The Orff method in music education is an active and experiential teaching approach that allows students to explore music ideas through speech, song, movement and playing of instruments. (STAR, 2020)
The Orff Approach encourages students to experience music through exploration, imitation, improvisation and creation. The activities aim to provide students with the foundational experience of music before students are guided to understand musical concepts and musical notation. (Wheeler & Raebeck, 1977, as cited in Cary, 2012)
Introductory Video: Orff Schulwerk A Classroom In Action (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIg57hqBYqY)
The Orff Approach nurtures Inventive Thinking through:
Dispositions of (i) Being open-minded, creative and imaginative to consider different possibilities; and (ii) Being courageous to take calculated risks.
For students to experience music through exploration and imitation, they would need to keep an open-mind to learn something new, at the same time be curious and receptive to new ideas being introduced throughout the lesson.
Activities for students to improvise and create music will allow them to exercise their creativity and imagination to consider different possibilities.
When students are asked to share their musical ideas with their peers, they will need to be confident in themselves to do so, exhibiting courage in so doing within the relative safety of the music classroom with a positive and safe learning environment.
Socio-emotional skills of empathy and problem solving:
The Orff approach promotes many emerging 21st Century competencies, including problem solving. It also encourages students to build interdependence when working in groups to make music together. (STAR, 2020)
CAIT5: Explores possibilities and generates novel and useful ideas
Through exploration, improvisation and creation activities, students will have the opportunity to generate different ideas, perspectives and responses through divergent thinking.
CAIT6: Evaluates and refines ideas to formulate novel and useful solutions
For lessons that give students the chance to try out their ideas and make adjustments to improve their work, they will gain an understanding the iterative process of generating and refining ideas to address a particular issue.
Imitation & Exploration Activities: Students start learning the material (can be a simple chant, a rhythm or a song) by imitating the teacher before moving on to explore the piece of music. For example, the teacher can ask ‘What if we play a rhythmic ostinato on drums’ or ‘What if we include movement to match some of the words in the song/chant’. The teacher can also invite students to suggest possibilities to further explore musical ideas and have the rest of the class imitate them.
(Reference: https://ofortunaorff.blogspot.com/2017/07/teaching-with-orff-approach.html)
Improvisation Activities: Within the structure and form of a piece of music they have learnt, students can be encouraged to improvise their own simple rhythm, a short melody, or just changing the words of a song, either individually or in small groups. This allows them to explore possibilities in coming up with their own original ideas.
Reference: https://www.classicsforkids.com/orff-approach/
Creation Activities: Giving the students the chance to come up with their own musical ideas and/or movement, together with the opportunity to evaluate and refine them, are processes that directly bring out both learning goals of Inventive Thinking (i.e. CAIT5: Explore possibilities and generate novel and useful ideas & CAIT6: Evaluate and refines ideas to formulate novel and useful solutions).
Alternatively, teachers can also ask students to use play-dough to create ‘music appreciation sculptures’ while listening to a piece of music. This will allow them to create a tangible object based on the music. If needed, the teacher can provide prompts to guide the students, e.g. ‘How does the music make you feel?’ and ‘What image comes to your mind as you listen to the music?’
Reference: https://hub.yamaha.com/music-educators/prof-dev/teaching-tips/keep-elementary-students-engaged/
Website: Teaching With Orff (https://teachingwithorff.com/)
Website: The Orff-Schulwerk Approach (https://www.allianceamm.org/resources/orff-schulwerk/)
Video: What the Orff is Orff? Part 1: The Process & Sequence (includes simple lesson ideas) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpz573N_FVs)
Video: What the Orff is Orff? Part 2: The Instruments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siKzmWioXOM)
References:
Cary, D.G. (2012). Kodály and Orff: A comparison of two approaches in Early Music Education. https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/1145911
Fang, R..J., Yang, HJ., Diez, C.R., Tsai, HL., Lee, CJ., Tsai, TS. (2009). Effects of the Orff Music Teaching Method on Creative Thinking Abilities. In: Mastorakis, N., Mladenov, V., Kontargyri, V. (eds) Proceedings of the European Computing Conference. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 27. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-84814-3_39
Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRts. (2018). Sound Explorations (Primary). Singapore: Ministry of Education. (Link to eBook: https://viewer.joomag.com/sound-explorations-pri/0489051001615435366?short&)
Singapore Teachers’ Academy for the aRts. (2020). Providing a Rich Music Learning Experience. Singapore: Ministry of Education. (Link to eBook: https://issuu.com/moe_star/docs/providing_a_rich_music_learning_experience_music_c)