiding principle behind this method is that the highest levels of music

learning take place through a direct experience of dynamic music making. Given the

right music, the right preparation, a joyful environment and excellent instruction students

can engage in music making that is full of vitality and expression from the very first

lesson. In fact, students of all ages come to the first lesson full of musical expression

that is simply waiting to burst out. With proper sequencing, we can immediately begin

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by making music without any explanation or interference to this musical intent. We can

follow through with our musical teaching in a way that never stifles this energy and

allows the student to grow more secure in all aspects of musicianship. Students that

are making music at the highest levels while actively using their body, their ear, and

their mind will undoubtedly develop all the critical skills of a great musician while

deepening their love of music.

This method follows a balanced approach which values all musical skills rather than

focusing on just one or two skills to the detriment of others. Any musical skill in any

area of playing benefits all other areas of musical development. Similarly, any

weakness in the student’s development does significant damage to all areas of

development. For example, excellence in ear training makes it much easier for students

to see and understand patterns in written music, allowing them to read more easily and

therefore focus on technique when learning a new piece, which, in turn, allows them to

play with greater dynamic expression and therefore enjoy the piece more. On the other

hand, a student with poor technique suffers from many physical struggles that cause

them to look away from the music, be confused about the notes and rhythms they are

playing and completely unaware of the musical character of the piece. A student is

generally most concentrated on their weakest skill: If they cannot read the music, they

are studying the page trying to figure out the notes, if they have poor technique, they

are staring at their hands, trying to make their fingers move in seemingly impossible

ways. As Dr. Robert Duke has said “When do you teach technique? Every lesson.

When do you teach theory? Every lesson. When do you teach expressive playing?

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Every lesson.”

This approach brings together best practices of teachers from around the United States

and abroad, gathered through more than a decade of collaboration at the Orpheus

Academy of Music in Austin, TX. At it’s core, however, is an adaptation of the Kodaly

method to instrumental instruction. Given the fact that the Kodaly method can, at times,

be almost religiously devoted to pure singing from the beginning, I want to acknowledge

that adapting it to instrumental instruction will likely offend some Kodaly purists.

Similarly, ideas such as Movable Do and Sound to Symbol have been met with

skepticism by many traditional teachers. Nonetheless, the results of this approach

speak for themselves: Hundreds of students have learned to play their instruments

joyfully with exceptional technique, musicianship and creativity.

The Kodaly Method

A detailed explanation of the Kodaly method is not within the scope of this book. For

that purpose there are numerous excellent volumes (many of which can be found at the

back of this book). A description of the Kodaly Concept found on the International

Kodaly Society webpage should serve as a basic understanding of the method for the

purposes of this book:

Kodály inspired a revolution in the teaching of music in Hungary. He, together with colleagues — among them Jenõ Ádám — established new principles for music education. These principles have come to be known as the "Kodály Method" of music education:

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•    Music is a prime necessity of life. •    Only music of the highest quality is good enough for children. •    Music education must begin nine months before the birth of the child. •    Music instruction must be a part of general education for everyone. •    The ear, the eye, the hand, and the heart must all be trained together.The Kodály approach to music teaching is based on the "musical mother tongue" of the students, that is, on their own folk music. This forms the starting point for musical learning which eventually leads to an understanding of and appreciation for music of all styles, genres, and cultures. According to Kodály, because young children's natural means of musical expression is the voice, music instruction should be vocally based.

Of particular interest in our approach to teaching instruments are the ideas of a multi-

sensory approach (“The ear, the eye, the hand and the heart…”), the use of Folk Songs

and the use of the voice as the primary musical instrument of all children.

Another central concept of the Kodaly Method used throughout this book is the idea of

“Sound to Symbol.” The idea that we should proceed in a methodical way from the

direct experience of music toward complete musical literacy (which includes, but is so

much more than just the ability to read music) is now gaining wide acceptance among

music educators of many backgrounds, not just in Kodaly circles.

The Advantages of Teaching Sound to Symbol

Given that this method is a radical departure from traditional teaching, is not supported

by any of the early method book materials and will require extensive retooling of nearly

every aspect of an experienced teacher’s methodology, many will wonder “why bother?”

Indeed, as I have presented this approach at teacher conferences across the United

States I have almost always received variations of the same response (in one form or

another): “My students already play well, why would I make such a radical change in my

teaching?” One answer to this question is, simply, “On what grounds will we make our

decision to teach anything? Any repertoire, book, technique - Anything.” On the

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grounds that it is demonstrably better. If we are passionate about excellence in

teaching we should be willing to examine all of our teaching choices and, as objectively

as possible, choose those that provide the greatest advantage to the student’s learning

process, not just those that are easiest and most accessible to us as teachers.

One of the advantages of the Kodaly method is that it values the whole musician from

the very first lesson. As Zoltan Kodaly said:

The characteristics of a good musician can be summarized as follows:1.  A well-trained ear2.  A well-trained intelligence3.  A well-trained heart4.  A well-trained hand.All four must develop together, in constant equilibrium.  As soon as one lags behind or rushes ahead, there is something wrong.  So far most of you have met only the requirement of the fourth point:  the training of your fingers has left the rest far behind.    You would have achieved the same results more quickly and easily, however, if your training in the other three had kept pace. (The Selected Writings of Zoltan Kodaly, p. 197)

Because students develop their ear and their ability to sing from the very first lesson,

they approach all of their music with the joyful abandon that children naturally have for

singing and movement. Nearly every week at our academy parents report being

astounded by their child happily singing their music in solfege in the back of the car, in

the bath, in bed. In my experience, my students treat the music as though it were an

interesting story, retelling it to themselves half unconsciously in a language that makes

perfect sense to them. Because they are constantly singing their pieces, their playing

naturally reflects this “singing” quality and the development of phrasing, expression and

the purpose of excellent technique grows in the student from the very first lesson.

Because the notation system is presented as a logical expression of the musical

language they already command (rather than a set of pre-existing rules telling us what

notes to play) students are free to use notation to express their own musical thoughts

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and regularly astound us with their insight. A few examples:

My five year old student, Hannah, has had four months of lessons and has learned 16

songs using the pitches do-mi-so and la. We are about to introduce the pitch “re” in the

context of mi-re-do and have gone through the process of singing several songs using

this pattern, moved our bodies and observed that there is a new note between do and

mi which we named “re”. I was intending to introduce the notation for this pattern at a

future lesson, but Hannah sat down and wrote out the first phrase of Hot Cross Buns

right there on the spot without prompting from me. She is bursting with pride at her

“discovery” that the new sound (we haven’t even introduced the word “re” yet) is written

between “mi” and “do.”

My daughter Mei Yin, age seven, is sitting at the table looking over her school project on

Penguins that she has brought home. Suddenly she flips the little booklet over, draws

five lines on the back and begins composing what she calls “Penguin March”. She is

inches away from the piano, but writes out the first phrase of the melody simply by

singing while she writes “do - do do do - re - re re re - mi - fa - so”.

Because movable-do solfege emphasizes the patterns of music over the details of each

pitch and because these pitches are always presented in the context of folk music or

masterworks, students develop expectations of how melodies and harmonies “work”

long before they ever study these patterns in a theory class. As a result, they behave

much like trained musicians when learning music by ear or from notation, intuitively

predicting the patterns and being interested or even delighted when these expectations

are fulfilled or thwarted. At the beginning level many children observe, as Charlie

recently noted in a group class “a lot of songs end in mi-re-do.” (In fact, most children

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make this observation at one time or another, which later broadens into observing other

common patterns). At the more advanced level, students can appreciate musical humor

and expression through the disruption of these expectations. For example, my daughter

(at age six) burst out laughing when a cartoon she was watching played “Twinkle” in

minor to represent the fake death of a character. When I asked her what she was

laughing at, she said, without hesitation “They changed Twinkle into minor because

everyone is sad.”

Because students learn their music through movement and age-appropriate games,

they are willing to practice at home with greater frequency, energy and focus. Practice

for an energetic five or six year old should not be a confinement to a single seated

position but should includes many opportunities to get up and play a round of See-Saw,”

“Ring Around the Rosie” or “I Have Lost the Closet Key.” These games not only keep

the student interested, but also motivate them to play with a strong pulse and rhythmic

integrity that tends to be lacking in most young students.

There are many more reasons why a Kodaly approach is generally a more effective and

joyful method for teaching young children to be excellent musicians than traditional

methods, but one reason, above all, should suffice: Children love it.

Why Folk Songs

In traditional teaching method books the majority of songs were written with the express

purpose of being playable by a student of that level and to further that students’ musical

skills. While many of these compositions can be quite clever, they never have (and

likely never will) made it into the mainstream of public music making. Because the

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inspiration for these pieces was primarily to teach, and the composers of these pieces

were and are first and foremost educators, the compositions themselves generally fall

short (sometimes spectacularly so) of being of high artistic value. I am myself the

author of four volumes of method books (written before my “conversion” to Kodaly

methodology) which contain numerous examples of such compositions. Kodaly decried

this situation:“Let us stop the teachers' superstition according to which only some diluted art-substitute is suitable for teaching purposes.  A child is the most susceptible and the most enthusiastic audience for pure art; for in every great artist the child is alive - and this is something felt by youth's congenial spirit. Conversely, only art of intrinsic value is suitable for children!  Everything else is harmful.  After all, food is more carefully chosen for an infant than for an adult.  Musical nourishment which is "rich in vitamins" is essential for children.” - Kodaly (1929)

Kodaly believed, as do I, that only the finest music was suitable for teaching children.

My own personal opinion regarding what constitutes “great music” is likely quite different

from his as it includes music from every genre and culture I have been privileged to

know. Nevertheless, it is the highest quality examples from these sources that I am

after, not just any piece that fits the fingers of my pupils. This view both expands the

repertoire available for teaching, and, at the same time, puts a greater burden on the

teacher to evaluate vast quantities of music. One aid in this selection process is the

filter of time: folk songs and masterworks can generally be assumed to have been

passed on for generations and therefore can be trusted to be of solid compositional

structure.

One of the principle reasons for relying solely on the finest music for instructional

purposes is the simple fact that the patterns students encounter there will be the

patterns they will need most frequently as professional musicians. As a result, the

student becomes adept at recognizing these patterns by sight and by ear and gains the

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ability to learn great music quickly. In many traditional methods, on the other hand, the

author attempts to practice a particular musical concept by building a “teaching piece”

around this artifice. Common examples are pieces that cleverly include a particular

interval or rhythm repeatedly. Unfortunately, these teaching pieces often create patterns

that would never occur in most good music making transfer to new non-method book

contexts much more difficult.

Of course, the best reason to teach great music is simply that it is culturally and

personally enriching. A student who has learned folk songs from around the world has

something of tremendous value both in terms of their own personal enjoyment and in

terms of understanding their own and other cultures. A student that has played the

music their grandparents danced to when they were dating has a connection to their

family that runs deeper than any photo album. A student who has played themes from

major symphonies can enjoy those pieces performed live in a concert hall in a way that

the average person cannot. I have noticed students as young as six sit in rapture for a

symphony if they know some of the themes. The same student would be unable to sit

still for ten seconds for a concert to which they had no connection.

I recall one student I had, Catherine, who was diligent about her practice, but generally

showed little excitement during the lessons. One thing, however, was very clear from

our conversations: She was extremely devoted to her (extremely large) extended

family. One lesson she mentioned that they were returning to Utah for a family reunion

in three months and I got an idea: I asked her to call her favorite aunt and interview her

about her favorite songs. This led to us learning “Gonna Lay Down My Sword and

Shield”, arranging it for solo classical guitar together, as well as arranging it for her to

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play with her two sisters on guitar, violin and cello. This process not only kept Catherine

excited and focused for months, but also taught her about arranging, chord structure,

reading bass cleff, new guitar techniques and much more.

In lessons whenever I introduce a new song we first briefly discuss its origins and

meaning and frequently watch a quick video of the song in its original context. Every

week I hear comments like “I know this song from synagog” or “My friend is Korean, do

you think she sings this song at home?” or “Do mean we are speaking another

language when we sing this song?” Because these songs are rich in meaning and

heritage the students begin the learning process with a sense of wonder and awe that

simply cannot exist toward a song composed for the express purpose of teaching about

the interval of a fourth.

I always cringe at the thought of a student studying an instrument for several years and,

in that time, having played music mostly composed by some method book author. No

offense to these authors (I myself have written and published four volumes of guitar

methods that contain many of my own compositions) but none of these works will be

chosen to represent the greatest music our time has to offer. A student who has learned

thirty compositions by Klondike Steadman has probably learned about twenty-five too

many.

The Problems of Teaching Through Notation

Probably the most important concept behind the Kodaly approach to music learning is

that of “Sound to Symbol.” While most music educators today would probably agree

with a “sound to symbol” approach in principle few actually follow a clear plan that

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results in the steady development of musical understanding. In this approach, the

sound must first be experienced and expressed as music before we label it teach the

notation or give any other representation of the sound.

