Discovering Orff: A Curriculum for Music Teachers

As a music educator of 29 years who was hired in my school district on the condition that I would get Level I of Kodaly, I always felt that a lot of the things that I naturally addressed in my music classes, and a great deal of what I learned at UNT from a particularly gifted professor of ORFF, was a bit "out of bounds" from strictly a Kodaly perspective. When I was introduced to the Orff Method through TMEA, friends, other music specialists, etc., the things I felt were missing in a strict Kodaly curriculum were perfectly addressed through the study and use of the Orff Method.Orff does not replace all other methods that are available to inspire learning, creating, performing, sequencing, etc. within the music classroom, but by golly, the use of these principles and techniques are certainly one other wonderful way to raise a culture of musical awareness, cultural appreciation, beat competent and creative human beings. It's a wonderful resource.

When I taught elementary general music, I had certain standards, like "NO DISNEY". Also, we didn't have the budget to afford a lot of the new programs on the market, so I followed the guidelines in here step by step. Kinder: ta titi, do re mi. First grade: ta, titi, toe, do re mi fa so. ETC. Supplemented this with Orff followers on teachers pay teachers, printed and laminated a lot of stuff related to Orff and Kodaly, blended it, and I had a great 2 years. Granted my schools did have enough xylophones and hand percussion for everyone, but you can pull this off with boomwhackers and other instruments as well.

Excited to begin reading this book. The elementary music curriculum designer in my school district is an Orff specialist!

Great resource!

This is an excellent book for those who are just beginning to work with Orff classrooms, as well as for those, who already have this experience. It gives a very clear idea of the components of Orff method and has a very good explanation of the theory, used in Orff classrooms.

The book is never boring, because it is always replete with examples in musical notation.Of the 200-odd pages, the first 50 pages describe the Orff concept. That is the part which I found the most interesting.The remainder of the book summarized what she teaches and how she teaches each of the grades 1 through 5.Some readers might find the second part more interesting.

Look, this book is overall pretty solid. The activities described within can directly be used in the classroom or be used as a spring board to create your own lessons. Orff's process will be drilled into your head each chapter and sometimes things get repetitive. Nonetheless, this book should part of any aspiring music teacher's collection.

Great book.

I bought this as an introduction to Orff and how to use it in my class, based on other reviews. However, as a non-music specialist, I found a lot of it beyond my understanding - 'pentatonic tonal centres' and 'raised seventh scale degree in the key of G'for example. You need a good musical understanding and an ability to read music and play an instrument to get much from this book. It really is a curriculum for specialist music teachers, not the average primary teacher.