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Why The Orff Method Is So Successful
Posted by Bruce Gaston on 28th February 2008
The reason the Orff system is so applicable and so appropriate in Thailand is because we have the same way of looking at things as Karl Orff did, and that is, you teach children to start with percussion instruments such as xylophones, metallophones and glockenspiels. This means that you use your two hands to make melodies on bars which, if you think about it, is much easier than worrying about where your fingers go. If you look at the history of music all over the world you’ll see that people tend to start playing with two hands alternating back and forth in a kind of hitting gesture.
We take these percussion instruments and bring them together to have a symphonic sound; an ensemble, in which the children, even the very young children can immediately have some success in playing together. The other very convenient point, and certainly the genius in the Orff system, is that if you make the percussion instruments in a way that you can take the bars out, so that with the remaining bars the chance of making a mistake is manageable even for small children. You don’t have to worry like you do with a piano where you have so many black and white keys and much more chance of making an error.
With Thai instruments, the bars can’t be removed so you always have to choose between lots of notes to get the ones that are right. Using the Orff instruments, you take many of the bars away and the children can achieve something instantly. It’s a wonderful way of introducing the children to music and making it successful right from the very beginning, so the very first hour you start studying Orff you can have musical joy.
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One Response to “Why The Orff Method Is So Successful”
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March 22nd, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Since I first saw the children rehearsing with the instruments last year, I was very impressed with this method. It is wonderful to see such young kids do music together and learn in such a short period of time. What a gift for them to be able to learn music so well and being so lovingly tutored by Bruce and all!