All musical concepts are taught more easily, effectively and honestly[ what do you mean by

honestly?] directly through the sound. Because the student is experiencing the music for themselves they are not only able to relate to the concept, but it will also have meaning for them. Conversely, all musical concepts become more confused in the student’s mind when they are presented for the first time through notation. Additionally, teaching through notation often robs the music of its vitality and meaning and can leave the student believing that the act of making music involves following complicated instructions written in what is, for them, a foreign language. This is not to say that reading music is less important in this approach than in traditional methods, in fact the Kodaly method is often referred to as an approach to “musical literacy.” We teach notation, but we do not teach through notation.

One way to describe the pedagogical difference between traditional notation-based

instruction and the Kodaly method is commonly referred to as “Subject-Logic” verses

“Experiential” approaches.

Some brief examples should suffice to explain the problems of teaching through

notation:

Meter: When approached through notation meter is generally discussed as a time

signature in which we find out how many beats are in each measure. This, of course,

has no bearing whatsoever on the rhythm of the piece, but rather simply explains the

presence of measure lines throughout the music without actually imparting any valuable

information about how the music should be performed. When approached through

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sound, meter becomes a pattern of strong and weak beats that are felt in the body and

enliven the performance. The measure lines then tell us where the strong beat occurs.

Pitch: When taught through notation, pitch becomes set of technical calculations on the

student’s part (e.g. “that quarter note is on the third line, which means it is a B, so I need

to push down this key with my third finger and hold it for one beat”). When taught

through sound, the student hears all pitches as relative to other sounds in the phrase

and plays the song “the way music goes.”

Form: Form, if it is noticed at all in a traditional approach, is noted either as visual

similarity (comparing phrases to see if they are the same, similar or different) or is

manifested in notational instructions such as Coda, D.C. al Fine, or First and Second

Endings. In processing these instructions the student may or may not be aware that

there are very simple musical principles of form behind them that anyone who can sing

a simple song would understand intuitively. If the student learns pieces through singing

and movement her awareness may be brought to what is the same, similar and different

and how this affects the character of the music. By learning the form first, the student is

likely to have superior expression, memorization, and even reading skills than if they

learn the rules of repeat signs.

Of course, what method books and notation do provide is a clear sequence of what will

be taught when. The method book author has already worked out (we hope) all the

necessary skills for effective playing and in what order to teach them. This is, indeed,

one of the most important steps toward an effective method of instruction as nothing will

more quickly discourage a student than an impossible task or confounding concept.

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Simply abandoning the method book without developing an adequate plan for success

is a recipe for failure. As much as possible, we must plan for the steady development of

all aspects of our students’ technical and musical training. What follows is such a

sequence.

Of all the teaching techniques of the Kodaly method, movable do is probably the biggest

stumbling block for the largest number of teachers. It is also the most important.

When I first encountered Kodaly methodology I was unfamiliar with movable do and

found it exceptionally challenging to learn and resisted adopting it for several years. As

I have discussed the Kodaly approach with teachers around the country I have

encountered the same objections again and again. Among the most common

objections I have heard:

1. Most of the world uses fixed do.

2. Why should we teach two pitch systems: letters and solfege?

3. Won’t students be confused between letters and solfege?

4. Students will be confused if they do not know exactly which notes to play.

5. There are no teaching materials available in movable do.

Before I discuss these objections I feel it is necessary to establish some common

ground on the purpose of education. [More research] Without becoming overly

philosophical about this subject that has been the debate of the greatest educators for

centuries, I think one common theme that runs through all educational philosophies is

the idea that our main goal is to create independent learners — “to teach ourselves out

of a job” as is the commonly coined phrase. The more quickly and effectively we are

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able to do this, the better our teaching can be said to be. If we accept this, we must

also accept that our pedagogical choices should not be based on conforming to

worldwide standards, available materials or even avoiding temporary confusion — our

purpose is to create joyful, dedicated and capable learners. Other concerns should be

secondary at best.

There are many reasons to use a movable-do system, but most important reason is

simply that it is the only system based on how music creates meaning. In other words:

It is the only system that literally “makes sense” of the notes.

The use of movable do solfege in instrumental training is, when used as part of a

carefully planned and executed sequence, an extremely powerful tool that allows

students to quickly become creative musical thinkers within an extremely short period of

time. This is true for the simple reason that movable do is based on how pitches create

meaning in tonal music. Any given specific pitch or even any given interval has no

particular meaning to us outside a given tonal context. It is the sequence of notes and

the commonly recurring patterns of intervals they create that gives music its meaning (at

least as far as pitch is concerned).

An example might serve to illustrate: Let us assume three early pieces learned by a

student include “Hot Crossed Buns,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and “Old MacDonald

Had a Farm”1 If they were taught in a fixed pitch approach it is quite possible that a

young pianist might play the first on the black keys, the next in C and the last in G.

From this experience only the brightest students will deduce the extremely similar pitch

patterns involved in each [show notation].

In my experience, students who learn in a movable do context not only quickly observe

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the similarities across different pieces of music, but they soon begin to anticipate and

expect them intuitively from the nature of the preceding intervals and phrases.2 “D-C”

has no particular meaning onto itself. But “re-do” likely represents some kind of

cadential moment in a piece of music. Common pitch patterns such as mi-re-do or ti-re-

do, antecedent-consequent phrasing, or the simple tendency to end on the tonic — all

of these musical patterns are obvious even to very young children (though they do not

yet posses the terminology to pass a college theory exam) who have been taught using

movable do.

Furthermore, the meaning is not simply conveyed through explanation and naming the

pitch alone. Because the student is taught to play each piece in several keys and

registers, they are forced to extract the essential patterns from the music to complete

the assignment (an assignment they love to do, by the way).

This activity of transposing each piece is not mere busy-work for the student. It should

be approached in a playful manner the way a student might approach putting together

the pieces of a puzzle. When the student changes keys and registers they immediately

become aware that this does not change the essential nature of the piece itself and

often spontaneously begin to improvise and compose in these same patterns. As a

result, many parents report that practice time is often extended voluntarily by the

student (one parent of a Kindergartener complained that “She refuses to settle for

playing it in just one key, but insists in playing it in every possible key before she is

done”). Practice even extends to times away from the instrument as the students begin

to follow speech development patterns with solfege: First babbling, then mimicking and

finally singing complete and sometimes original thoughts. Parents of twins and siblings

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taught through movable do often report hearing them solfege back and forth in the back

of the car!

Which brings us to another important reason for solfege (though this is equally true for

fixed as movable do): Singing. The solfege system was developed for the specific

purpose of singing and it serves this purpose well. As a result, students can and do

sing their music both while playing and away from their instrument. This activity extends

their practice to times they cannot be at their instrument, gives the teacher a clear

teaching and assessment tool, and, most importantly, gives the student’s playing a

“singing” quality.

For all these reasons and more I urge you to overcome your objections (if you still have

any) to the movable-do system. But no amount of debate can equal the simple delight

of feeling that you are having a musically intelligent conversation with a four or five year

old on their instrument. When the child demonstrates their understanding and

command of the musical language through their performance, a musical discovery,

improvisation or composition, all debate seems meaningless in the face of this simple

fact: Music is a form of communication and we should start with a meaningful

expression of that language.

Chapter Two

Three Phases of Learning

We may break down the learning process into three distinct phases to secure students’

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mastery of a musical or technical concept. These are 1) Preparation 2) Presentation

and 3) Practice. In addition, the teacher must constantly be engaged in ongoing

assessment of the students to accurately determine where the student is at in their

learning process. These phases of learning can vary in the length of time needed to

ensure success. Sometimes several phases can be accomplished in a single lesson,

sometimes several months are needed on a particular phase before moving on.

However, every lesson will contain several concepts at different phases of learning. For

example, we may be preparing a technical challenge, presenting a new pitch concept,

practicing reading a set of rhythms and evaluating mastery of an understanding of ABA

form all in the same lesson.

Preparatory Phase

In the Kodaly approach the preparatory phase of learning, wherein the student

internalizes and gains mastery over the sound, is of the utmost importance. In fact,

ninety percent of what makes the Kodaly approach unique takes place during the

preparatory phase. Another way to think of this is that traditional teaching typically

begins with the presentation phase, skipping the process of listening, singing, moving

and visualizing the sound. In a traditional approach one simply “presents” the concept to

be learned.

The student should experience every musical concept in a variety of ways so that they

not only are comfortable and proficient with the sound, but also are interested and

excited to learn about it. When students are singing, dancing, making visuals and

playing games that relate to songs they love, they are much more likely to respond to

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questions about the music with curiosity and intelligence than when they are asked

questions about something to which they have no connection. For example, asking a

student how many beats there are in a half note is less likely to inspire their best

thoughtful answer than than, say playing a game with a well-known folk song that

includes half notes, then interacting with some kind of picture of longer and shorter

sounds.

In instrumental training I have found it useful to break the preparatory phase into six

stages to help secure my students’ mastery of the sound. These stages are

• Listening (Either the teacher performance or an inspiring recording or

video)

• Singing (learned through echoing the teacher at a pitch level appropriate

to the child’s singing)

• Moving (movements can show the contour of the melody or the pattern of

the rhythm)

• Visualizing (drawings, blocks or other manipulatives can make the music

“visible”)

• Thinking about the sound (usually through guided questions)3

• Playing on an instrument (the instrument can actually be used as another

tool for exploring the sound)

•

The specific techniques for each of these stages varies depending on the musical

concept being taught and will therefore be covered in detail in the “What to Teach”

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section of this book, but this outline describes generally the process that students can

follow to move from novice to mastery of the sound.

Occasionally teachers will react to this long list of activities by wondering how they can

possibly fit all this into the lesson. However, when approached in a musical manner

these steps move very quickly and the process of internalizing the music first saves

tremendous amounts of time in the long run. It is possible, for instance, to play “Hot

Cross Buns” for the student, have them echo each phrase, play a patty-cake game that

follows the contour, tap on a visual of buns arranged in a downward pattern, and then

play on a set of step bells all in under five minutes. The cognitive process of answering

some guided questions may take a little longer, but if the student has demonstrated

strong internalization of the sound, they often describe the essential characteristics of

the phrase being taught with little or no prompting at all “I hear three sounds going

down!”

The most common mistake teachers make is assuming they can skip steps in the

preparatory stage. Because so much of our own musical training may have taken place

far in the past, we frequently take for granted essential musical concepts that are

undeveloped in the student. But most importantly, it is through the internalization of the

music through these steps that the student both falls in love with the music and truly

“becomes” a musician. Each time the student hears a new work they are attracted to,

interacts with it with their entire musical being and comes to understand it to the fullest

extent of their awareness, they are stretching their musical mind to new heights and

securing their budding musicianship. This is not a process to be skipped or rushed, but

the primary reason for music lessons in the first place.

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Kinesthetic

In the kinesthetic phase students move to the music (usually while singing) with

enthusiasm and intent to express the song. The teacher should direct the movements

toward the concept that is being prepared while maintaining the musical character. For

example, when preparing the concept of mi-re-do the teacher and student might play a

hand-clap game that involves patting hands together at the head level, clapping at the

chest level and patting the legs. No explanation is needed, only “let’s play a game.” We

do not want to accidentally divert the student away from the sound and the song into

thinking we are testing their understanding. Students may also engage in creative

movement such as imitating an animal moving to the rhythm, tapping on drawing on a

board or pretending to be a swing or see-saw or anything else if the movement can be

made to express the sound or technique clearly. Whenever engaging in these activities

it is generally best to use the entire piece of music, even if only one phrase is being

expressed. For example, we might say “Let’s sing Hot Cross Buns and when we get to

the ‘one a penny, two a penny’ part we are going to tap on these pennies I have drawn

on the board.” Remember that the more we engage in vital musical experiences, the

more vital our students playing will be.

Technical concepts should be prepared kinesthetically as well. Whenever possible this

technical preparation should be done to music. Whether it be hand position, bowing,

shifting or any other concept, we can use music to engage our students focus and

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attention while engaging in movement that prepare the actual playing experience. It is

best to introduce any technical challenge away from the instrument so that the student

can feel the natural movements of their body without worrying about playing the right

notes. For example, when practicing a shift, we might sing the phrase up to the point of

the shift and then make an easy relaxed movement to the new position as we sing the

note on which the shift occurs.

Aural/Oral

In the Aural preparation phase students listen, copy and describe the new sounds or

movements. This allows the student and the teacher to evaluate the students

understanding of the sound or technique. If the understanding is found to be faulty (the

student does not clap back correctly, does not keep a steady beat, does not perform the

technique correctly) it is generally more effective to return to the kinesthetic phase than

to explain the error. While occasionally it may suffice to sharpen the student’s

concentration through a simple admonition: “listen more carefully”, if the student is truly

not hearing the sound clearly, any amount of explanation will be wasted.

