The Ideas of Kodály in America
Identifieur interne : 000076 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 000075; suivant : 000077The Ideas of Kodály in America
Auteurs : Jean SinorSource :
- Music educators journal [ 0027-4321 ] ; 1997-03.
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DOI: 10.2307/3399007
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<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sinor</surname><given-names>Jean</given-names></name><aff>Professor of music education at Indiana University, Bloomington, and past president of the Organization of American Kodály Educators</aff></contrib></contrib-group>
<pub-date pub-type="ppub"><month>03</month><year>1997</year></pub-date><volume>83</volume><issue>5</issue><fpage>37</fpage><lpage>41</lpage><custom-meta-wrap><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>sagemeta-type</meta-name><meta-value>Journal Article</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>search-text</meta-name><meta-value> MEJ ENCORE The Ideas of Kodaly in America This article on the application of Zoltdn Koddlys teaching method in the United States was first published in the Music Educators Journal in February 1986. BY JEAN SIN OR There is a story told about a retired Hungarian music teacher who had seen a long and distinguished career in school music. A young friend of hers was visiting one day and, over espresso and pastries, was relating her past experiences as a visiting teacher in Kodaly workshops around the world. The older teacher listened with interest to the tales of warm welcomes, tearful farewells, and lost luggage and then said, “You know, I really have always meant to ask one of you young folks, just what is this Kodaly method, anyway?” The touching irony of this retired teachers question is that in the course of her thirty-five years of bringing the joy of music to hundreds of young ears, minds, and hearts, she had not only been practicing the Kodaly method, she had been developing it. What the rest of the world calls the Kodaly method is merely the effort in Hungary inspired by Zoltan Kodaly to open to children the beauty available to them through the greatest music. It may not be too broad a statement to say that any music teaching that strives to attain this goal could, indeed, be Jean Sinor is professor of music education at Indiana University, Bloomington, and past president of the Organization of American Kodaly Educators. Zoltcin Kodaly (above) sought to introduce children to music of the highest quality. called Kodaly teaching. In this sense, Leonard Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin, or Carl Orff might be called Kodaly teachers, but neither they nor Kodaly would think it relevant or necessary to do so. In Hungary, no distinction exists between teaching “Kodaly” and teaching some other way, because what is being taught is music and not “Kodaly.” Of course, Zoltan Kodaly had a profound influence on the practice of music education in Hungary and subsequently on adaptations of those practices in the rest of the world. Among his many gifts were the abilities to recognize a problem, to identify the path toward a solution, and to inspire the appropriate persons to work for it. The litany of individuals whom he either directly charged with a task or whom he indirectly motivated would be long, indeed, and might include Bela Bartok and Jeno Adam at one end and the young college meth- MARCH 1997 37 ods student at the other. Each was- and is-prodded to accept a particular challenge and to develop the skills and self-reliance to face it. Under Kodaly's direction and guidance, the practices of Hungarian music education gradually evolved, and they continued to evolve under his successors and students. The evolution of Kodaly's ideas advanced on several fronts. He initially became aware of the beauty of Hungarian folk songs through his linguistic study of their strophic form, and he also realized that this treasure was in peril as society became more and more urban. In 1905, he and Bartok undertook the systematic collection and analysis of the whole body of Hungarian folk materials, and the Institute for Folk Music Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences continues that work today. Ethnomu-sicologists in Hungary work in close collaboration with music educators, the researcher providing the musical materials for teaching, and the educator breathing life into the songs again by bringing them to a new generation of children. The folk materials daily being rediscovered also had a profound influence on Kodaly's compositional style and aims. He sought a truly Hungarian musical language and the ancient folk melodies-so different from the Germanic style that dominated Hungarian composed music and even from Hungarian perceptions of its own folk culture-proved to be the source. Kodaly began his efforts to reintroduce true folk music into Hungarian art music by making arrangements of folk songs with piano accompaniment. Later, folk melodies formed the basis for choral compositions, especially in those for children, and can also be found in his instrumental compositions. Even in those compositions that do not contain direct quotations from folk music, the style, spirit, and tonal language of the Hungarian folk culture pervade. In his roles as researcher and composer, Kodaly began to realize that to preserve a musical culture and to give it new life through composition are pointless unless the people for whom it is intended are receptive to it. The 38 third dimension of the process then became evident: the role of the educator. From the 