Kodaly, Suzuki and Dalcroze, Sounds like characters from Rainbow! Options

[Seer_Green]

What I don't get is why my feeling like this upsets and offends those who are advocates of these forms of learning - all I'm pointing out is that it isn't for everyone.

I don't think it should offend anyone (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and you're quite right in saying that they aren't for everyone. I don't have any experience of Suzuki, but having seen Kodaly and Dalcroze in action, I do find something very special in them. I don't however teach in an environment where there's much interest in improving general musicianship skills (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif) which means in my own teaching, I can only drop a few things in here and there based on some of the underlying principles.

[anacrusis]

Some factions do get offended by any suggestion that their methods might not be universally applicable...though in fact, since the fora show time and again, everyone's set of aptitudes is not the same (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif). I've just happened to observe it in relation to previous criticisms voiced on here.

[jonathanquinn]

I can only comment on my own experience of starting to learn the violin using the Suzuki method. A friend's mother, who was a professional violinist, heard that I was learning with a Suzuki teacher and tried to warn my mother off it as a way of learning. I was later taught by three of the most distinguished teachers in London, which culminated in my being rejected from the RAM, RCM, and RNCM. Whether or not my starting to learn with a Suzuki teacher had anything to do with my eventual failure as a musician I have no idea. I suppose had I started out being taught by a member of the Endellion Quartet I might either have developed better technique or been told from the outset that I would never be playing with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and that I should give up any hope of playing the violin rather than waste the next ten years working away at an instrument I would never really be able to play. I wouldn't say that I hold a grudge against my former Suzuki teacher, but I wonder how things might have turned out had I had better teaching and/or guidance.

[linda.ff]

I can only comment on my own experience of starting to learn the violin using the Suzuki method. A friend's mother, who was a professional violinist, heard that I was learning with a Suzuki teacher and tried to warn my mother off it as a way of learning. I was later taught by three of the most distinguished teachers in London, which culminated in my being rejected from the RAM, RCM, and RNCM. Whether or not my starting to learn with a Suzuki teacher had anything to do with my eventual failure as a musician I have no idea. I suppose had I started out being taught by a member of the Endellion Quartet I might either have developed better technique or been told from the outset that I would never be playing with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and that I should give up any hope of playing the violin rather than waste the next ten years working away at an instrument I would never really be able to play. I wouldn't say that I hold a grudge against my former Suzuki teacher, but I wonder how things might have turned out had I had better teaching and/or guidance.

Suzuki is all about playing well, with good intonation, good posture, good aural sensitivity, and good tone. I can't see how being taught these at the early stage can in itself mean you didn't have good guidance. There's no intrinsic difference between Suzuki technique or musicianship and any other - having siad that, I know that Suzuki was fairly insistent on a low bow-arm, even on the G string, but it obviously worked for him, whereas we had a boy who got a scholarship to a school where they said he had to have his lessons there, and they taught him a high elbow technique. However, I know there are many aspects or technique on all instruments in which skilled and experienced teachers don't agree. If you were taught be three disctinguished teachers, didn't any of them tell you there was anything wrong with your technique when you started with them? I would have thought that at least one of them would have recognised something which wasn't right.

Our teacher had many children who got into the National Children's Orchestra in primary school. I would have thought that was an indication that there was nothing much wrong with the way they were being taught. The only thing, as far as I culd tell, that you didn't get from Suzuki in the early stages, was music literacy, and when it did happen, in many cases it happened, as our teacher put it, "all of a piece" because the music iteself just made so much sense.

[jonathanquinn]

I know that Suzuki was fairly insistent on a low bow-arm, even on the G string, but it obviously worked for him, whereas we had a boy who got a scholarship to a school where they said he had to have his lessons there, and they taught him a high elbow technique.

...

If you were taught be three disctinguished teachers, didn't any of them tell you there was anything wrong with your technique when you started with them? I would have thought that at least one of them would have recognised something which wasn't right.

Yes, of course all my teachers did nothing but criticise poor technique. Interestingly enough, the low bow arm was one thing for which I was constantly criticised, though this is the first I have heard of it being associated with Suzuki. Immediately after I left my Suzuki teacher, before I went to study with a professor from Trinity College of Music, I did have a non-Suzuki teacher who I think also achieved very little with me. In fact it was this professor from Trinity who gave me the best advice anyone ever gave me: give up the violin. But with so much invested in the idea of becoming a string player of one sort or another I wasn't content just to give up, and my parents certainly weren't pleased with the idea, so I took up the viola and was taught by a former principal from the Royal Opera House orchestra who thought me good enough to make it professionally, a view confirmed by a professor from the Royal Academy of Music to whom, with my main teacher's permission, I went for additional teaching. In the end, though, the head of strings at the RNCM, a gentleman distinguished for his bluntness of manner, said that he could not understand why anybody had allowed me to pursue something as obviously pointless as having a stab at music at a professional level.