Visual

In the visual stage of learning the students create, view or imagine a visual

representation of the new concept. For example, students may draw the contour of the

melody on the board when learning a new melodic concept. They may sing and point to

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a visual drawn from the text that represents the rhythm and how it falls within the beat:

Other effective visuals for musical concepts include step ladders for scale degrees,

spatial representations of the notes or solfa, placing the words of a phrase inside heart-

beats, among many other possibilities. It is useful to create visuals that closely

resemble actual musical notation so that the student more easily transfers the concept

to sight-reading.

For technical concepts students may be given a visual (such as a drawing or picture,

but most often as a simple demonstration by the teacher) that exactly demonstrates the

technique. They may also be given an image that invokes the feeling we experience

when executing the technique (such as “swing your fingers like you would swing a bat”

or “imagine the wind blowing through the trees”). Ideally students should view and/or

create both the specific and imaginative representation for technical challenges. These

visuals are particularly helpful after the student has had the chance to try the technique

for herself.

Technical

The technical preparation of the concept is the process of getting the student to express

the new sound on their instrument. Obviously, for technical concepts, this is also the

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presentation phase. For sound concepts, however, this step is taken before labeling the

sound because we want the student to listen intently to the sound of the instrument and

notice how it corresponds to the description arrived at in earlier preparation stages.

Once students have labeled a new sound, they often show a decreased interest in

listening to and investigating its properties. This is why we encourage students to try

out new sounds on their instrument before we label them.

Presentation Phase

As I said earlier, traditional teaching could be said to begin with what is called the

“Presentation Phase” in Kodaly methodology. That is, the identification of the musical

concept by name and symbol. Open most method books and somewhere near the

beginning is “this is a quarter note, it lasts one beat.” For this reason, most instrumental

teachers with any experience have already had a great deal of practice with this phase.

The difference in the Kodaly approach to presenting musical concepts lies mostly in the

student experience. Since the student has already done most of the important discovery

themselves (and described to us what they have found) they are generally excited by

and interested in the name and notation that we present. Furthermore, they have a

cognitive framework within which to store the new information for later retrieval.

When presenting a new musical concept we must briefly review the preparation stages

so that the sound is clear in their mind. We then present the concept in the most clear,

concise and intellectually honest manner possible. It is often helpful to write out scripts

for ourselves for this crucial presentation as any additional verbiage, unclear

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explanations or tangential information is likely to lead to confusion and error in the

student’s understanding. We must think very clearly ourselves about the concept so

that we present it in a way that truthfully and accurately represents the music and at the

same time is appropriate and useful to the student.

In order to ensure that understanding is complete, it is often helpful to present the

concept in three stages (usually one per lesson):

1. Name (“The note a step above ‘So’ is called ‘La’”)

2. Off-Staff (“We can write the phrase like this:” So La So Mi )

3. Notation (“When ‘So’ is on the line, ‘La’ is in the space above”) [demonstrating

on staff]

If the preparation phase was handled in a detailed and effective manner, the

presentation of the name and the symbol are typically very easy. Of course, simply

identifying a musical symbol is of little use to a musician - only through proficient and

fluent use of the symbol does the student gain any useful skill. Therefore, once the

concept has been presented effectively, we must proceed quickly and diligently onto the

practice phase.

Practice

As teachers we are constantly reminding our students of the importance of regular

practice. Yet, we ourselves are often guilty of introducing a concept one week only to

move on to the next concept a week later without adequate practice to secure the

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concept. Indeed it is often necessary to continue to revisit and practice all of our basic

concepts every lesson for years after they have been introduced if we wish our students

to build the security that is necessary for independent learning.

The true goal of all practice is what is generally referred to in education as “Transfer.”

Transfer is the process by which a learner is able to utilize knowledge or skills in a

variety of different contexts. In general, the greater the difference that exists between

the student’s experience and the new context, the greater the challenge will be to the

student. Furthermore, the wider variety of contexts in which the student has practiced

using their skills, the higher the likelihood that she will be able to draw upon those skills

when she encounters something unexpected and bearing little resemblance to her

experience. We often consider students with exceptional facility in applying their

knowledge to new situations in effective ways our most “bright” and “creative” students,

when, in fact, it is more likely that they have simply had the more practice transferring

knowledge to new situations than our other students. Conversely, students who struggle

to recall information or utilize skills we thought they had mastered when there is even

the slightest change are usually students who have only practiced their skills in a very

narrow set of contexts. Transfer is often considered to be the greatest challenge and the

highest goal of all education, for it is only through the ability to apply knowledge and

skills to new problems that our students become independent learners and creative

problem solvers.

Therefore, practice should take on as many forms as possible if we wan to achieve a

high level transfer in our students. A musician cannot be said to really posses deep

understanding of the concept ‘re’, for example, unless they can recognize it in

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ascending and descending patterns, in steps, skips and larger intervals, can read it in

any key or register, write it in the context of common melodies, use it in their own

compositions or improvisations and so on. Practice, then, should incorporate all these

afore mentioned activities — not just with simple repetition of scales and note-spellers,

but with joyfully making the music that the student loves in ways the incorporate

reading, writing, improvisation, ear-training and more.

Obviously, most practice is done at home, hopefully under the supervision of an

attentive parent, but still out of range of our expert guidance. For this reason, the

primary aim of the lesson should actually be to “practice practicing” with concept

preparation taking less time and presentation of new concepts taking up the smallest

portion of the lesson time.

Here are some practice activities commonly used for melodic concepts:

• Singing the solfege to favorite songs

• Singing letter names

• Moving our bodies to the melodic contour (through dance, “patty-cake” games or

tapping the contour on our bodies)

• Writing out known songs (using staff or off-staff writing)

• Sight reading short melodies or known songs in new keys

• Sight reading simple phrases from flash cards

• Improvising short melodies within a small pitch set

• Composing short melodies within a small pitch set

Practice of rhythmic elements may include:

• Echo clapping while singing rhythm syllables

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• Keeping the beat through patting, stepping or drumming while singing words or

rhythm syllables.

• Clapping rhythms from flash cards

• Adding rhythms above words of known songs

• Adding rhythms to already notated pitches of known songs

• Sight reading melodies which contain known rhythmic elements

• Improvising using a small predetermined set of rhythms

• Composing using a small predetermined set of rhythms

Assessment

The assessment and subsequent planning for a student’s success is the most difficult

and vital role of the instructor. I am addressing assessment here as if it were the last

step in an educational sequence, but, in reality, assessment takes place before, during,

and after each step. As instructors we need to assess which learning materials will be

most effective before the first step, evaluate each step before moving on and decide

whether or not the student has acquired enough proficiency with the skill to practice on

their own. Above all, the evaluation of skills needs to be based on objective criteria so

that the student can self-evaluate and, most importantly, so that the student

understands our feedback as it relates to the goal of playing well and not as a judgment

of their self-worth. Ideally feedback should not be delivered in the form of either praise

or criticism of the student, but rather as a clear description of what happened compared

to the goal (preferably given by the student rather than the teacher). Here is an example

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of an exchange between a teacher and student around keeping a steady pulse during

performance:

T: “Let’s see if we can play this phrase 3 times with a nice, steady beat.” [S plays].

T: “How was that?”

S: “I slowed down in the middle.”

T: “What do you think caused you to slow down?”

S: “My finger slipped off the string.”

T: “Let’s check to see if your thumb is in the right place to support the finger and just

play that one note. Now the note before it and then that note. Now see if you can play

the phrase with a steady beat three times.”

S plays and gives their own assessment after each time, T provides a fun

accompaniment the final time that creates a powerful musical moment.

Notice that the teacher does not need to give praise or criticism. The teacher’s role is to

provide an environment in which the goals are achievable, the student can clearly

articulate their challenges and successes and the student is able to make beautiful

music and reflect on their own success in doing so.

Chapter Three

Sound to Symbol

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The teaching techniques listed herein are not new or even innovative; rather they are a

systematic combination of “best practices” that have been drawn from many major

approaches to teaching. At the same time, this is not an “eclectic” approach to teaching

wherein the teacher touches on various styles of teaching in each lesson. Careful

planning of the sequence of skills is the centerpiece of this approach and the

effectiveness of the sequence is dependant upon the effectiveness of the teaching

techniques and the teacher who employs them. The constant search for new and better

teaching techniques is essential to maintain and improve teaching quality.

Most of all, this is a growing and fluid teaching method. Since there are no fixed written

materials to give to the student, the teacher is in complete control of the pace and the

repertoire. At the same time, this places much greater responsibility upon the teacher to

make excellent pedagogical choices for their student. Lessons should be balanced in

all major skill areas. The student should be led to discover and practice each and every

musical and technical concept directly through the sound of the music with minimal

explanation.

A Spiral Curriculum of Skill Development

We teach all the skills that we value in excellent musicians directly through music that is

of the highest intrinsic value and greatest meaning to the student. Skill areas can be

grouped into ten broad areas. These skills should all be addressed repeatedly at

increasingly higher levels of development to ensure security and mastery through a

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“spiral curriculum.” While an individual student may be attracted to a particular skill or

an individual teacher might value another skill very highly, it is important to maintain

balance so that the music can always be central to the lesson, with the skills and

concepts rising organically from musical understanding. Here are the skill areas we

develop in the lessons:

1) Pitch2) Rhythm3) Technique4) Writing5) Reading6) Composition7) Improvisation8) Ensemble Playing9) Form10)Expressive Devices

These skill areas are listed in no particular order as they should all be present in every

lesson and are all equally valuable and interdependent. However, in the beginning of

instrumental training we must lead with pitch, rhythm and technique for the simple

reason that the student must know where and how to play the notes of the song.

Frequently many skills can be covered in a single activity. For instance, a student may

engage in an improvisation exercise with their teacher using specific set of pitches and

rhythms, concentrating on relaxed shoulders and employing loud and soft dynamics

thus practicing ensemble playing, expressive devices, pitch, rhythm, and technique –

not just improvisation. More examples of this type of creative combining can be found

in the lesson plan section.

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The skill area development sheets (Appendices A-E) are helpful for maintaining balance

in lesson planning. Teachers should check the sheets regularly to see that they are

engaging in a healthy balance of activities. More thorough treatment of specific lesson

planning techniques is covered in the chapter on Lesson Planning.

Pitch

Pitch is a much more complex and subtle topic than the way it is typically presented to

students in the more traditional teaching methods. The teaching of pitch development

must encompass the relationships between pitches (relative pitch), the exact placement

and names of each pitch (absolute pitch), the intonation of the pitch, the function of the

pitch within the scale, and the harmonic function of pitches.

The best way to teach and to assess the development of pitch is through singing. No

other means allows us to so effectively assess and give feedback on the student’s

musical thinking. Because singing is such an intensely personal expression, many

students and teachers alike are embarrassed to try to sing in the lesson, especially if

they lack excellent vocal control. In addition, many instrumental pieces do not lend

themselves to vocalization. Nevertheless, all students can learn to sing on pitch given

adequate training and a comfortable learning environment.

Since each new pitch on an instrument generally involves a new technical element, the

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organization of pitch content is one of the most crucial concepts a teacher must deal

with. The goal of sequencing the introduction of pitches on any instrument is to allow

the student to play satisfying music as soon possible with minimal technical difficulties.

The sequence of pitch development in this text is modified from the Kodaly concept and

will likely seem strange to traditional teachers and strict Kodaly teachers alike. In most

traditional methods pitches are generally introduced in a logical sequence based either

on the instrument (string by string) or based on note reading.

In the Kodaly concept each pitch in the movable Do (La minor) system is methodically

introduced in an order that is designed for ease of beautiful singing. Each new pitch is

secured through practice and transfer to many different songs before a new pitch

element is introduced. While it is an important goal to secure each pitch concept as

much as possible before moving on, it is also important to help students reach their

primary goal of playing the instrument. The Kodaly concept can never be strictly

applied to instrumental teaching for the simple reason that it was designed as a

primarily vocal approach to understanding music. When teaching students to sing

beautifully in tune it is not necessary to limit their repertoire to the pitch content that has

been made conscious – only to limit the conscious learning of pitch to that part of the

song. In teaching instruments we must name the pitches of the pieces we learn in order

to effectively communicate to our students about them. We therefore take a somewhat

faster approach to the introduction of individual pitch content and continually come back

to each pitch concept through new pieces to strengthen our student’s musical

understanding. Below is the sequence that is suggested for instrumental study. The

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actual order of the pitches is not as important as having a clear order and a plan for

building increasing security.

