Here is an idea to get you started!

Check out the attached presentation handouts for ideas for a student-centered performance inspired by “The Day the Crayons Quit,” by Drew Daywalt!

The Day the Crayons Quit

The post Bringing the Pages to Life: The Day the Crayons Quit first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

But this year, I began to think of resolutions from a classroom perspective. What goals could I set for myself (and also my students) before I head back for the second half of the school year next week? This is not as easy as the idea had originally sounded, and naturally I began to think of the progress from the first half of the year as a place to start.

For the sake of a quicker read, I’ll jump right to just two of the “resolutions” I came up with. I’m going to treat this as a working list…I’m sure there will be additions and revisions as we move towards spring and the end of the year!

1. Make the most of every minute.

At the elementary level, I only see my students for a short amount of time every week. So often the beginning and the end of the class are “wasted” in transition…walking into the room, finding a place to sit, lining up at the door…the list goes on. How can I make the most of every second of time in the music room, while still providing individualized education for every child? Brainstorming strategies for this goal is at the top of my list!

2. Put a greater emphasis on the experiences and ideas of the students.

It is clear that the figurative “key” that will “open” our students to musical discovery is linking to personal experience. Many of my classes begin with students begging to tell me a story. What if this story links perfectly to a song or story we are focusing on in class that day? If so, this child will inevitably pay more attention, simply because it relates to something he or she already cares deeply about. I challenge myself to be open to these personal stories and how they can be a vehicle to the engagement of every child.

How about you? What are your resolutions for the music classroom?

Comment below or on Facebook and let us know! We’d love to hear from you!

In the meantime, Happy New Year!

We look forward to a 2015 filled with the joy and play of Orff Schulwerk!

The post New Year’s Resolutions: A Classroom Perspective first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

During the school year, what ways do you incorporate folk music into your classroom lessons? I believe that it is important to give students a healthy balance of music from other world cultures and music from their “home” culture.

Share your ideas with us! Comment below with repertoire and lesson ideas that incorporate traditional folk repertoire in the music classroom!

The post Folk Music in American History…and the Music Classroom first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

So what are you doing to teach from both the perspective of classical traditions and more contemporary ones that your students hear on TV or in the movies constantly? The key is identifying with their world to hook them, and then infusing classical traditions into this lens. Think about it: if Jimmy Fallon’s crew had sung a regular barbershop song, no one would be posting about it. It is the novelty of melding traditions that makes us interested.

Thoughts? We’d love to hear from you! Comment below with your ideas (after watching the video, of course)!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hHhELPERm4

The post Orff in Pop Culture: Popular Music, Traditional Approach first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Stay tuned for more posts on Orff in Pop Culture!

What other examples of Orff in Pop Culture can you think of? Comment on this post with ideas!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU-eAzNp5Hw

The post Orff in Pop Culture: Layered Ostinati first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Jill Trinka: The sessions given by Jill were very engaging and thoughtful! The first was a general overview of folk music and the characteristics associated with it. One quote resonated with me from these sessions: “As soon as a folk song is written down, it dies.” In other words, folk songs naturally have different variations! This is an inherent aspect of folk music. If there is one, codified way of singing the song, it isn’t folk music anymore. So the next time you go to a workshop and think, “That’s not how I learned it!” know that your reaction should happen if you are looking at a folk song! Be sure to check out Jill’s four volumes of folk song collections, which give an excellent glimpse into some folk songs that are practical for classroom use.

John Feierabend: Just like Jill’s sessions, these were very engaging and practical for all of us in attendance. The core of John’s belief about musical education in childhood can be summed up in three words: tuneful, beatful, and artful. He especially emphasized the last of these three, saying that we must teach the emotional and expressive elements of music, in addition to the basic rhythmic and melodic elements. John has published a variety of resources that assist in music and movement education. Some of these are handy, small books that are focused on a particular topic, such as circle games and movement exploration. Others offer a more detailed look into other topics and are just as useful. Check them out!

BethAnn Hepburn and Roger Sams: Ohio natives BethAnn and Roger impressed audiences with lessons from their new book, Purposeful Pathways Book 2. These sessions blend the Orff, Kodály, and Dalcroze approaches to classroom music, and incorporate elements of composition and improvisation. Other sessions highlighted lessons from Purposeful Pathways Book 1, which served as the foundation for Book 2. Book 1 is intended for approximately kindergarten through second grade learners, and Book 2 is intended for second through fourth grade learners. In addition, each book has a companion disc with SMART Board Files corresponding with the content of the lessons. These new resources are definitely worth a look!