It is quite possible, of course, that my first two violin teachers were simply not very good teachers and that the fact that the first of all was a Suzuki teacher might have nothing at all to do with her not being very good. And it is also quite possible that I was just one of those students who was musically ineducable. I suppose if I have one complaint overall it is that too many of my teachers were too encouraging. As I say, the best thing that any teacher ever did for me, probably, was to tell me that I would never play the violin. I just think it's a shame that one of my earlier teachers didn't say, when far less was invested in the idea of my one day making a career of it, that I was simply not going to get anywhere. It certainly would have saved me a very miserable trip back from Manchester, knowing that my upcoming auditions at the RAM and RCM were similarly futile and that I was only turning up to them as the audition fee was non-refundable. So when I talk about having guidance from teachers I don't just mean technical advice, I mean guidance about my overall career trajectory.

[kenm]

So when I talk about having guidance from teachers I don't just mean technical advice, I mean guidance about my overall career trajectory.

A fundamental piece of advice that every teacher ought to give: don't try to make a living as a professional instrumentalist unless you can't bear the thought of doing anything else.

[sbhoa]

It is quite possible, of course, that my first two violin teachers were simply not very good teachers and that the fact that the first of all was a Suzuki teacher might have nothing at all to do with her not being very good. And it is also quite possible that I was just one of those students who was musically ineducable. I suppose if I have one complaint overall it is that too many of my teachers were too encouraging. As I say, the best thing that any teacher ever did for me, probably, was to tell me that I would never play the violin. I just think it's a shame that one of my earlier teachers didn't say, when far less was invested in the idea of my one day making a career of it, that I was simply not going to get anywhere. It certainly would have saved me a very miserable trip back from Manchester, knowing that my upcoming auditions at the RAM and RCM were similarly futile and that I was only turning up to them as the audition fee was non-refundable. So when I talk about having guidance from teachers I don't just mean technical advice, I mean guidance about my overall career trajectory.

I may be reading you wrongly but you come across as someone who thinks that it's hardly worthwhile learning an instrument if you aren't going to reach professional standards.
If you loved the violin then I don't think that a teacher telling you you would never play it was very useful at all. You don't have to be conservatoire standard or anywhere near to enjoy playing.

[owainsutton]

So when I talk about having guidance from teachers I don't just mean technical advice, I mean guidance about my overall career trajectory.

A fundamental piece of advice that every teacher ought to give: don't try to make a living as a professional instrumentalist unless you can't bear the thought of doing anything else.

Absolutely. I got additional individualised advice from my teacher: "You'd hate it."

[Cyrilla]

In answer to the OP (apologies for the essay-length reply):

Zoltan Kodaly (1882-1967) was a Hungarian with a traditional musical upbringing. His parents were amateur musicians and he remembered sitting under his mother's grand piano at the age of four, listening to her play Mozart, watching a beautiful sunset. He started composing in his teens and also taught at the Music Academy (later the Liszt Academy) in Budapest. There he was startled to find students who were fluent instrumentalists but who couldn't hear the music in their heads before they played it.

He, along with his contemporary Bela Bartok, travelled the Hungarian countryside collecting folk music.

At that time Hungary was a very oppressed country, heavily influenced by German culture, and had little sense of national identity (I believe that Hungarian was not the official language of the country until 1919).

These influences above made him think deeply about how to bring music, and musical literacy, to his country. He recognised the importance of an early start - 'nine months before the birth of the mother' was his reply to the question, 'When should music education begin?'

He felt passionately that early musical experiences should be of the highest quality (he expressed the opinion that if it had not been something of the calibre of Mozart that he heard his mother playing, he would not have become a musician).

Kodaly realised the intrinsic quality of folk music - he felt that, as it had been honed and polished over centuries, that it was a very pure form of music and that it contained many elements of art music, but in a smaller form. Thus, the experience and study of folk music would lead naturally to a study of art music. He also recognised that the voice was the best instrument through which to experience music first. Not only does everyone have one, but the inner hearing is activated when singing and musical concepts are experienced in quite a different way - singing is an internal skill - YOU make the sound - whereas playing an instrument is an external skill - you make something else make the sound. Anything learned through the singing voice has a different effect from learning it through an external instrument.

He visited the Cheltenham Three Choirs' Festival in the 1920s and was hugely struck by the use of relative solfa in the UK. This had been developed in the 19th century by Sarah Glover and then John Curwen. He realised that this was a powerful tool for the development of pitch awareness and skills, and that the related handsigns provided a kinaesthetic, visual tool for helping to train pitch acuity.

He and his colleagues and students travelled around Europe, collecting and learning about tools such as relative solfa and the rhythm names first developed in 19th century France.

Gradually they developed a collection of folk material and arranged it, and the acquisition of musical skills and knowledge, in a sequential order.