Order of introduction of pitch content:1) So-Mi2) La (first through So-La later in Mi-La combinations); 3) Do4) Re5) The Pentatonic Scale6) Fa7) Absolute Pitch Names8) Ti9) High Do10)The Major Scale11)Low La 12)The Minor Scale13)Low So14)The two octave scale15)Si (#So)16)Fi 17)Ri18)Other altered tones19)The Chromatic Scale

Rhythm

Rhythm is similarly sequenced to allow for the quickest access to music that the student

is most eager and capable of playing. Most traditional methods approach rhythm in an

order which is most easy to explain (quarter note, half note, whole note, dotted half,

eighth etc.). In this approach we introduce rhythm in the order in which it is easiest to

play. More importantly, we teach pieces with the original and correct rhythm and in the

meter in which they are most naturally felt by the student. This point is important

because most methods simplify the rhythms, not because the student cannot play the

piece in the correct rhythm, but because they may not be ready to understand the

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complex explanation of the notation. One of the most common examples of this is

Beethoven’s Ode to Joy where the dotted quarter-eighth rhythm is usually taught as

simple quarter notes (though the majority of pieces in most method books are

rhythmically simplified in one way or another):

In this approach, when a piece with a complex rhythm is well within the playing ability of

our student, we simply teach the notes of the song and have the student play them “the

way the words go.” Far from being a rhythmic liability for the student to learn this way, it

is actually a major asset when it comes time to make the student conscious of the

rhythmic notation. When the student is ready we can draw on the many pieces the

student has already played to introduce the rhythmic concept. If we have already

presented many of the most well known melodies in a simplified form, we run the risk of

confusing the student if we use the same song to present the rhythmic notation.

Rhythm, like pitch, is also sequenced to allow for the quickest access to music that the

student is most eager and capable of playing. Most traditional methods approach

rhythm in an order which is most easy to explain (quarter note, half note, whole note,

dotted half, eighth etc.). In this approach we introduce rhythm in the order in which it is

easiest to play. In addition, we teach pieces with the original and correct rhythm and in

the meter in which they are most naturally felt by the student, rather than simplifying the

rhythm to fit incomplete explanations.

Most methods simplify the rhythms, not because the student cannot play the piece in

the correct rhythm, but because they may not be ready to understand the complex

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explanation of the notation. One of the most common examples of this (though nearly

every piece in most method books is notated with incorrect rhythm) is Beethoven’s Ode

to Joy where the dotted quarter-eighth rhythm is usually taught as simple quarter notes:

This is done in spite of the fact the few students on any instrument would have any

problem playing the rhythm correctly, and many, in fact, do play it correctly despite the

notation because they have heard it that way or because their teacher has played it for

them. Nevertheless, this consistent misrepresentation of the rhythm undermines the

basic understanding in how music symbols interact with sound. We are essentially

saying to the student “here are the rules for reading music, now ignore them.”

Another common way in which teaching pieces are misrepresented is through the

meter. Nearly all piano method books, as well as many guitar, wind and string methods

present most music using quarter notes, half notes and whole notes at the beginning.

Unfortunately, most music (especially children’s music) moves in rhythms that are

subdivisions of the beat. For example, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is often presented in

triple meter rather than compound meter:

(etc)

This wouldn’t be so bad if these same books didn’t have frequent instructions on how to

count the beat out loud, resulting in performances that tend to be incredibly slow, careful

and stilted, rather than filled with rhythmic energy and joy.

In the Kodaly approach music is presented in the rhythm and meter in which it is most

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naturally felt. This allows the student to play with the energy and vitality inherent in the

music.

Of course it is impossible for all teachers to agree on the correct rhythmic notation of all

pieces. Many pieces of medium tempo can legitimately be felt at faster or slower note

values without damaging the musical intent. We need to be honest about where we feel

the beat, even as we acknowledge that it could be felt differently by someone else. In

addition, there are regional variations in tempo and rhythm for all songs that will affect

the way we play (and how our students may have heard) a song. This is not to say,

however, that it is reasonable to teach a rhythm that most people feel as 16th notes as

four quarter notes with a quarter note beat. The decision of how to best teach a song

should be based on how we ourselves and our students feel most comfortable tapping,

patting or stepping the beat while singing. We should sing and tap the beat with our

students prior to learning any piece to observe where they naturally step or tap the beat

before making any assumptions as to where the beat should be placed.

The ordering of rhythmic content is very similar to the Kodaly concept ordering:

1) Steady Beat

2) Quarter Note

3) Eighth Note

4) Quarter rest

5) Half note

6) Two Beat Meter

7) Takadimi

8) Ta-dimi

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9) Takadi

10) Syncapation

11) Four Beat Meter

12) Dotted Quarter Eighth

13) Three Beat Meter

14) Dotted Eighth Sixteenth

15) Internal Syncopation

16) Compound Meter

Technique

While this approach does not aim to specify the nature of good technique for any

particular instrument, it must be understood that the goal of this approach is beautiful

music making and that excellent performance is impossible with poor technique. When

some people hear of the intense musical training that goes on in this approach a

frequent response is to wonder if there is enough time to devote to excellent technique.

In actuality, most of the teaching techniques found in this approach were designed to

free up the teacher and the student to focus more thoroughly on technique. Remember

that the first and most important step in “A Musical Approach” is to play the music

beautifully. There can be little useful understanding of pitch, rhythm, form or any other

facet of music if the student is not themselves accurately performing the music. For

example, if a teacher in a traditional approach carefully explains that there are four

sixteenth notes in every beat, yet the student cannot perform the sixteenth notes at

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tempo and therefore slows them down to the speed of eighth notes, the student will

reinforce their confusion for an entire week of practice.

We must use music that can be played with excellence, beauty and with a technique

that will easily lead to more difficult repertoire without unnecessary tension. When

teaching this music we must prepare the student for the technique, give ample practice

time for each step and give clear feedback on the technique being performed. Students

learn best when they receive frequent feedback that can be immediately put into use. It

is essential not to overload them with a large number of goals for each performance, but

rather to have one goal completed successfully several times in a row to ensure that the

student will be confident of the technique when the practice at home.

Most technique is actually formed during home practice. We must have a clear

understanding of the environment in which the student is practicing, whether they are

being aided (or hindered) by a parent, how much and how focused they are practicing

and whether the practice is a positive or negative experience for them. We must give

our students clear practice goals for each piece (see Appendix __ for several types of

practice sheets that may be used) and a clear reason why they should want to achieve

the goal. Performance goals, teacher praise and rewards have all been shown in

research to be effective means of motivating students to higher levels of achievement.

The important aspect of these goals is that the be clear enough for the student to

competently judge for themselves whether or not they are achieving them and to what

degree of excellence. It is essential that each teacher write down for themselves what

technical goals they have for their students and maintain a constant commitment to

those goals during the lessons.

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Just as with the pitch and rhythm concepts, technique can be approached using the

Prepare, Present, Practice paradigm. In the Preparation phase the student becomes

aware of a need for a new way of playing through a desire to produce a musical sound.

For example, a pianist needs to play a full scale but have not learned thumb under

technique, or a guitarist cannot play repeated notes fast enough because they have not

learned to alternate index and middle fingers. This represents the Listening Phase —

The student listens to their playing and decides it does not match their singing. This will

usually be followed by a phase of experimentation: “Maybe I can flip my hand over and

use the backs of my fingers!” In traditional teaching, as we have learned, most lessons

begin with explanations, thereby short circuiting the curiosity and problem solving

instincts that our students can bring to the table. When the student is allowed to

experiment first, always comparing their results to their singing, there is a great deal

more investment in getting the technique right and creating the desired sound. If the

desired sound is something that is singable, then we should sing in between each

experiment and then honestly judge the results. If it is something that can only be

approached through movement or visuals, then we should refer to those. If all three are

useful, then of course we should use all three!

[Sample lesson plan for teaching alternation]

In a Kodaly approach, writing actually precedes reading. Because it is easier for a

student to remember and understand a symbol that they are manipulating themselves

than one that they are only passively interpreting, it is useful to give the student plenty

of opportunity to practice moving notes around on a staff (this can be writing on paper or

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dry-erase boards, moving magnets on a board or any number of other interactive

devices) before asking them to recognize the pitches at sight.

Another important concept in the introduction of music notation is that it follow the

assessment that the student has mastered the sound. Typically a student will take three

to six weeks to secure new pitch or rhythm concept aurally. In this time they will be

singing, moving, creating representations and playing songs that use the musical

concept. Through this process the teacher will be able to assess the students

command of note or rhythm and only once the teacher is absolutely convinced that the

student is secure in their understanding should we begin to introduce the notation.

Typically, at the time the student is beginning to work with the notation for one concept,

they are simultaneously beginning the aural process of mastering the next musical

concept. Let us take the idea of so-mi and la:Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Lesson 5Student hears and sings so-mi pieces

Student practices moving body to so-mi, plays on step-bells and her instrument

Student creates visuals of so-mi songs

Student is introduced to the names “so” and “mi”

Student is introduced to writing “so” and “mi” on the staff

Student hears and sings songs with “la”

Student practices moving to songs with “la” and plays on step-bells and her instrument

As you can see, the student will not begin to work with the notation for “so and mi” until

they are already playing songs with “la” in them. Furthermore, their work will consist

entirely of practicing writing out known songs using so and mi and would not include

reading these pitches while playing at the instrument.

This follows very closely accepted pedagogy with respect to reading words. We

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introduce reading years after a student in comfortable speaking and understanding

basic English. Once they are introduced to letters it is typically just to practice drawing

the shapes and making the sounds. Once they can reliably identify letters do students

begin to become ready to write a few three-letter words.

A student who cannot reliably identify which sounds were “high” and which were “low” in

a song with two notes has no use for symbols representing these (or any other) notes.

However, a student who has demonstrated a command of these musical concepts is

eager to learn how to manipulate the symbols that represent them and, most

importantly, the use of these symbols helps them to further develop their ear and their

command of pitch because they are actively singing and audiating the pitch while they

are writing the notes.

Finally, rushing the introduction of notation (as is typical in traditional approaches to

instrumental learning) can have a severe negative impact on the technical development

of the student. To ask a student to keep a relaxed and ready posture, accurate hand

position and everything else that is required for excellent technique while at the same

time interpreting a symbol that has little or no meaning for them can only lead to

confusion and tension. Allowing these two processes to develop on separate tracks for

several months or even years does not retard excellent sight-reading ability: On the

contrary, in my experience it allows students to become fluent sight-readers who read

whole phrases at tempo and perform them in a meaningful and expressive manner.

The Kodaly approach is often referred to as a “music literacy system.” This doesn’t

mean that the goal is simply to produce learners who are capable of accurately reading

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notes and rhythms. In this case we are referring to the full meaning of the word

“literate”: To read fluently, interpret, and fully comprehend in relation to other works.

We aim to create students who can look at notation, hear the music in their head,

understand the character and style and have an idea of how they would realize it on

their instrument. While this is obviously the ultimate goal for all classical music

teachers, in a traditional approach notes and rhythms are generally presented in such

an isolated manner that it tends to obfuscate the overall character of the piece. Let’s

take a look at how we develop true musical literacy in our students.

As has been stated earlier, all musical meaning for each symbols must be completely

internalized and mastered before the symbol is introduced. But once students have

mastered the first few symbols reading and writing should be practiced on a daily basis

in a wide variety of contexts at the phrase level.

In a Kodaly approach the student should be practicing the concepts they learned

previously through writing, reading and improvisation. Therefore all reading activities

will be for pitches and rhythms that are at least one concept easier than what they are

learning in the lesson through singing, movement and visuals. For example, a student

that is preparing the concept of “fa” will also be engaged in a variety of reading activities

that include s-m, s-m-l, m-r-d, d-r-m-s-l and so forth. Each new concept adds an

exponential level of possibilities to what can be practiced, but this need not be

overwhelming. It simply means that we rotate through a variety of reading exercises

over the course of each unit.

There are hundreds of fun activities that can be done with reading and more are

invented by industrious teachers every day, so I will not attempt to list them here.

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However, I will give some guidelines regarding what kinds of activities promote musical,

phrase level reading and what kinds of activities promote unmusical note-by-note

reading.Musical Unmusical

Working with phrase-length units Working with individual pitches or small fragments.

Keeping the beat while saying the rhythm (in rhythm syllables)

Writing in the counting or saying the counting without keep a steady beat.

Scanning the phrase for steps, skips and other intervals before singing/playing.

Playing through the phrase one note at a time.

Singing in a comfortable pitch range for the child’s voice prior to playing. Speaking the note names out loud.

While the Kodaly approach is not primarily based upon the art of improvisation the way,

say, the Orff method is. However, Kodaly teachers do use improvisation as a an

engaging means of practicing solfege and rhythm concepts. A student who can

extemporaneously use a set of notes or rhythms in a meaningful musical way can truly

be said to have internalized the concept. I believe that using instruments gives us much

greater opportunities to use improvisation to master both musical and technical

concepts.

Improvisation is one of the most advanced forms of practice and should not be

undertaken until the student is confident in their understanding, reading and writing. In

addition, it is helpful to limit all the other elements of the improvisation and focus just on

the concept being practiced. For example, when practicing a pith concept, use simple

rhythms and when practicing a rhythm concept use only one or two pitches.