It was a great conference in Columbus! I hope this post helps readers find some new resources for their classrooms that are both practical and useful!

Stay tuned this week for reports from the Texas Music Education Association Conference in San Antonio!

The post Inspiring sessions at the Ohio Music Education Association Conference first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

This video demonstrates the power that an approach such as Orff-Schulwerk has on a child’s life, or, for that matter, an adult’s. By starting in a place that is natural and pleasing to the ear, we can take students to places they never even dreamed was possible.

Similarly, I would guess a majority of the people in the audience of this video didn’t think of themselves as singers, let alone singers of a pentatonic scale!

Enjoy the video…and keep the pentatonic scale alive in your classrooms each and every day!

-Justin

The post The Power of the Pentatonic Scale first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

As I was participating in these activities, I couldn’t help but think…what exactly is this “Orff spirit,” and how can we translate this magical experience to our students?

The first place this thought process led me to was my own experiences with Orff-Schulwerk. When I think of my first exposure, I think of a similar local chapter workshop and the 2011 National Conference in Pittsburgh. These are all memories of living and embodying techniques and activities with others like me, knowing that the common bond that brought us together was the work of two great individuals whose legacy has been passed down from generation to generation.

Doug Goodkin reminds us in the most recent issue of The Orff Echo that the workshop experience is key to a true understanding of the Orff approach.

Orff teachers learn the Orff process in the same way their students will learn it. The emotions, conviviality, laughter, and joy of the experience become inextricably tied to the material. Afterwards, when teachers bring the workshop’s songs, dances, and pieces to their classroom’s students, they also bring the pleasure they had in learning. This makes the material come alive differently than if they had learned it from a book, a lecture, or a presentation. (45)

Brigitte Warner identifies a common misconception in her book, Orff-Schulwerk: Applications for the Classroom, when she discusses the Music for Children volumes.

In the first place, Orff and Keetman never intended to write a textbook with detailed lesson plans. Such an approach would negate the Orff-Schulwerk philosophy, which, after all, is based on the inherent creativity not only of the child but of the teacher as well. (6)

To me, these conclusions are the what of the “Orff spirit.” But the question remains: What are we doing to awaken this spirit in our own teaching and in our students’ experiences? The written word is just the tip of the iceberg! We must learn from each other in person…a concept that seems to be fading away in the age of increasing technological advances.

Discover the spirit inside of you…the possibilities are endless!

References

Goodkin, D. (2013, Fall). You just have to be there: The workshop as the heart of Orff training. The Orff echo, 46(1), 44-46.

Warner, B. (1991). Orff, his work, his philosophy. In B. Warner (Author), Orff-Schulwerk: Applications for the classroom (pp. 1-10).
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

The post The Orff Spirit first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

A summary of the mission of the program can be found at: http://www.bw.edu/news/smartprogram/.

The post SMART: Shaping Music and Reading Together first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

It is my goal to make my posts to the blog a practical source of information where pre-service music educators can gather teaching tips and lesson ideas from the master teachers of Orff around the world. As developing educators, we are always looking for little ideas that will get our thoughts started, whether it be for a project or a lesson demonstration. It is my hope that this resource will be a quick reference tool that will send you to other resources, or to the creativity of your own imagination!

As I write this first post, I am just about to go to a rehearsal for our Bach Festival here at BW, the Oldest Collegiate Bach Festival in the nation. This festival provides students with a chance to be exposed to some of the highest quality music ever written, with professional soloists and orchestra members playing and singing side by side with students.

This approach to the Bach Festival is similar to what I perceive as the core of the Orff approach. After attending the past two National AOSA Conferences as a student (Pittsburgh and Denver), I realized that there is a certain element of the Orff process that cannot be learned from a textbook by sitting at a desk in class. It MUST be experienced and internalized, from experienced masters in the craft.

Because of this realization, my posts will also seek to capture the experiences of the Orff process, through pictures and videos, among other resources.

With that, I’ll conclude with a link to a fantastic lecture I watched last week via web stream from Washington, DC featuring Yo-Yo Ma, entitled “Art for Life’s Sake.” It offers a unique perspective regarding the true reasons we make music, within the context of National Arts Advocacy Day, an annual event bringing together hundreds of arts advocates from across the country.

Check back in the coming weeks for practical lesson ideas and resources!

-Justin

The post Teaching With Orff: A Collegiate Perspective first appeared on Teaching With Orff.