When You Start With A Song

Music Teachers are constantly called upon to teach multiple levels and multiple ages, often in a single day. For example, right now, my husband begins his day at the high school, teaching band and orchestra . He then travels to the elementary schools to teach beginning group instrumental lessons. Finally, he ends his day at the middle school. Depending on the day he will either teach band or general music classes. And that doesn't include his many after school commitments. Working with students as they get ready for outside music festivals, helping a struggling student, Jazz Band rehearsals, Elementary Band rehearsals and being the Producer and Set Designer/Builder for the Fall Play and the Spring Musical. If that sounds like a lot, it is! Sometimes I wonder how he doesn't completely collapse in exhaustion on the couch when finally coming home.

As a Music Educator I have taught all levels of learners from infants to adults. Something that is not always easy to navigate. Knowing how to effectively teach a toddler is very different than how to effectively teach an adult learner. However, in every lesson I have taught, in every rehearsal I have led, there is one element that is always present: a song.

As a beginning teacher, I would sometimes struggle with teaching my students to understand how to read, write and perform rhythms even sometimes keeping a steady beat The abstract nature of reading music from the staff sometimes seemed confusing to them. They could recite the names of the rhythms, they could recite the names of the lines and spaces on the music staff. They could memorize the "facts" but taking those "facts" and applying them to the actual making of music was not always connecting for my students.

I worked hard to give them opportunity after opportunity. Created countless lessons to drill these "skills". I did a lot of reading and workshop attending. Still there seemed to be a missing link between their knowledge of the facts to the making of music for the majority of my students. Even as I worked to find the missing link, my students loved coming to music class. They loved making music in class, playing the instruments, singing the songs. They performed in countless concerts. But, I knew that there was still that missing link.

My second teaching job was as a middle school choral and general music teacher in a school district of Orff Trained teachers. Because of that I began my Orff Levels. After taking Level 1, my Summers were very busy. I got married, we bought a house, and started our family. I even took some time off from teaching in the public schools to stay home with our sons. So completing my Orff Levels was delayed.

After returning to teaching, I finished my Orff Levels and LOVED every moment. I gained so many wonderful skills and learned so many different ways to teach my students. In addition, I also completed my Masters at the University of Connecticut. In my undergraduate education, and also when attending workshops, I had been exposed to a Kodály-Inspired approach to teaching music. It was during my time at the University of Connecticut that my curiosity about this approach to teaching music began to grow.

Taking my Kodály Levels was COMPLETELY transforming. At the time, I had been teaching successfully for many years. But as I studied and learned during my Kodály Levels I knew I had found the answers I had been looking for my entire teaching career. I had found the missing link. That link...teach EVERY musical element through a song! Of course I knew that using a song, singing and playing with my students needed to be the foundation of all my lessons with my students. However, it was my Kodály Levels that focused the way I used that foundation as I taught. The magical words: "What is the pedagogical use for this song?" changed the way I teach music forever!

My students began to be able to read, write and perform rhythms and melodic patterns with ease. And when I applied Kodály-Inspired Pedagogical Practice during my choral rehearsals it was life changing! I no longer had to drill their parts over and over, rehearsal after rehearsal, crossing my fingers that by the time the concert came along they would be able to sing their parts accurately. Instead I had musicians who could read, understand, and "own" their parts in a way that made my music teacher heart sing. All because everything they were learning about music was because in my lessons we would "Start with a Song"

6th Grade Choral Students working in small groups to put back "together"all three parts of part of one of their choral pieces. Everyone in the chorus learned all three parts. In this example there are random pitches labeled with the correct solfege, but not all of the pitches are labeled for them. Just one of example of how chorus students can really "own" their parts.