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Below are several techniques that I have found useful and fun:Pitch RhythmUsing a limited pitch set (d-r-m, for example) have the student echo your improvised phrases. Then, once they have gained comfort with this, ask them to make up phrases for you to echo

Given three flash cards with 4-beat rhythms written on each the student improvises a fourth phrase using the same rhythmic elements. The improvised measure can occur anywhere in the 4-bar phrase.

Same as above but with an accompaniment (either played by the teacher or from a recording)

Using a known melody the student improvises a variation using pre-determined rhythms that are being learned.

Given four phrases written on flash cards, the student repeatedly improvises the order of the phrases.

Phrasing is a topic that is often approached in traditional methods only after years of

study and through detailed formal analysis. One professor once suggested to me that

perhaps I should delay introducing phrasing to my students until they could understand

Perfect Authentic Cadences. However, another had just the opposite idea “Why wait to

get to the good stuff?” he would always say.

The concept of the phrase is, as you will have already noticed, introduced naturally and

without affect from the very beginning of Kodaly training. Students are asked to draw

the phrase in the air while they sing almost from day one. “Let’s sing One, Two, Tie My

Shoe while drawing the phrases in the air” is a request to do something musical and

becomes such an integral part of the learning process that the student is about as likely

to ask the question “what is a phrase?” as a toddler is to ask “what is a shoe?” In

teaching beautiful phrasing we are not so much explaining anything as we are drawing

out from our students their most beautiful singing and playing at all times. We do this

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through a combination of asking directed questions and giving honest feedback. Some

of the questions we might ask:

“Was that your most beautiful singing voice?”

“Was that your most beautiful tone?”

“Where did we sing the loudest in that phrase?”

“Did you notice which part of the phrase was the quietest?”

“Did your playing match your singing?”

Some of the feedback we might give:

“All the notes sound the same to me when you play them. Is that how we sang it?”

“I hear a huge difference in how loud the third and fourth note are played. Is that really

what you want?”

One of the advantages of teaching through the Kodaly method is that the many aspects

of music that are common are stated by the student at every lesson:

We ask: “How many phrases were there?” They say: “Four.”

We ask: “How many beats were there in each phrase?” The say: “Four”

We ask: “Where did we sing the loudest?” They say something to the effect of “On the

third beat” or “Before the end” or “After the middle part”

We ask: “Where was the phrase the quietest?” They say: “at the end.”

Because they have articulated, in their own words, the most essential aspects of the

music, they are much more likely to look for them in new pieces on their own. But we

must ask these questions of our students every lessons for many years before we can

expect them draw these conclusions (though some students begin to notice shape and

form earlier than others, naturally).

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One of the most joyful experiences a teacher can have is witnessing a student

performing a phrase with expression and beauty uncoached. As Dr. Duke would say

“Why wait for the good stuff?”

Form, like phrasing, is often needlessly complicated and needlessly delayed in

traditional teaching methods. Since form in music is nothing more than the observation

of same and different phrases, students who are already aware the pitches and rhythms

of each phrase will often tell us the phrase structure for a new song before we even ask.

It is not uncommon, for example, to draw the phrases while singing a song like “Hot

Cross Buns” and then have the student say “Three of the phrases are the same!” On

the other hand, I have taught transfer students who have learned Twinkle in a traditional

approach and been completely unaware that the end of the song is exactly the same as

the beginning. If our students do not perceive the phrase structure or form of the piece

immediately (or even if they do and we want to reinforce it) we can use the same

Prepare, Present, Practice approach that we have used for everything else.

In this case the Preparation Phase is simply the same process we use for learning the

piece in the first place: The listening, singing, moving and thinking about the notes and

rhythms through directed questions is necessary before we can begin any discussion of

the form of the piece. Once the student is aware of the notes and rhythms of each

phrase they can then express the form of the piece through just a few extra steps:

Sining/Moving: S draws the phrases in the air while singing (words or solfege,

depending on what brings out the form more effectively).

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Visual step 1: S draws “rainbows” on a board or piece of paper for each phrase while

singing.

Visual step 2: S draws the contour of the melody under each “rainbow” while singing.

Thinking: Which phrases are the same? Different?

Visual step 3: S names the phrases a draws a picture next to each phrase to make the

pattern more memorable. For example, in Hot Cross Buns the student could draw a

bun next to phrases 1, 2 and 4 and a penny next to phrase 3. If there is no immediate

textual relationship it can be a description (up arrow / down arrow; faster / slower) or it

can simply be a marker (Apple / Banana / Apple or simply A B A). Colors also work well

for some students.

Again, it may seem that training the ear, teaching phrasing, teaching form, expression,

writing, reading, etc leaves less time for focusing on technique, but I would argue the

opposite. Particularly when it comes to getting into the habit of noticing form, we are

saving ourselves a great deal of time in our lessons because the beginning student will

often only need to learn two phrases, which allows us more time to focus intensely on

the flawless performance of those phrases. Rather than playing Hot Cross Buns over

and over, we can ask our student “which phrase was the most difficult?” (phrase 3).

“What makes it so challenging?” (the fast repeated notes). “Let’s get back to work on

how we perform fast repeated notes and see if it helps us play more smoothly.”

Expression is different from phrasing

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Chapter Four

Sequencing of Skills

This approach is divided into levels that can generally be accomplished in one school

year culminating in an end-of-year performance. Of course different students will

progress at radically different rates and some students will excel in certain areas of

study while lagging behind in others. These levels, then, should not be taken literally as

a goal for study, but rather form a more or less arbitrary means of breaking down the

material into manageable chunks with clear end points. The teacher may choose to

organize the lessons so that there is some kind of recognition of the end point, or may

simply progress seamlessly from one level to the next.

Book 1

In this period we introduce five melodic concepts (do, re, mi, so and la) and five

rhythmic concepts (steady beat, quarter and eighth notes, quarter note rest and 2/4

meter). In general we must lead with the pitch concepts because these must be

presented first in order for the student to learn the piece on their instrument. Rhythm,

on the other hand, may be practiced by simply “playing the song the way the words go.”

In addition, we also teach phrases, loud and soft, smooth and choppy, same and

different, and transposition (both octave and at other intervals appropriate to the

instrument).

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A special note should be made here about the vital importance of this initial period of

study. How the student responds during this time of study and their level of success is

without a doubt the most important predictor of their future success. Typically students

come to us with a great deal of enthusiasm, some justified fear and, always, a whole

host of personal quirks, unique gifts, particular interests and some various expectations

(reasonable or not). They must come through this period with increased joy and

enthusiasm, secure in the skills they have obtained, proud of their accomplishments,

and aware of more exciting aspects of music that they cannot wait to master.

Techniques for Teaching Steady Beat

The first two concepts, steady beat and So and Mi, must be prepared in the first lesson

in order for the student to go home playing a piece of music. While beat is an extremely

visceral experience and is clearly present in most small children, it is also extremely

difficult to explain. Because it is something we feel in our bodies while the music is

playing and does not necessarily appear continuously in the actual sound of the music it

is therefore easier to approach beat more through experience than description.

Preparation

Kinesthetic: Student and teacher march while singing a song with a strong beat.

Student and teacher play together on a drum while singing/listening to music with a

strong beat.

Aural: Teacher asks if the beat goes faster and slower or stays steady.

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Visual: Student taps on pictures of hearts (because our heart has a steady beat) in a

row while singing/listening.

Technical: Student accompanies teacher on a single note on their instrument while

teacher plays a piece with a strong beat.

Presentation/Practice/Assessment

Beat need not be presented practiced or assessed in the traditional manner. Beat is

simply labeled and then used constantly throughout every lesson “keep the beat on your

legs while I play,” “step the beat while we sing” etc. Some students take longer to

develop the ability to keep a beat in one part of their body while singing or clapping or

playing something else. This is fine and need not be addressed with verbal feedback.

Simply increase the amount of beat activities in the lesson and the home practice and

the student will improve over time.

Techniques for Teaching So and Mi

Before we can begin teaching any melodic concepts we must secure our students

understanding of high and low. Always bear in mind that the concept of higher and

lower sounds is completely made up and must be labeled as such by the teacher.

Moving higher and lower while singing, playing games like “Handy Dandy” clapping

higher and lower on So-Mi songs and playing on the step bells are a few methods for

introducing the concept of high and low. Once the student has demonstrated clear

understanding through their movements and responses to questions the student should

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be asked to explore their instrument to find higher and lower sounds. This can be

followed by the student leading games and movements by choosing to play the higher

and lower sounds while the teacher or parent moves. This activity should probably take

less than 10 minutes of the first lesson as plenty of time needs to left for teaching

songs.

Once the concept higher and lower sounds has been established, we can progress to

learning various So-Mi songs, referring to the pitches as “high” and “low”.

Preparation

Kinesthetic: Sing the song See-Saw while bending and straightening the knees to make

the motions of a see-saw. Sing the song while clapping higher for the high notes and

lower for the low notes.

Aural: Sing the first phrase with the student on the sound “lu” while clapping high and

low. Ask the student how many different pitches there were. (“Two”). Ask the student

to describe the sounds. If the student is unclear you may say “one was high and the

other was ….?” Sing again using the words “high” and “low”.

Visual: Ask the student to tap on pictures of see-saws that are higher and lower

according to the contour. Ask the student to perform the phrase on the step bells while

singing “high” and “low.”

Technical: Present the technique for performing the high and low (So and Mi) sounds

on the instrument. This can involve some basic exploration of the instrument, but

should be fairly quick so as to leave time to play the song. Simply saying, “We can play

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the high sound like this (demonstrate) and the low sound like this (demonstrate)” should

be enough.

Presentation:

The student should probably perform several songs for several lessons calling the notes

“high” and “low” prior to labeling the sounds as So and Mi. Once the student has

demonstrated mastery and can play and sing various So-Mi songs it is time to label the

sounds. Simply say, “We can call the high sound So and the low sound Mi.” This

should be followed by an homework assignment to sing the words of all the So-Mi

songs followed by So-Mi syllables followed by performing while singing the So-Mi

syllables. Student may also be assigned to write So and Mi over the words of various

songs.

Practice:

The practice phase of So and Mi should begin well after the student has moved into

songs with La and begun exploring one and two sounds on a beat. During the practice

phase the teacher introduces the staff and hand signs. The student learns to count the

lines of the staff from bottom to top (a large wooden staff is very useful during this

phase) and learns the rule:

“When so is on the line, mi is on the line below; when so is in the space, mi is in the

space below.”

Practice should consist of writing note heads on wide ruled staff paper for all the so-mi

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songs the student is familiar with. It is not recommended to introduce absolute pitch

names this early and mnemonic devices such as “Every Good Boy Does Fine” are

generally avoided as they get in the way of pattern recognition and musical thinking.

Other forms of practice:

Echo playing: Teacher performs a so-mi pattern, student echoes back.

Improvisation: Teachers plays a four-beat pattern from a known song, student

improvises a four-beat phrase in response. This is done repeatedly without pause. It is

generally not helpful to tell the student to limit their improvisation to four beats. Simply

come in with your phrase after four beats.

Sight-Reading: Student is shown various So-Mi patterns on a flash cards and asked to

sing and/or play them.

Teaching Techniques for one and two sounds on beat

While most method books begin with quarter notes, progress to half notes, whole notes,

dotted half notes and finally eighth notes, we feel that this is contrary to the content of

most children’s songs, which generally contain one and two sounds on a beat and rarely

contain very long sounds. The general argument put forward by major pedagogues for

this sequencing was that students who do not understand fractions cannot understand

subdivisions of the beat. At Orpheus we do not sequence our concepts by ease of

intellectual explanation, but rather by ease of musical understanding and performance.

This is mentioned here because many of us were taught to talk about sounds in ways

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that do not direct our thinking to the character of the sound. [write an example]. The

difference is not just in the exact words we use, but that the student demonstrate and

practice the sound first and then be introduced to the symbol. Any rules of notation may

be introduced later when the student’s body of experience makes understanding easy.

Preparation

Kinesthetic: Begin by singing a well known song which contains only one and two

sounds on a beat and no pickups such as Rain, Rain, Go Away. The following

kinesthetic activities can be used to secure the students performance:

1) Singing while patting a steady beat on their legs.

2) Stepping the beat and clapping the words.

3) Keeping the beat while the teacher claps the words.

4) Clapping the words while the teacher keeps the beat.

Aural: The following script can be used to help the student describe the rhythmic

concept. Sing the first phrase of Rain Rain on a neutral syllable (“lu” works well) while

patting a steady beat on the legs before each question.

“How many beats did we keep?” (four)

“On which beat did we sing more than one sound?” (the third).

“How many sounds were on beat three?” (two)

“If there were two sounds on beat three, how many beats were on each of the other

betas?” (one)

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Visual: There are several effective ways to present the visual of one and two sounds on

a beat. It is best if they are done immediately after the aural stage.