1930s until his death in 1967, Kodaly was actively involved in the development and refinement of music textbooks and other materials for use in the classroom. The effectiveness of relative solfege for the training of the ear was observed in Germany and England and adapted, and the emerging understanding of the psychology of learning was used as a basis for pedagogical developments. Many of the methodological techniques used arise from the music experience and creativity of the individual teacher. Some of the practices that have come to be known as the Kodaly method in Hungary can be found in the official state music curriculum and in the several music textbook series used in the normal public schools, in the special music elementary and secondary schools, and in the instrumental music schools as well as in materials used in training professional musicians. These may prescribe instructional goals and objectives, and a variety of musical materials may be given, but many of the methodological techniques used arise from the music experience and creativity of the individual teacher. Thus, while fifth graders throughout the country may be learning many of the same skills and using the same materials, one teacher may emphasize choral singing in order to achieve the goals, while another may concentrate on the skill of improvisa- tion. All, however, will create a style of teaching around certain common tenets that grew out of Kodaly's principles: use of the highest quality music music for everyone, not only for an elite music experiences beginning in early childhood initial grounding in the folk style of the culture an a cappella vocal foundation for music learning literacy as the primary means for musical independence use of relative solfege experiences before notation a child-centered learning sequence. Kodaly considered the creation of a musical nation the work of at least a century. In the years since he set that goal, Hungary has achieved many, though not all, of Kodaly's aims and has become a model for music educators around the world. Examining Basic Goals In examining Kodaly's basic principles, one can observe some of the difficulties that can be encountered in attempting to adapt them to an American setting. Of course, there would appear to be a sine qua non beyond which no changes can be made without changing the very nature of the concept itself. The most basic of Kodaly's ideas, that good music is necessary to enrich the life of every human being, is certainly indispensable. While on first reading this statement is in perfect accord with the philosophy of American music education as expressed by MENC and the great majority of writers on the subject, several serious implications are contained in it. The concept of “good” music that Kodaly used so frequently and with such assurance is far from an easy matter to define, as anyone who ever emerged from an aesthetics class with a headache could easily testify. For Kodaly, good music was rather specifically the generally recognized art music of the European tradition and its folk or traditional wellsprings. He greatly admired the a cappella vocal music of the Renaissance and the counterpoint of the Baroque, and found a model in the then-fresh tonal U S I C EDUCATORS JOURNAL language of Claude Debussy. In the natural qualities of the folk music of Hungarians and of their linguistic relatives, he discovered an ancient pen-tatony that he appears to have considered inherently more beautiful than the tonic-dominant-based folk music of Germanic peoples. Good music is necessary to enrich the life of every human being. For the American adaptor of Kodaly's ideas, the problem arising from this basic assumption is fundamental since it appears to stand in opposition to a position that has been maintained for at least twenty years by the music education profession in this country: the position that music of all periods and styles from the earliest chants to the latest rock is appropriate material for music education. Even much of the folk music in the Anglo tradition contains elements such as diatonic sequences and harmonically directed melodies that Kodaly appears to have made a conscious effort to avoid in his own pedagogical materials. Some music in the American tradition, especially that of Afro-American origin, is pentatonic in scale pattern, but it is most often of a major rather than a minor character. These songs have few of the melodic motives, such as a predominance of seconds and fourths and cadence points approached from above, that are so much a part of the Hungarian pentatonic language Kodaly used as his paradigm. Another of Kodaly's efforts was to ensure that music education be avail- able to every child, not just to a social elite with the financial capability to provide private instruction. Toward this end, he succeeded in having music established as a fundamental part of the public school curriculum. This put it on an even footing with language arts, mathematics, and science in special music elementary and secondary schools not designed to train the potential professional musician, but to provide the best in music education for the future members of society. Music instruction is provided by highly trained music specialists in these more than two hundred schools. Even in the so-called normal elementary schools, music is taught by individuals who have no less than a double major in music and another subject area. The notion of universal music instruction is also one of the dearly held principles of American music education, and it would appear that little difficulty would be presented in