Kodaly's Influence On American Education

Music education has taken a vast transformation over the last two centuries. From the pedagogical importance of Lowell Mason to the incorporation of the arts as a part of a well-balanced education. Specifically, in America the music education research contributions are more recent, because Americas music institutions can be traced as early as Colonial America. Whereas, Europe can trace its music origins through several centuries. The major music education pedagogies that are practiced in America are mostly from Europe. To be specific the only methodology that is from America is Comprehensive Musicianship. Dalcroze, Orff-Schulwerk, and Kodaly all come from Europe. Understanding all the methodologies gives a music educator the ability to tailor

Kodaly’s Method is rooted in the problems and opportunities of the historical, social, and cultural circumstances of Hungary of that time. This points to the approach that Kodaly was pushing for a cultural revolution. Consequently, Kodaly’s initial desire to reform teaching programs occurred in 1919 when he was a director at one of the Academy’s in Hungary, but did not focus on the setting of public schooling until around 1925. Kodaly was an avid composer, and while teaching at the Academy in Hungary he composed Psalmus Hungaricus, which show cased the folk music of Hungary. Because of this piece, a large part of his methodology became engrained in the choral movement, which raised the importance of this movement. Kodaly’s focus on the employment of singing into the music education classroom is made apparent by his emphasis in saying that “the human voice is the only instrument which is available for everyone”, and that “only activity can lead someone to a real understanding and appreciation of music. Simply listening to music is not enough.” However, this is because his methodology infuses indigenous folk music and art music in a way to enhance musical literacy. Kodaly believed this literacy would lead to a boon to musical culture, because folk music was like a musical mother tongue. Granted, the

Consequently, Kodaly Method has four main objectives that are built upon Solfege. Kodaly believed relative solmization should facilitate a student to mentally engrain a conscious ability of musical reading and writing. This foundation in Solfege is like the Dalcroze method, but the Kodaly method does not use eurhythmics. However, the Kodaly methodology differs Orff-Schulwerk methodology because Orff-Schulwerk is based on music, movement, and speech. They vary on the basic principles that Kodaly is more about folk music enhancing music literacy, and Orff-Schulwerk is more about using all aspects of art to enhance musical learning. The difference lies in Kodaly’s focus towards classical musical literacy, and Orff’s focus on musical learning in a neoclassical facet. The only American music education methodology that does not show similarities to Kodaly is Comprehensive Musicianship, which is the youngest of the four. The reason being Dr. Madsen focused less on a paradigm shift in pedagogical thought, and more on the facets of teaching music in an efficient manner, such as literature quality, goals of instruction, how to provide assessment,