1) Tap on the following diagram while singing words. First tap on the hearts and then

tap on the umbrellas:

2) Give the student manipulatives such as marbles, legos, unifix cubes or some other

set of objects that can be arranged into different patterns and ask them to show you

how that phrase sounds using these materials. This is a wonderful tool to get inside the

mind of your student and understand how they are hearing. Avoid correcting or guiding

the students work, simply ask them to tap on what they have made while singing the

phrase.

3) Tap on heart beats with the eraser side of a pencil while singing the words. Ask the

student to make a mark for each sound they heard in a beat or to write the words inside

the beats (note that using the words is only effective if each word is monosyllabic,

therefore it is not recommended for Rain Rain because of the last word “Away” which

crosses two beats, but would work well for One Two Tie My Shoe).

Technical: Student plays the song or phrase while the teacher keeps a steady beat in

the accompaniment. Student keeps a steady beat on a single note while the teacher

performs the piece.

Presentation

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Briefly review the preparation stages if they have not just been completed. Tell the

student “when we have one sound on a beat we can sing the sound ‘Ta.’ When we

have two sounds on a beat we can sing the sound ‘ta-di.’ Ta and ta-di are called rhythm

syllables.” Practice echo singing various phrases with one and two sounds on a beat

with the teacher singing words and the student echoing in rhythm syllables.

To present the notation of the sound we can say “one sound on a beat can be

represented by a quarter note. A quarter note is written with a note-head and a stem.

Two sounds can be represented by eighth notes. Eighth notes are written with two

note-heads, two stems and a beam connecting the two stems.” Demonstrate drawing

the notes as you describe them. You may wish to use stick notation or even popsicle

sticks to demonstrate the stem and beam concept:

Practice

Student should be shown how they can add stems to already existing pitch-only

notation that they have created. They should be assigned to add the stems and beams

to all of their pieces which include one and two sounds on a beat. A typical assignment

for this might read “sing the phrase while tapping the on the note heads. Find the ta’s

and tadi’s. Add the stems and beams.” Students should always have a musical sound

in their recent memory when they are engaged in any kind of notation work.

Assignments to copy notes without a musical context weaken the connection between

sound and symbol.

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Assessment

You may assess your student’s progress in this area simply by reviewing their practice

assignments, but more importantly you should include some review of one and two

sounds on a beat in every lesson. This may be done during the technical warm-ups,

during any singing of a new or review song or any other time during the lesson.

New Melodic Element: La

While la occurs slightly more commonly in most children’s chants as a leap from mi, it is

much easier to teach both as a concept and as a performance technique when

presented as a step above so. For this reason it is best to present La in the pattern S-L-

S-M and then later reinforce the concept through S-M-L-S-M.

Preparation

Kinesthetic: Sing the song Bounce High Bounce low while holding a ball in the middle –

high – middle – low positions and bouncing to the student at the end. You may also tap

on pictures of balls on the board, play on step the bells and clap the contour.

Aural: Clap the contour for the first phrase while singing and ask the student “how many

different pitches did we sing?” Ask the student to describe the pitches. If there is some

hesitation you might say, “Well, one sounded high…” or “Tell me about the high and low

sounds in that phrase.”

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Visual: Ask the student to draw balls on the board to show the middle, high and low

sounds of the phrase.

Technical: Show the student that the middle and low sounds are the same as the So

and Mi sounds from earlier songs. Invite the student to play around on the instrument to

try to find a sound higher than So. Some guidance is fine here, but the goal is for the

student to begin to notice for themselves how to make higher and lower sounds on their

instrument. Perform the piece singing “middle high middle low” at first followed by

singing the words.

Presentation

The student should play various songs using La in a S-L-S-M pattern without naming

the new sound. When they have demonstrated strong understanding through singing,

body movement and performance abilities, tell the student “we can call the sound above

So, La – the hand sign looks like this.” Sing the words various phrases containing La

and ask the student to echo back in sofege after each phrase. La can then be

presented on a step ladder as the note above So. Songs should be sung while pointing

to the step ladder. Some time later, La may be presented on the staff with the rules

“When So is on the line, La is in the space above. When So is in the space, La is on

the line above.”

Practice

Once La has been presented on the staff all of the S-L-S-M pattern songs may be

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assigned to be written in staff notation. These songs should be transposed to various

keys appropriate to the instrument and notated in those keys as well. Even though

absolute pitch names have not been introduced, the student can still notate the songs in

various keys if the teacher simply gives the instruction, “now we are going to write it

starting here.” Other forms of practice include echo-playing, improvisation and sight-

reading.

New Melodic Element:

Do

Since so few songs contain Do without also containing Re, we should not take very long

introducing Do, but may practice developing the perception of Do more thoroughly

through the M-R-D pattern. Ring Around the Rosie makes an excellent song for

introducing Do due to the familiarity of the song, the familiarity of the S-M-L and S-M

pattern of the first three phrases from previous song material, the strong placement of

Do in the last phrase and the fact that the song ends with the word “down” on Do. While

Do is typically introduced in the Kodaly method as a skip down from Mi, the song

literature currently available for M-D contains too many technical challenges and does

not place Do in a strong position in the phrase.

Preparation

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Kinesthetic: It is best to recommend to parents to play Ring Around the Rosie a lot at

home a week or two before introducing the song in the lesson. During the lesson you

may play the game, or if there is insufficient space, you may play the game using

walking fingers as a means of developing some finger independence while securing the

pitch in singing. Be sure that you and the student are clearly indicating the contour for

the final phrase in the way you play the game.

Aural: Between each round of the game, ask the student to identify a phrase of solfege,

beginning with the easiest (“Ashes Ashes”) until the first three phrases are learned.

Sing and clap the contour of the final phrase with the student and ask how many

different pitches were present. Compare the sounds in “Ashes” to the sounds in “Fall

Down.” If the student is unable to hear that the first pitch is the same, but the second

pitch is lower, clap the contour with them for to compare the two phrases.

Visual: Student creates a visual representation of the contour of the last two phrases by

drawing or using manipulatives.

Technical: Student performs the last two phrases on the step bells and then is shown

the location of the low sound on their instrument. Student should practice Ring Around

the Rosie for at least one week before going on to name the sound.

Presentation

Once the student has demonstrated security with the sound “Do” in a couple of pieces,

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we present the sound by saying “the sound a skip below Mi is called Do.” We may also

present the hand sign at this point and sing the song(s) with the new pitch name and

hand sign. The notation for Do is more easily presented in the pattern M-R-D than as a

5th from So.

Practice

Practice should take the form of writing, performing and singing done at home in the

lesson. All writing practice must, of course wait until the presentation of the notation has

been done in the M-R-D context.

New Melodic Concept:

Re

Re is most easily introduced in the context of songs limited to the pitch set D-R-M and

then practiced within the huge variety of songs using the D-R-M-S and D-R-M-S-L pitch

sets. Hot Cross Buns makes an ideal first piece to introduce Re because of its relative

familiarity and ease of play on most instruments.

Preparation

Kinesthetic: Teach the following game to student and parents (if possible) at least one

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week prior to teaching Hot Cross Buns:

Patsch hands with partner over the head on Hot

Clap hands in front of chest on Cross

Pat legs on Buns

Wiggle the whole body during the phrase “One a penny, two a penny”

When it comes time to teach the song in the lesson, begin by playing the game, then

tap on pictures of buns on a board representing the contour of the first phrase.

Aural: Sing the first phrase while clapping the contour and then ask the student how

many different pitches they sang. Sing again and ask which direction the pitches were

going. Identify the high sound as Mi and the low sound as Do and sing the phrase with

solfege, but hum the new pitch (“Mi, Hmm, Do”). It may also be helpful to audiate or

“inner hear” the new pitch to build even greater security.

Visual: Draw the contour on the board or build the shape of the phrase using

manipulatives. Tap on the representation and sing the phrase.

Technical: Learn the song on the step bells with the Mi and Do bells clearly labeled but

with the Re bell unlabeled. Show the student how to perform Re in the most convenient

key for their instrument. Assign the student to practice at home by singing each unique

phrase while clapping the contour, then play that phrase three times on their instrument.

When they mastered both phrases they should sing the entire song and clap the

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contour then perform the entire song on their instrument.

Presentation

Present the sound Re by simply telling the student “We may call the sound between Mi

and Do, Re. The hand sign looks like this.” Go on to sing and play Hot Cross Buns with

the solfege. We may present the notation for Re and Do together as we introduce the

concept of stepwise motion. The use of a large wooden staff and/or a wide ruled dry-

erase staff can be very helpful in this process.

Practice

Now that the one-octave major pentatonic scale has been presented all of the pitches

can be practiced through songs of increasing difficulty, while also focusing on making

students conscious of more rhythmic elements. Since there exists such a large body

works including folk songs, classical themes and popular music that the next several

months, at least, can be devoted to practicing musical and technical concepts that have

been presented. Whenever a new interval pattern is discovered in a song it should be

prepared as thoroughly as possible and presented so that the student’s understanding

of pitch is not confined to simply memorizing the pitch order. This can be achieved

through practice in the lesson and at home that may include (but not be limited to):

1) Transposing known songs to various keys.

2) Writing out known songs in various keys.

3) Improvising new endings to known songs.

4) Improvising with various subsets of the pentatonic scale in various styles.

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5) Composing variations of known songs.

6) Composing within specific guidelines (number of measures, given words, given

rhythms, etc.)

7) Echo playing.

8) Learning simple pieces by sight.

9) Sight reading flash cards.

10)Learning simple songs in lesson or from recording by ear.

New Rhythm Concept:

Rest

The concept of rest, or a beat with no sound, can be very difficult for students to grasp if

presented without proper preparation. As prominent the piano pedagogue, Martha

Hilley has said, “students have places to go, things to do, why waste time waiting

around?” This is why it is essential that students sing and clap the words before they

play and sing while they are playing, if at all possible. In this way the student will begin

preparing the concept of rest long before it is consciously introduced. When it comes

time to introduce the concept of rest an excellent choice of song is Hot Cross Buns.

Preparation

Kinesthetic: The student must demonstrate beat while consciously not singing, clapping

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or playing. This can be done in several ways: Tap on heart beats while singing; march

a steady beat while clapping with words; actively show the silence through some

gesture such as covering the mouth; keep the beat with one hand and the words with

the other (only for the very coordinated).

Aural: Most students will simply omit the last beat of a phrase that ends in a rest. For

this reason it is best to use a row of four heart beats to tap on when beginning the aural

phase. Tap on the beats and sing the first phrase of Hot Cross Buns. Ask the student

which beat had no sound (or on which beat we didn’t sing). Ask the student how many

sounds were on each of the other beats. Sing the phrase with rhythm syllables while

tapping on all four beats: “Ta Ta Ta ___.”

Visual: Ask the student to draw a picture of a bun in each of the beats in which there

was a sound. Sing again with words or rhythm syllables.

Technical: For most instruments there is no particular technique for not playing. It is

helpful, however, to encourage the student to actively think of resting their fingers,

thereby encouraging relaxation and a specific awareness of the rest when playing.

Presentation

Presentation of rest may take place in the same lesson as the preparation as the

student has, in all likelihood, been practicing rests in their music for several weeks

already. Tell the student that silence in music is referred to as a rest. We can show a

rest when we are clapping by moving our hands apart. We may demonstrate the

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notation of quarter rest exactly as it is traditionally written, or simplify it as a Z.

Practice

While the concept of rest is relatively easy for students to grasp when sufficiently

prepared, it must be constantly practiced and reviewed as the omission of rests is one

of the most common errors in student performance. Practice may include writing out

rhythms over words to known songs and rhymes, adding rhythmic notation to pieces in

which the pitch notation has already been done, singing and clapping “the way the

words go” before playing each phrase (be sure that clapping includes showing the rest),

echo playing known and improvised phrases that contain rests, composing.

New Rhythm Concept:

Half-Note

Introducing half-note and differentiating it from quarter note followed by quarter rest can

be quite challenging. For this reason it is important to select song material in which the

sustained pitch is clear and important to the character of the piece. We do not want our

students to perform the half note as a quarter note and quarter rest and call it a half

note. This type of confusion regarding duration is very difficult to overcome at a later

time, particularly for piano and guitar where students tend to only think about the start of

the pitch anyway. This is also an excellent time to begin listening more intently for

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duration, rather than just rhythm. We introduce the concept of duration through playing

in a smooth or choppy (staccato and legato) character. For both the half note and

smooth and choppy concepts the song Whose That Tapping at the Window makes an

excellent introductory piece.

It is essential that the student be technically ready to hold a sound for to full beats. If

the student cannot sustain the pitch then we are essentially allowing them to think that a

quarter note followed by a quarter rest is equivalent to a half note. In this case it is best

to delay the introduction of music that contains half notes.

Preparation

Kinesthetic: Sing the song while acting out the words by tapping on a window and

knocking on a door “the way the words go.” If a parent is present have her take turns

with the child singing while the child acts out and the teacher performs the music. The

following articulation gives the song the character of smooth and choppy while also

imitating the sound of tapping and knocking:

For guitar and piano, some kind of simple accompaniment that gives a strong pulse in

the bass will help clarify the two-beat durations.