adapting this idea. However, there are fewer and fewer school systems in the country where the presence of a music specialist can be taken for granted, and even fewer where the Hungarian ideal of daily general music instruction for all levels of children can be found. Even our fine American high school performance programs have become specialized and competitive to the extent that many children find themselves excluded from any kind of school music experience because they lack the preparation necessary to compete. In the last few years, with the gradual disintegration of many school-based programs, private or community substitutes have come into being. These drum corps, touring choirs, or similar organizations provide a valuable experience for some children, but by appearing to relieve the public schools of responsibility for and cost of providing appropriate music education, they may be creating a kind of musical exclusivity based not necessarily on finance, but on motivation and ambition. The vast majority of young people have neither the opportunity for such experiences nor the stimulation to seek them out. Where public school music programs continue to exist, they are increasingly being staffed by classroom teachers or overextended professionals who, in their ten- or eleven-period days, have little time for the kind of creative music teaching and active musical life that Kodaly tried to establish as the norm. Kodaly's principle that music education should begin as early as possible in a person's life is manifested in the highly developed system of nursery, preschool, and kindergarten music instruction. Teachers of young children, although not music specialists, have four years of music instruction in their teacher-training programs and are expected to sing, read, and play music from notation. Their curricula and materials are carefully prepared, and teaching is routinely supervised by experts in early childhood music education. Another ofKoddlys efforts was to ensure that music education be available to every child. American preschool and kindergarten music experiences, by contrast, are much more casual and are usually left to the particular interests and talents of teachers. Although considerable research has been carried out in the field of early childhood music, only recently have efforts begun to apply some of these findings to teaching, since, in most cases, music activities in preschool or kindergarten are viewed as primarily recreational. A significant part of Kodaly's romantic ideal was his belief in the nobility of common, country people MARCH 1997 39 and the purifying effect that their music would have on society. Indeed, the educational practices that were developed under his guidance were as much a means of preserving and passing on the folk heritage as they were a method of general music education. Hungarian folk songs are quite homogeneous, distinct, and relatively free of outside influences. This fact, plus the vast collections of songs made by Bartok, Kodaly, and their successors, has put at the disposal of Hungarian music educators the most beautiful and most typical songs, games, and rhymes along with the traditional movements or dances with which the composers may be associated. On the basis of a great number of songs, each varying perhaps only slightly from the next, it is possible to characterize the major types of songs, to recognize their musical elements easily, and to improvise freely in their styles. American folk music, on the contrary, is younger and much less homogeneous. It is strongly influenced by English traditional music, but much of it developed from the Afro-American experience. German melody types and meters can be heard in many cowboy songs, and Hispanic influences come from several sources. The music of many non-English-speaking, immigrant communities often retains the character of its homeland, but has very little influence on and is minimally influenced by the other cultures surrounding it. America may be said to have many coexisting folk music cultures rather than one shared by everyone. Additionally, the international movement to preserve traditional musics did not really reach this continent until after much of American folk music, especially children's songs and games, was disappearing or changing radically from its traditional forms under the influence of urbanization and technological growth. The splendid works of Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles or of the Lomax and Seeger families, among others, were able to catch perhaps the very last glimmer of a culture that was already becoming self-conscious. Of course, all folk cultures change with time, and American folk culture has not disap- peared but merely changed to reflect the environment of today. Instead of playing “Ring around the Rosey” in their yards, children may be watching cartoons or listening to the radio while playing with their space monster action figures. The difficulty this presents for the potential adaptor of Kodaly's ideas is not that space monsters are inherently less noble than the little game song about the black plague, but that the musical experiences of today s children are often provided for them by television and radio rather than being the products of their own musical fantasies. Singing, and in fact all music making, is done for you by other people. It is not a natural human activity. As we begin to learn more about children's musical development, their perceptions, and their cognitive processes, we can refine teaching practices to take them into account. Music Activity Today The more passive