Getting started with Kodaly

Ofsted says that music is disappearing from music lessons, but Cyrilla Rowsell believes that Kodály can help teachers and pupils to rediscov

There’s not enough music in music lessons, or so says the recent Ofsted report (Music in schools: wider, still, and wider – Quality and inequality in music education 2009-2011).

This phrase is almost enough to make the reader laugh – how can there possibly be a music lesson with not enough music in it? Do maths lessons not contain any maths? Surely this cannot be? Yet it is true.

The Ofsted report identified that the most successful lessons were those delivered by ‘specialist teachers (who) demonstrated excellent personal musical skills matched by equally strong pedagogical practice.’ This is hardly surprising, but it highlights the reason why so many music lessons are not successful: the teacher has not been trained to deliver good quality music experiences for their pupils. The problem goes back to Initial Teacher Training, where many PGCE students are expected to be able to teach music to children aged 4-11 on the strength of a few hours’ input.

I was one of these teachers. I had been teaching for two years in a First School (4-9 year olds) when my head asked me to be music co-ordinator because I could play the piano and had scraped a music O-Level. I found I had to teach all the classes in the school but had not a clue how to do this.

After six months of seeing me struggle, my very-keen-on-music head sent me on a Kodály course. ‘I think you’d love it’, she told me…and she was right. The first time that we sang something in solfa – the easiest thing, with two notes – music suddenly started to make sense. 

Over the years I gradually did more and more training and started to try things out with my classes. After 11 years as a class teacher, I took the plunge and started teaching music part-time in schools, alongside a Saturday job that I rather fell into, teaching primary-aged children at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. One very enlightened head let me have total freedom to teach according to the Kodály principles, and it was at this school that I honed my skills and began to feel that, at last, I knew what I was doing.

Music made simple

So what is Kodály and why am I passionate about it? Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) was a Hungarian composer, teacher, ethnomusicologist and philosopher who believed that ‘music should belong to everyone’. He realised that the human voice is the best instrument through which to learn music; it is a very direct way of making a musical response and because it is part of us (internal), anything learned through singing goes very much deeper that when learning through an instrument (external). It is also free and portable!

In a nutshell, the approach can be described as musicianship through singing.

The Ofsted report found that, ‘Pupils’ musical understanding was developed most effectively in lessons where musical sound was the dominant language for teaching and learning.’ A very effective way to achieve this is to use singing games because they have a small vocal range, simple rhythms and are, therefore, eminently singable.

Many songs composed for children (including nursery rhymes) are enormously difficult to sing and children will rarely learn to find their singing voices or to pitch accurately by trying to sing them. Children will also not improve their pitching ability unless they sing on their own, when they can hear their own voices and focus on copying the pitch of the teacher or another child. The children I teach are more than happy to sing on their own because this activity is often part of a singing game and is therefore part of an enjoyable and non-threatening experience.

I have never found a child with pitching problems not able to improve by the use of singing games, such as the ones below.

1. Doggie, Doggie

Y6 will beg to play this popular game again and again, even when I tell them it is too young for them. Here’s how it works.

• The children sit in a circle and one child (the good dog) sits in the middle with her eyes shut and a toy bone on the floor in front of her.
• Everyone sings the first line. As the good dog sings the second line (Someone stole it from my home) on her own, you point to a child in the circle who will be the naughty dog.
• The naughty dog runs to the bone, picks it up and gets back to his place by the time everyone has finished singing the third line (Who stole the bone?) together.
• The naughty dog sings the last line (I stole the bone!) on his own.
• The good dog tries to guess who the naughty dog was and sings the last line again, this time inserting the naughty dog’s name (Matthew stole the bone!), opening her eyes to see if she was right.
• The naughty dog now becomes the good dog and the game starts again.

2. See-Saw

In Kodály lessons, the musical experience always comes first. The children learn songs, rhymes and games for the sheer enjoyment of it – then, at a later date, they are made conscious of the musical elements, meeting them in new contexts, which reinforces their learning.

For example, a young child will learn the song See-Saw.

The children play the game, making a see-saw with their outstretched arms – either by themselves or with a partner. When doing the latter, they can turn to a new partner for the second singing of the song, and continue changing between partners every time the song starts again. Children of ages 4-9 will enjoy this game and not realise they are experiencing that most fundamental of musical components – pulse.

3. Singing instructions

Children who have difficulty listening and responding to the spoken voice will generally respond much better to a sung instruction. Gradually the words of the instructions are removed so that the children will automatically do what the tune they hear tells them to do – magic!

As Ofsted reported, ‘Too much music teaching continued to be dominated by the spoken or written word, rather than by musical sounds.’ Kodály lessons are full of music, music and more music, which means children learn in the most joyous and natural way. The small, systematic steps and moving from the simple to the complex in a structured way enables all children (including those with SEN and EAL) to grow, not only as musicians but also as human beings.

Training in this wonderful approach is still lacking in ITT and also in CPD, but it is immensely accessible and enjoyable for all teachers, even those with little prior musical knowledge.It transformed my life, and my raison d’etre is to bring its joy and confidence and musicality to as many children and adults as I can.

As Kodály said, ‘he who begins life with music will have this reflecting on his future like golden sunshine’. What greater gift can we give to the children in our care?