Music/Choir

Using the Orff Schulwerk approach, scholars are introduced to the foundations of music.  Based on the natural play of children, scholars are led to learning through rhymes, chants, dancing, and keeping a beat. 

Instrumental exploration using Orff instruments* and non-pitched percussion are woven together with folk dance, role play, story re-enactment, solo and group singing.

Music educator and author, Jane Frazee, defines the Orff classroom as follows:

“Orff Schulwerk music instruction inspires young musicians to make and understand the art of music by creating their own original songs, dances, and instrumental pieces. The tasks presented are musical ones.  But more is happening in the Orff classroom than an elementary interplay between student and music. Activities that are characteristic of what all musicians do: perform, improvise, compose, listen, and analyze are the foundation of the Orff Schulwerk approach. While participating in these activities Orff students are also thinking and behaving in ways that relate not only to learning about music but also to learning about anything. For instance, students learn to express their musical ideas and they learn the necessity of remembering those ideas. Students also learn to explore new possibilities, to analyze them, to revise and refine them and to cooperate with others while doing so. None of this is possible without concentration on the tasks at hand. In fact, so important are these non-musical opportunities that the better students perform them the better they will grasp the musical ones.  The Orff classroom is therefore a place where students learn about music by making and inventing it. But in addition – and this is of crucial importance – they also are learning and practicing other essential learning skills as well. These skills transfer to other disciplines and to future work and play.”