nature of music activity today is also contrasted with Kodaly's conviction that true music learning occurs only with the kind of active music making made possible by musical literacy, the ability to use musical notation with ease. The old rationale given to us for teaching note reading, that notation is used to preserve musical ideas and to communicate them to others, is rendered some- how suspect by the nearly universal availability of cassette recorders and other reproduction devices. Some of the most respected thinkers in our field have indicated that because most people interact with music during their lives almost exclusively as listeners, efforts to teach them to read notation are pointless and a waste of time better spent on learning to be more discriminating consumers. Even the use of relative solfege is viewed as, at best, a quaint old-fashioned practice by those whose musical interest is in Iannis Xenakis or Philip Glass. To some, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi's and eventually Kodaly's principle that experiences should precede notation is just fine … if you just eliminate the notation part. The idea that music teaching should reflect the way in which children learn was reasonably new to educators when Kodaly began his work, but is perfectly normal to today's music educators, both in Hungary and here. As we begin to learn more about children's musical development, their perceptions, and their cognitive processes, we can refine teaching practices to take them into account. While there has been no indication that, musically or cognitively, Hungarian children are any different from American ones, the cultural setting in which they live, their parents' expectations for them, the role of the school in the community, and the degree of educational flexibility available are all different. Ability grouping of children, mainstreaming, parental involvement in curriculum planning, population mobility, teacher burnout, and many other such issues daily facing the American music educator were not even thought of by those putting Kodaly's ideas into practice, nor, in large measure, are they today in Hungary. An American teacher faces many more classes comprising a wider range of children and is much more personally responsible for their success or failure than is his or her Hungarian counterpart. Following the litany of difficulties, the task of adapting Kodaly's principles of music education to the American setting may seem an impossible, if not pointless, task. Many American 40 music educators, however, have found in the Kodaly approach such rewards for themselves and for their students that they have confronted and overcome these challenges, and the combined wisdom of many hundreds of teachers' experience makes the effort easier for each succeeding generation of music educators. Applying Philosophy In order to apply Kodaly s principles, a teacher should first look at the goals of the approach to determine if they are compatible with his or her own. If developing in children a sensitivity to the beauties of music through musical skills and active knowledge of musical literature is a value to the teacher, then the effort is worth pursuing. The teacher should then consider carefully his or her own musicianship and love of music. An active musical life outside the classroom should be the ideal, and, in most cases, the time spent in a choir or orchestra, chamber group, or going to concerts, rather than adding yet an additional burden to an already overtaxed schedule, is invigorating. Some teachers have found that an occasional evening with other teachers in their area spent singing choral music or playing recorders and discussing teaching ideas provides as much stimulation as a workshop or clinic. There are a number of excellent publications available for teachers who wish to initiate a Kodaly-based program, but the most effective way to begin is by taking a summer course or an extensive workshop. Personal contact with someone who has established a program can avoid some of the confusion and misconceptions that often result from trying to capture the essence of a teaching style from a book. The teacher should not be discouraged if the course seems to put more emphasis on apparently irrelevant things such as philosophy, solfege, choral singing, and folk song analysis instead of what would appear to be immediately necessary: teaching materials, lesson plans, and lots of ideas. Kodaly emphasized the importance of the individual teacher and his or her creativity in the teaching process. It may seem inefficient in the beginning, but the freedom the teacher develops through independence and self-confidence is what makes good teaching outstanding. Koddly emphasized the importance of the individual teacher and his or her creativity in the teaching process. It is usually most successful if the teacher goes back to his or her school the fall after the initial course and begins to try out some of the new concepts and ideas. Teachers should begin slowly-ideally with the youngest children-kindergarten and first grade in primary schools, the first-year students in the junior high, or the freshmen in the high school. Some techniques will have immediate results, some will seem to have no effect, and by about February, the teacher will usually have reverted to some tried-and-true techniques of previous years. That's just fine and to be expected, but should not be taken as an indication that this approach is “not for me. After the first year's experiment, the teacher should be ready for some serious study and further courses, or a certificate