At 2:33 PM -0400 5/4/07, dhbailey wrote:
Dean M. Estabrook wrote:
Amen, and nothing more needs to be averred
about the importance of training, beginning in
the very early years, in solfege, movement, and
playing of instruments as we find in Kodaly and
Orff. That's the sort of background which not
only produces exceptional musicianship on a
broad level, but just plain well-rounded human
beings. Trust me, the world would be a far
better place, if only ............
Excuse me, but until fairly recently, Romania
and other eastern European countries where the
Kodaly and Orff methods originated and may be
widely taught did not exactly serve as great
role models for well-rounded human beings.
David, I'm surprised. Certainly Orff, Kodaly, or
both may have been adopted in a good many
countries, including the U.S.A., but surely you
knew that Kodály was Hungarian, that he did his
ethnomusicological work in Hungary, developed his
methods for music education in Hungary, and was
apparently as good a politician as he was a
composer. He convinced the communist government
that his educational methods, based on the
"musical mother tongue of the people" (i.e.
folksong), was desirable because it was
specifically based on the "music of the people."
And I don't know about 10-year-old Romanians, but
6th graders in Hungary have better musical skills
than many college sophomores in the U.S.!
Orff, of course, was German, working primarily in
Berlin. His educational methods are quite
different because his educational goals were
quite different.
And I would suggest that music--AS A COOPERATIVE
GROUP ACTIVITY--teaches many valuable life
lessons and DOES affect the development and
personalities of children who study it. It
develops a great many life skills that are
claimed by athletics, as a matter of fact, with
the singular exception that at the end of a
concert there never has to be a loser!!!!!
And while the Romanian student in the example
may have been able to play in odd meters and
been amazed at the other students' difficulties
at first, before being taught, the example
doesn't also explain that while Romanian 10-year
olds my be able to handle such rhythms easily,
before they've learned them as folk dances I'm
sure they would have been bewildered also.
I missed that example, since this thread has gone
wildly off topic and I've been deleting messages
unread, but surely there's no question that the
different rhythms inherent in different
languages, not to mention the folksongs and folk
dances, do teach rhythms that do not exist in
other languages and cultures. Remember the
instructions to a drummer playing Greek wedding
music: "Strong back-beat on 7 and 11!!"
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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