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Student can also march and clap the words or make big arm movements for the long

sounds and short claps for the short sounds or any other movements that make the

rhythm more clear. These kinesthetic activities should be done at home for at least one

week for solid preparation.

Aural: Student sings the phrase while keeping the beat on their legs. Ask the student

how many beat they kept. It is unlikely younger students will be able to keep track of

eight beats, so follow up by having them count the beats while you sing and tap the

beat. (Normally we do not ask students questions which they are unlikely to answer

correctly, but occasionally this can heighten their attention to a facet of the music while

allowing them to experience it themselves). Ask the student how long each of the first

two words lasted. If we have plenty of time we can go on to sing “long, long, tapping at

the window” and ask the student to identify the rhythms in the second half of the phrase.

If we are pressed for time, we may simply say “let’s sing it like this: long long, tadi tadi ta

ta.”

Visual: The student may be shown or guided to create something like the following

representation of the beat rhythm:

The student can tap on the steady beat while the teacher taps the rhythm and then both

parties can switch. It is helpful for the student to keep their pointer in contact with the

page dragging along the lines for the long sounds and the gently tapping on the shorter

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sounds.

Technical: Adequate time must be spent to thoroughly secure the technique for

performing long sounds on the instrument, since this is where the student is most likely

going to practice the sound throughout the week. Because it is extremely difficult for

young children to play their instrument and actively keep the beat with another part of

their body, it is all but impossible for them to hear exactly how long they are holding a

sound that is more than one beat at the beginning stages. Clear instruction, many

successful repetitions and effective practice techniques (preferably with the aid a parent

keeping the beat) are going to be essential at this stage.

Presentation

The student should demonstrate secure performance of the half note in a variety of

contexts before we name the sound. When it is time to make the half note conscious,

briefly review the preparatory stages and then tell the student that we can sing a long

“taa” for notes that last two beats and make clap with a arching motion in our hands or

some other motion that shows duration. For some instruments it might be possible to

show the duration using a motion derived from the playing motion. Sing the song using

the new rhythm syllable while stepping the beat. We can present the notation by saying

“We can call a sound that lasts two beats a half note and draw it like this.”

Practice

For the first several years of study practice of any pitch longer than one beat should be

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very detailed. Whenever we have music that includes longer rhythms it is important to

have the student first step the beat while singing and clapping the rhythm before playing

both in the lesson and in home practice. Practicing writing should include writing known

song material in several keys.

New Rhythm Concept:

Two Beat Meter

In traditional teaching methods meter is rarely discussed outside of giving students the

faulty definition of time signatures: “The top number tell us how many beats are in a

measure, the bottom number tells us what gets the beat.” In the Kodaly approach meter

is presented as it is felt: A pattern of stronger and weaker beats. This concept is vital to

musical playing and should be introduced early and reinforced throughout the student’s

study. Because most children’s songs occur in a simple two-beat meter, this is where

we begin. Virtually any children’s song will do, but the best are those that begin with a

very strong annunciation on the first beat and a softer syllable on the second beat, such

as Bounce High Bounce Low.

Preparation

Kinesthetic: Teacher and student may march around with a big frame, drum playing on

the strong beats. Student can alternate patting legs and clapping to show the beat

(patting the legs is usually stronger). Teacher can set out two drums and two paper

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plates alternating drums and plates and singing the song while beating on the objects in

order (creating strong and weak beats). Try switching the order and ask the student

which order sounds better.

Aural: Student sings taps on eight heart beats on the board while teacher emphasizes

strong beat by singing or accompanying the student. Ask the student if all the beats feel

the same. The student will generally think you are referring to the rhythm and answer

yes, but ask them to try again and listen to see if all the steady beats are the same or if

some feel different. If this still does not help the student describe the different you may

ask them if some beats felt stronger.

Visual: Student colors in the hearts that felt stronger. Teacher may ask the student if he

notices a pattern to the strong and weak beats.

Technical: We must be very careful when asking our students to play some beats

stronger, because we do not want an unmusical accent at the beginning of every

measure. Generally, if the student is playing the song the way the words go, they will

be giving plenty of musical stress to the downbeat.

Presentation

Once the student has colored in certain beats as stronger and identified the pattern as

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“Strong-Weak” we can show them that it is possible to group the beats by placing a line

after each complete pattern so that every group begins with a strong beat and ends with

a weak beat.

We may then turn to the student’s notation of Bounce High Bounce Low and sing the

song with rhythm syllables while tapping the strong and weak beats. Ask the student to

draw the lines in the music so that we can clearly see the pattern of strong and weak

beats. Explain that each pattern of strong and weak is called a measure and that the

lines are called measure lines. Ask the student how many beats are in each measure.

Ask the student to write the number of beats in each measure at the beginning of the

piece (no lower number should be present at this point).

Practice

Student should go back to all of her old duple meter pieces and sing and tap the strong

and weak beats and add measure lines. We may also teach them the conducting

pattern for duple meter and practice conducting while the teacher is playing or

conducting and singing at home prior to playing through a piece.

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Level 2

If we think of Level One (approximately the first year of study) as providing the basic

groundwork upon which all musical skill may grow (a strong sense of pitch, pulse,

rhythm and technical foundation) we may consider the next year as the opportunity to

grow these skills into a fully formed young musician. That is, at the end of the second

year our student should have a strong sense of the entire diatonic scale (both major and

minor), a clear idea of form, most of the basic rhythms of beginning folk songs and the

technique to play these melodies. By the end of the second year, if music study has

been thorough, joyful and engaging, our students will consistently demonstrate the

following skills and behaviors:

• Play a wide variety of songs musically and effortlessly.

• Learn diatonic melodies by ear quickly.

• Write out known songs in staff or stick notation.

• Identify same and different phrases by ear and by sight and label them formally.

• Identify Landmark pitches on the treble clef and understand how to identify other

note names by step.

• Play their part in a small ensemble with appropriate beat, balance and

expression.

Although the pentatonic pitches Do, Re, Mi, So and La were all introduced in Level 1,

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due to difficulty level, they were never all played in the same song. Therefore we begin

Level 2 with a series of seven popular American songs in the major pentatonic scale

and begin our first formal introduction to the concept of scales by identifying this set of

pitches with a name.

Fa

The concept of Fa in Kodaly sequencing is typically introduced in the descending

pentachordal sequence S-F-M-R-D because it is easier to sing in tune. However,

because it is generally easier to play the pentachord in ascending order on most

instruments this is the way we introduce the concept.

FAQ:

If we must teach our students without the use of notation, how will they know

what to play when they go home?

Ideally the student is so secure in their performance in the lesson, so familiar with the

song in their head, that home practice will mostly involve working on specific technical

challenges. In most cases, however, this level of security is unattainable in one lesson.

If we are to send anything home with the student prior to the student mastering the

sound, it must be in the form of an activity that will stimulate the sound in their mind and

allow them to actively play the piece with full attention to a successful performance.

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While recordings can be helpful in this process, they do not actively engage the student

in creating the sound. More detailed descriptions of practice techniques are given in the

Teaching Techniques section, but the basic outline of home practice generally goes as

follows: 1) Sing the words and clap the contour. 2) Sing the notes and/or solfege either

by ear or from a page. 3) Play several times by memory to your satisfaction. This

process activates the sound, secures the technique and allows for critical improvement.

In pieces of greater length, the student may sing then play each phrase or section rather

than the whole song.

How do I find time to cover each of the preparatory stages in a 30-minute lesson?

The preparatory stages actually save time. If the student goes through them quickly

and securely with vitality and interest, the piece will practically teach itself. If the student

struggles with the preparatory stages, then they are probably not ready for the concept

or the piece you are trying to introduce and you should teach an easier piece. In this

case, skipping the preparatory stages and simply presenting the notation and the

technique (as is the norm in a traditional approach to teaching) will lead to insecure

playing during home practice and a great deal of time spent fixing mistakes in the next

lesson.

I value excellent sight reading very highly. Won’t learning music by rote make my

student’s completely dependent on a teacher to learn new music?

Remember that the Kodaly concept was developed, in part, to give all children true

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musical literacy. It is a very successful means of developing more than just sight

reading, but true musical literacy in which the student sees how the music goes, not just

what the notes and rhythms are. However, it is true that in order for students to develop

skill as sight readers they must sight read every week as part of their regular daily

practice. The music they use for sight reading purposes should be several levels below

their technical ability, so as not to cause undue tension or other bad habits. This is the

way we all sight read: After all, very few professional musicians will pick up a virtuosic

concerto to sight read through.

I value excellent technique very highly. Won’t all this time spent on musicianship

take away time from technical training?

Just the opposite. If the student is secure in the notes and rhythms the teacher is free

to concentrate on all aspects of excellent playing, especially technique. Most technical

difficulties result from either tension or inattentiveness to the physical aspect of playing.

The principle cause of tension is confusion, so eliminating confusion about the notes

and rhythms should eliminate a great deal of tension in the playing. Lack of awareness

about the body is the normal state for most students who are prematurely reading

notation. How could it be otherwise? They are busy figuring out what the name of the

note is, where to play it, which finger to play it with and how long to hold it. This is

already far to much for them to handle, thinking about their body in relationship to the

instrument at the same time is completely out of the question.

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In addition to eliminating several causes of bad technique, excellence in sequencing the

pieces allows us to develop a dynamic technique that is full of vitality. If a student is

fully engaged in the character of the piece, his mind will be sharp, his muscles ready,

his joints supple and his posture erect.

I am comfortable teaching out of the traditional methods and my students seem

to play fine. Why should I change?

Excellence in music teaching, like excellence in anything, requires a constant dedication

to improvement, even when we think we are doing well. Furthermore, constant use of a

single method book will eventually dull our own interest and inevitably this will be

reflected in our teaching. In this approach we are always free to add new music, new

movements, new games to always keep it fresh. There is no limit except that of our own

imagination.

Many teachers have an innate gift for drawing out the best in their students. To see the

highest achievement possible inside their student the way Michelangelo saw David in

the rock. For these teachers excellence or quitting are the only options for their

students. Nevertheless, even for these teachers, superior sequencing of pieces,

superior quality of music, superior preparation for the student, can only lead to superior

playing.

Finally, there is a goal beyond excellent playing and this is the communication of

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culture. If we teach out of most method books we doom our students to learning literally hundreds of pieces by an obscure method book author whom not even the student will remember one year after they stop using the book. We have an obligation to teach our students the music of their own heritage, to introduce them to the music of people around the world and to teach them the music they are dying to play. If we can begin doing this immediately, why waste another day? What a tragedy of missed opportunity for the student who stops lessons having only learned “Monkey Song” or “Honking Cars.”

Appendix A – Skill Development for Guitar

Level 1

Songs Solfege

Rhythm

Pitch content

Technique

Form/Expression

Writing Reading

Part-Work Improv/composition

Blues Accompaniment

Steady Beat

D, G, A open.

ThumbSitting and holding guitar

One Two, Star Light,

S-M

Ta-Tadi rhythms syllables

2nd str. D-B

3rd str. G, 4th str. E

Guitar on floorPlaying with i finger RS

Guitar in classical pos. playing with thumb (older)

Phrases

Repeats

Writing solfege over words

Singing or playing from hand signs

S performs melody to T accompaniment

S performs at home with recording

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Mill WheelBounce HighSnail SnailStrawberry Short-Lucy LocketIcha Backa

S-L-S-M

Ta-Tadi stick notation

2nd str. D-B 1st Str. E

3rd Str. G-A 4th Str. E

Guitar on floorPlaying with i finger RS

Guitar in classical pos. playing with thumb (older)

Form Introduce step for La

Introduce staff for S-M.

S writes notes on a staff for S-M songs.

T performs One Two while S performs any of the songs in this section. Reverse roles.

S plays a S-M phrase from a song, T answers with a made up S-M response. Switch.

Rain RainLittle Sally WaterBye Baby- BuntingA Tisket a TasketIt’s Raining

S-M-L

Ta-Tadi in staff notation

2nd str. D-B 1st Str. E

Exercise: walking fingers (guitar on floor)

Play S-M songs in higher positions using the 4th and 1st fingers on any string.

Steps vs skips

4ths.

S writes notes on a staff for S-L-S-M songs.

Add rhythm notation to songs already written down.

T writes S-M patterns, S plays. S writes, T plays (T makes errors for S to detect)

S performs a phrase from a known song as an ostinato to another song performed by T (either upcoming or known)

Same as a above but with S-L-S-M

I see the MoonRing Around the Rosie

L-S-M-D 3rd

string G is Do

Exercise:Thumb alternating between lower open strings in classical pos.

5ths.

S writes notes and rhythms for S-M-L songs

Same as above with La.

S plays alternating 3rd str. and 6th string G’s with thumb in classical position to accompany any G Do song.

S & T create a story based around various known song texts and then performs a “medley” to accompany the story.