program might be tried. The typical Kodaly certification program, of which there are many in the country, consists of three summer sessions of three weeks each with experiences in personal musicianship, music pedagogy, and techniques. Courses vary in their emphasis: in some, there might be more time spent on choral conducting; in another, on folk song materials; some emphasize folk dance; and, in some places, applications will be made to instrumental teaching, special education, or college instruction. There are also year-long and master's degree programs at some institutions, each of which has features attractive to certain students. With the development of many centers of fine Kodaly teacher preparation in this country, the once almost obligatory journey to Hungary no longer is necessary to becoming prepared, but many students with training and experience in the adaptation of Kodaly's ideas in this country are interested in observing its roots at their source. The Kodaly Music Pedagogical Institute in Kecskemet, Hungary, provides summer and year-long programs for foreign teachers and is an interesting way of meeting music educators from all over the world who share some of the same goals and problems. The Organization of American Kodaly Educators provides many services, such as conferences, publications, consultant services, and video tapes, for individuals interested in the Kodaly approach. The organization has regional and small, local subgroups that can be a source of support and ideas so important to teachers beginning a new program. The Kodaly approach to music education is not a cult; it is not some strange, Eastern philosophy with aims different from traditional American music education, but concerned teachers attempting to share with children the beauty and joy of music that has intellectual and musical integrity. Any teachers who share this goal may certainly call themselves Kodaly teachers. All that then remains is working toward the goal. After appropriate training and adequate experience, a teacher should feel confident in applying his or her own concepts of music education in the adaptation of Kodaly's ideas to American society and musical culture. When that happens, then one will not have to speak of this method or that method, but, simply of music education. MARCH 1997 41 </meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-wrap></article-meta></front></article></istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo lang="en"><title>The Ideas of Kodály in America</title><subTitle>This article on the application of Zoltán Kodály's teaching method in the United States was first published in the Music Educators Journal in February 1986</subTitle></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" lang="en" contentType="CDATA"><title>The Ideas of Kodály in America</title><subTitle>This article on the application of Zoltán Kodály's teaching method in the United States was first published in the Music Educators Journal in February 1986</subTitle></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">Jean</namePart><namePart type="family">Sinor</namePart><affiliation>Professor of music education at Indiana University, Bloomington, and past president of the Organization of American Kodály Educators</affiliation></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="research-article" displayLabel="research-article" authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://content-type.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://content-type.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/XTP-1JC4F85T-7">research-article</genre><originInfo><publisher>SAGE Publications</publisher><place><placeTerm type="text">Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA</placeTerm></place><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">1997-03</dateIssued><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">1997</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>Music educators journal</title></titleInfo><genre type="journal" authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://publication-type.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://publication-type.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/JMC-0GLKJH51-B">journal</genre><identifier type="ISSN">0027-4321</identifier><identifier type="eISSN">1945-0087</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID">MEJ</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID-hwp">spmej</identifier><part><date>1997</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>83</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>5</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>37</start><end>41</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">40B397B40FF6188DDA1128474B4FC2A4F40E843D</identifier><identifier type="ark">ark:/67375/M70-SVDBBVWV-8</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.2307/3399007</identifier><identifier type="ArticleID">10.2307_3399007</identifier><recordInfo><recordContentSource authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://loaded-corpus.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://loaded-corpus.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/XBH-0J1N7DQT-B">sage</recordContentSource></recordInfo></mods><json:item><extension>json</extension><original>false</original><mimetype>application/json</mimetype><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/40B397B40FF6188DDA1128474B4FC2A4F40E843D/metadata/json</uri></json:item></metadata><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
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