The first 'singing primary school' was set up in Kodaly's home town of Kecskemet in 1950. At one time there were over 200 of these schools - sadly, now, there are about 100. Kodaly wrote many pieces for children's choirs and the standard of choral singing rocketed.

It was in the early 1960s that people started to realise this quiet revolution in music education in Hungary and went to see for themselves. Yehudi Menuhin asked Kodaly to send someone to the UK to teach at his school and Cecilia Vajda (my first teacher) came in the late 1960s.

So - in a nutshell - this approach trains general musicianship using the voice. The approach is multi-sensory (and therefore very powerful and accessible by all types of learners). Kodaly recognised the three stages of learning - unconscious, making conscious and reinforcement. Folk music is used initially - of the indiginous culture to begin with - leading to a study of art music. With children we start with singing games - the folk music of the child - playground games.

Teacher training is considered to be of the utmost importance. Even kindergarten teachers in Hungary have a high level of musical training because it is recognised how important these early stages are. Kodaly said, 'A child will learn anything if there is someone who knows how to teach him.'

Musical literacy is a main aim - the ability to 'see what you hear and hear what you see'.

One of the beauties is that it doesn't matter what age you are, or what stage you are at in your musical development, there is something in the approach for you. Teaching in this way is the most exciting and rewarding thing I have ever done and it's why I'm passionate about it. Watching people develop their musical potential - helping people to do, or understand, something that previously eluded them - is the most satisfying experience.

Music meant very little to me until I stumbled across Kodaly and, over the years, I've lost count of the number of light-bulb moments that I've had. All the things I struggled with now made sense - it's an incredible feeling to succeed at something where previously you have failed.

I currently teach from age 3 to 70+. I have seen the benefits of this work with autistic children, those with learning difficulties including dyslexia and those with English as a second language; with 'privileged' children at a London conservatoire; with children in 'failing' primary schools, with very difficult home lives; and with adults who either want to learn to teach music better, or who want to improve their own musicianship. I teach professional classical musicians, keen amateur instrumentalists and singers, and a member of The Bootleg Beatles, as well as others with a non-classical background. Kodaly is taught at three of the major conservatoires, to undergraduates and post-graduates, in the UK.

It's difficult to express on paper the depth of the approach, but I've had a go.

Kodaly was a deep-thinking, philosophical man much ahead of his time in many ways. He felt strongly that 'music should belong to everyone' and that 'He who begins life with music will have this reflecting on his future like golden sunshine.' It is very easy to see this approach as just solfa, handsigns and rhythm names - but it is more than that - a whole philosophy of life and music.

As Kodaly said, 'Many people are looking for the door to the treasury of music in the wrong places. They keep hammering on the locked gates and pass right by the open door that is accessible to everyone.'

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Cyrilla]

Apologies for the uncharacteristically long post above.

Bagpuss has just pointed out that most people will have died before they get to the end of it.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

[Tenor Viol]

Apologies for the uncharacteristically long post above.

Bagpuss has just pointed out that most people will have died before they get to the end of it.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

I read it at work this afternoon... much better than dealing with the review comments on a system design I published 10 days ago which need to be incorporated / rebutted...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I've only heard of Kodaly method and I think at grammar school we might have done some tonic solfa when singing. We used to regularly have a music lesson where we would sing things like sea shanties (including in 6th form) - maybe this was a Liverpool thing with being a port and still having a strong nautical connection? I don't think youngsters do this sor tof thing these days?

[owainsutton]

I've only heard of Kodaly method and I think at grammar school we might have done some tonic solfa when singing. We used to regularly have a music lesson where we would sing things like sea shanties (including in 6th form) - maybe this was a Liverpool thing with being a port and still having a strong nautical connection? I don't think youngsters do this sor tof thing these days?

Sea shanties would have been a logical source of local folksong, which would tie in with there being some awareness of Kodaly among your teachers at that time.

[violincjj]

Apologies for the uncharacteristically long post above.

Bagpuss has just pointed out that most people will have died before they get to the end of it.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

I read it at work this afternoon... much better than dealing with the review comments on a system design I published 10 days ago which need to be incorporated / rebutted...

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

I've only heard of Kodaly method and I think at grammar school we might have done some tonic solfa when singing. We used to regularly have a music lesson where we would sing things like sea shanties (including in 6th form) - maybe this was a Liverpool thing with being a port and still having a strong nautical connection? I don't think youngsters do this sor tof thing these days?

The ones I teach do! But no, I think in general schools don't do much of this (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

[kenm]

Apologies for the uncharacteristically long post above.

No apology needed, it was all very interesting.

I have never experienced Kodaly teaching, but I thoroughly approve of its aims.

[muffinmonster]

Apologies for the uncharacteristically long post above.

Bagpuss has just pointed out that most people will have died before they get to the end of it.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

Great post. Have copied and pasted it for future reference. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)