Songs Solfege

Rhythm

Pitch content

Technique

Form/Expression

Writing Reading

Part-Work Improv/composition

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Hot Cross BunsThe Closet KeyGrandma GruntsThe BoatmanHop Old SquirrelClair de la lune

M-R-D

Quarter rest

3rd string G is Do2nd Str. C is Do

5th Str. C is Do

Exercise:S alternates RS in classical pos.

Exercise:S sets fingers 1,2,3,4 on tips on 1st and 2nd Str. without looking

Loud and soft

Fixed Pitch:E-D-C

G-A-B

S writes simpler songs (not low C or pickup notes) in traditional notation

S takes home flash cards for individual notes on the staff (no leger lines) and practiced reading cards with time goals.

S plays alternating 5th Str. C and open G to accompany any song with C Do.

S composes their own variation of a known song by changing the last measure.

Rain Come Wet Duerme ProntoMary Had a- Little LambLet Us ChaseBye Bye BabyWhose ThatHow Many MilesBought Me a CatValentineAll Around the- ButtercupNaka Naka Hoi

S-M-R-D

Half note(Whose That)

Both octaves of C Do. 3rd Str. G Do.

4th Str. F Do.

Exercise:S plays alternating RS while playing fingers 1,2,3,4 in classical pos. without looking

Octave equivalents.

C below the staff

Note: Songs with difficult rhythms may be written with pitch only

Transposition.

From here on, S must refer to all pitches on the instrument by fixed name. May follow by singing solfege.

Same as a above but with M-R-D

S plays a question phrase from a known song, T improvises an answer. Switch.

Level 2

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Here Come a- BluebirdPage’s TrainBow Wow WowHush Little MinnieRocky MountainIda RedGreat Big HouseWall FlowersMama Buy Me a Chiney Doll

Do pentatonic

Strong beat

2/4 meter

3rd Str. G Do

5th Str. C Do

4th Str. F Do

S plays their favorite songs in classical pos with alternating i and m fingers. Blindfolded?

Tonic

Question and Answer phrases

Transposition at the octave (same note names, lower pitch)

Pentatonic scales

S adds forte and piano signs to music already written.

S adds barlines to all 2/4 pieces learned so far.

S takes home phrase flash cards. Name, Sing, Play.

S plays tonic note on strong beats to a variety of songs. S should be encouraged to find the tonic and strong beat for himself.

S composes a variation of a known song by changing one phrase.

S composes words and notes to a 2 phrase song in question and answer form. (T may supply various words for song to be chosen in “madlibs” form.)

When the Saints Lightly RowAunt RhodyOde to JoyJingle BellsTwinkleLavenders BlueThis Old ManAll My Little DucklingsAlabama GalLondon Bridge

Do pentachord(introduce Fa)

Do Hexachord

Dotted half note

4/4 meter

3rd Str. G Do

5th Str. C Do

i m and a free stroke

Thumb and Fingers:S plays arrangements that alternate phrases in two octaves (RS fingers FS thumb)

Half steps vs whole steps

S adds barlines to 4/4 pieces.

S reads simple S-M and S-M-L songs that were not learned earlier. S may read learned songs in a new key.

S and T play alternating phrases of songs

S plays root notes to various known songs with implied I-V harmonies. (S should be encouraged to find the root on his own)

T plays E blues progression, S improvises within the G pentatonic scale. S may be given an increasing subset of the scale to work with (E-D, then E-D-B, then E-D-B-G, the E-D-B-A-G)

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Old Mister RabbitSkin and BonesJim along JosieYangtze BoatmanPhoebe in Her Petticoat

Low La

3/4 meter

Low A

Low G and B

Playing in upper positions (S given same starting pitch in a higher position, assigned to figure out various known songs)

Medium dynamics

S creates dynamic interpretations of already written pieces and writes in the dynamics.

S adds barlines to 3/4 pieces.

Reading ledger lines.

S plays C and G chords on first 3 strings with i-m-a to accompany various know songs.

S plays root notes to various known songs with implied I-IV-V harmonies.

S creates variations on various songs by playing some phrases in the upper octave and others in the lower octave. (This technique should be used to create interesting characters in the music).

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Charlie over the Ocean Draw a bucket Sea-Lion WomanTom Dooley Old MacdonaldGood Night LadieHush Little BabyDown Came a LadyOld Brass WagonAmazing GraceRiding of a GoatEency WeencyCotton Eyed JoeThe Farmer in the DellDance JosieFrog Went a CourtingWayfaring StrangPop goes the WeaIrish washerwom

Low So:S, DRM

S,l,DRM

sixteenth notes

Alternating i-m and p FS on open strings or simple 1 LH finger exercises.

Alternating i-m-a and p FS on open strings or simple 1 LH finger exercises.

Crescendo & decrescendo

Major triads.

S creates dynamic interpretations of already written pieces and writes in the dynamics.

S Plays A and E chords (A-C#-E and E-G#-B) with i-m-a to known songs.

Alternating p and i-m-a FS on E and A chords played with 2 fingers.

S improvises using the pentatonic scale in various positions (no open strings).

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PorquoiI Lost the Farmer’sRiding in the Buggy‘Liza JaneMorning has broken

High Do

Low F

Minor triads.

Alternating p and i-m-a FS on A minor and E major chords played with 3 fingers on minor key songs already learned.

Skip to my LouShoo flyBingoChiapanecasThe Streets of LaredoClemetineRed River ValleyVolga boatmenThe lonely birch

Low Ti

Low E

Major Scales

Natural Minor Scales

Root chord chord accompaniment for 3/4 songs.

Appendix B – Skill Development for Piano

Level 1

Songs Solfege

Rhythm

Pitch content

Technique

Form/Expression

Writing Reading

Part-Work Improv/composition

Blues Accompaniment

Steady Beat

D, G, A open.

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One Two, Star Light,

S-M

Ta-Tadi rhythms syllables

2nd str. D-B

3rd str. G, 4th str. E

Phrases

Repeats

Writing solfege over words

Singing or playing from hand signs

S performs melody to T accompaniment

S performs at home with recording

Mill WheelBounce HighSnail SnailStrawberry Short-Lucy LocketIcha Backa

S-L-S-M

Ta-Tadi stick notation

2nd str. D-B 1st Str. E

3rd Str. G-A 4th Str. E

Form Introduce step for La

Introduce staff for S-M.

S writes notes on a staff for S-M songs.

T performs One Two while S performs any of the songs in this section. Reverse roles.

S plays a S-M phrase from a song, T answers with a made up S-M response. Switch.

Rain RainLittle Sally WaterBye Baby- BuntingA Tisket a TasketIt’s Raining

S-M-L

Ta-Tadi in staff notation

2nd str. D-B 1st Str. E

Steps vs skips

4ths.

S writes notes on a staff for S-L-S-M songs.

Add rhythm notation to songs already written down.

T writes S-M patterns, S plays. S writes, T plays (T makes errors for S to detect)

S performs a phrase from a known song as an ostinato to another song performed by T (either upcoming or known)

Same as a above but with S-L-S-M

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I see the MoonRing Around the Rosie

L-S-M-D 3rd

string G is Do

5ths.

S writes notes and rhythms for S-M-L songs

Same as above with La.

S & T create a story based around various known song texts and then performs a “medley” to accompany the story.

Songs Solfege

Rhythm

Pitch content

Technique

Form/Expression

Writing Reading

Part-Work Improv/composition

Hot Cross BunsThe Closet KeyGrandma GruntsThe BoatmanHop Old SquirrelClair de la lune

M-R-D

Quarter rest

3rd string G is Do2nd Str. C is Do

5th Str. C is Do

Loud and soft

Fixed Pitch:E-D-C

G-A-B

S writes simpler songs (not low C or pickup notes) in traditional notation

S takes home flash cards for individual notes on the staff (no leger lines) and practiced reading cards with time goals.

S composes their own variation of a known song by changing the last measure.

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Rain Come Wet Duerme ProntoMary Had a- Little LambLet Us ChaseBye Bye BabyWhose ThatHow Many MilesBought Me a CatValentineAll Around the- ButtercupNaka Naka Hoi

S-M-R-D

Half note(Whose That)

Both octaves of C Do. 3rd Str. G Do.

4th Str. F Do.

Octave equivalents.

C below the staff

Note: Songs with difficult rhythms may be written with pitch only

Transposition.

From here on, S must refer to all pitches on the instrument by fixed name. May follow by singing solfege.

Same as a above but with M-R-D

S plays a question phrase from a known song, T improvises an answer. Switch.

Level 2

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Here Come a- BluebirdPage’s TrainBow Wow WowHush Little MinnieRocky MountainIda RedGreat Big HouseWall FlowersMama Buy Me a Chiney Doll

Do pentatonic

Strong beat

2/4 meter

3rd Str. G Do

5th Str. C Do

4th Str. F Do

Tonic

Question and Answer phrases

Transposition at the octave (same note names, lower pitch)

Pentatonic scales

S adds forte and piano signs to music already written.

S adds barlines to all 2/4 pieces learned so far.

S takes home phrase flash cards. Name, Sing, Play.

S plays tonic note on strong beats to a variety of songs. S should be encouraged to find the tonic and strong beat for himself.

S composes a variation of a known song by changing one phrase.

S composes words and notes to a 2 phrase song in question and answer form. (T may supply various words for song to be chosen in “madlibs” form.)

When the Saints Lightly RowAunt RhodyOde to JoyJingle BellsTwinkleLavenders BlueThis Old ManAll My Little DucklingsAlabama GalLondon Bridge

Do pentachord(introduce Fa)

Do Hexachord

Dotted half note

4/4 meter

3rd Str. G Do

5th Str. C Do

Half steps vs whole steps

S adds barlines to 4/4 pieces.

S reads simple S-M and S-M-L songs that were not learned earlier. S may read learned songs in a new key.

S and T play alternating phrases of songs

S plays root notes to various known songs with implied I-V harmonies. (S should be encouraged to find the root on his own)

T plays E blues progression, S improvises within the G pentatonic scale. S may be given an increasing subset of the scale to work with (E-D, then E-D-B, then E-D-B-G, the E-D-B-A-G)

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Old Mister RabbitSkin and BonesJim along JosieYangtze BoatmanPhoebe in Her Petticoat

Low La

3/4 meter

Low A

Low G and B

Medium dynamics

S creates dynamic interpretations of already written pieces and writes in the dynamics.

S adds barlines to 3/4 pieces.

Reading ledger lines.

S plays C and G chords in root position to accompany various know songs.

S plays root notes to various known songs with implied I-IV-V harmonies.

S creates variations on various songs by playing some phrases in the upper octave and others in the lower octave. (This technique should be used to create interesting characters in the music).

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Charlie over the Ocean Draw a bucket Sea-Lion WomanTom Dooley Old MacdonaldGood Night LadieHush Little BabyDown Came a LadyOld Brass WagonAmazing GraceRiding of a GoatEency WeencyCotton Eyed JoeThe Farmer in the DellDance JosieFrog Went a CourtingWayfaring StrangPop goes the WeaIrish washerwom

Low So:S, DRM

S,l,DRM

sixteenth notes

Crescendo & decrescendo

Major triads.

S creates dynamic interpretations of already written pieces and writes in the dynamics.

S improvises using the pentatonic scale in various positions (no open strings).

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PorquoiI Lost the Farmer’sRiding in the Buggy‘Liza JaneMorning has broken

High Do

Low F

Minor triads.

Skip to my LouShoo flyBingoChiapanecasThe Streets of LaredoClemetineRed River ValleyVolga boatmenThe lonely birch

Low Ti

Low E

Major Scales

Natural Minor Scales

Root chord chord accompaniment for 3/4 songs.

Songs listed by Pitch ContentSo-Mi Songs

One Two Tie My ShoeSee-SawWitch WitchStar Light Star BrightDucks and Geese

So-La-So-Mi SongsMill WheelBounce HighSnail SnailIcha BackaLucy LocketStrawberry Shortcake

So-Mi-La SongsRain Rain Go AwayLet’s hide the pumpkin

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Doggie Doggie Do Songs

Ring Around the RosieThree Bears (A section)Closet Key (A section)

Mi-Re-Do SongsHot Cross BunsCloset KeyGrandma GruntsAu Clair de la Lune (A section)

So-Mi-Re-Do SongsMary Had a Little LambDuerme ProntoRain Come Wet MeLet Us Chase the SquirrelAll Around the ButtercupValentine, ValentineWhose ThatBye Bye Baby

Do Pentatonic SongsHere Comes a- BluebirdPage’s TrainBow Wow WowHush Little MinnieRocky MountainIda RedGreat Big HouseWall FlowersMama Buy Me a Chiney Doll

1 These 3 pieces do not represent a Kodaly sequence.

2 And where this expectation is thwarted, the student also finds meaning, being surprised and delighted

by the unexpected turn of phrase.

3 I have deliberately avoided the more technical (but somewhat obfuscating) words like Kinesthetic, Aural,

Visual and Cognitive stages.