Kodály Resources

Quaver QK-8 Curriculum

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Kodály Resources Within Quaver

Grades K-8

IntroductionQuaverMusic.com is a company that serves the music education community with amazing online resources across multiple educational music pedagogies. Our company has sought out some of the best teachers and academics of these pedagogies to create online resources that enhance music teaching across a broad range of styles and methodologies.

Our vision is not only to respect and preserve the Kodály teaching process, but to explore with Kodály teachers how technology can aid and enhance that process for teachers and students.

The mission of Kodály educators as stated on their website (https://www.oake.org) is one that we are honored to serve:

Inspired by the vision of Zoltán Kodály, the mission of the Organization of American Kodály Educators is to support music education of the highest quality, promote universal music literacy and lifelong music making, and preserve the musical heritage of the people of the United States of America through education, artistic performance, advocacy and research.

This guide outlines the Quaver resources that strongly align with the processes used by Kodály educators and lays out plans for the future development of Ko-dály resources within Quaver.

Quaver Folk SongsZoltan Kodály: The compositions of every country, if original, are based on the songs of its own people. That is why their folk songs must be constantly sung, observed, and studied.

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1. Folk Songs

Singing folk songs was and is a funda-mental part of Kodály’s educational phi-losophy. Quaver has built (and is building) a large collection of the most popular American and World folk songs. Vocal quality is of paramount importance to Kodály teachers and we have strived to make the vocal examples in each song as high quality and natural sounding as possible, and the backing track instrumentation authentic.

Each folk song is presented in a song hub that honors the Kodály process and makes the teaching process very obvious. Games or movement activ-ities are shown first, demonstrating to teachers how the game is played or the movements executed (if not already known).

2. Lyrics Pages

Most Kodály teachers would teach a chosen song a cappella and have stu-dents join in or echo line by line. Quaver lyrics pages are a useful tool for reinforc-ing reading and English language skills. Used in conjunction with the online draw tool, they can also be an effective way to study or breakdown the song into it’s component parts of phrasing, rhythm and pitch. In addition, there are options to have the song demon-strated as a chant or as a song.

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Breaking Down the SongZoltan Kodály: Through our own musical activities, we learn to know the pulsation, rhythm, and shape of melody.

1. Song Components Screen

After the game and song is learned, we provide numerous song-based screens to help breakdown the song into pulsation, rhythm, and melod-ic shape using many different styles of screen. This is where interactivity both on screens and mobile devic-es can help reinforce learning in the classroom.

This Song Components screen for Bow Wow Wow shows that what has been experienced can be learned and labelled. Rhythm, pitch, and pulse can be analyzed separately as students interact with the screen. The rhythm area uses graphic icons (dog bones) to actively explore how the song is constructed of quarter and eighth notes, while the melodic or pitch por-tion allows teacher to build the melodic shape by dragging Solfège icons to the four boxes. Both these elements adhere to the Kodály philosophy of developing music students to read and write music.

Kodály Resources

2. Solfège / Rhythm Screen

Kodály teachers may prefer to use the Solfège/Rhythm screens. Each folk song uses an animated character to present Solfège and the accompany-ing Curwen hand signs, allowing the teacher to engage with the students correcting hand positions as the animation plays. Toggle to rhythm and see the notation for the rhythm of the song and have students clap along with the animated ClassPlay character. There are over 60 such screens presently.

3. Rhythm and Pitch Screen

This screen can be used in subsequent lessons to review what was learned about the song. Each page of the screen has a selection of notated phras-es from the song. A student will press the play button and the class de-cides which phrase is the correctly notated version of what they heard. As in all resources, there are many ways in to use this particular screen. This activity particularly strengthens sight singing and ear training –

fundamental concepts of the Kodály teaching philosophy.

The screens viewed so far use Bow Wow Wow as an example. There are many many other folk songs in Quaver that have this same song breakdown.

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4. Solfège Guide

The Solfège Guide available in the ClassPlay toolbox is another useful tool in teaching and learning melody with Curwen hand signs.

5. Rhythm and Pitch Races

Rhythm and Pitch Races allow the Kodály teacher to apply rhythm and pitch teaching and learning to new phrases and patterns. Teacher can se-lect the notation level and the Solfège pitch combinations before launch-ing the patterns. This gives the teacher ultimate control in the classroom and allows the activity to be adapted to the level of the learners in the classroom.

Kodály Resources

6. Melody Maker

Composition, dictation, sight singing and part singing are all elements of a great music lesson. Melody maker allows teacher and students to com-pose simple songs and melodies from scratch by dragging pitches into the boxes on the screen. Students can be challenged to sight sing and the melodies created then to add words. Melody maker can also be used as a dictation activity where the teacher sings a simple melody and selected students create the melody on the screen. Simple part songs can be cre-ated by having two sets of pitches in two boxes and creating words for each part.

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Music from Other CountriesAs already stated, Zoltan Kodály said, The compositions of every country, if orig-inal, are based on the songs of its own people. That is why their folk songs must be constantly sung, observed, and studied.

At Quaver we have created many unique opportunities for students to experi-ence and study the folk songs of other countries and the Native American music of the United States. This is a rich source of unusual timbres, language connec-tions, and cross curriculum knowledge. Each world music song has many differ-ent activities that enable the teacher to observe and study all aspects of music and culture.

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Learning from the MastersKodály believed that the music used in education must be of the highest qual-ity. Folk songs were the Classical music of the people, and their study encour-aged appreciation of the great masters.

Classical Connections

In every module of the curriculum, K-5 students can be exposed to the music of the masters through Classical Connections.

Classical connections takes the learning objectives from each module and ap-plies them to three famous Classical pieces, either through movement, listen-ing, or analysis (see the Classical connections button in Curriculum Features). This not only exposes students to the music of the masters, but allows the teacher to connect the learning gained from simple folk songs and apply it to the masters of art music just as Kodály intended. Some of the Classical Connec-tions activities have accompanying printables and activities for further evalua-tion and analysis.

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Quaver Original SongsThe resources shown in this Curriculum Features tab are simply the tip of the iceberg. The Quaver curriculum is packed with creative games and activities that break down songs into component pieces and fulfil Kodály’s vision of providing a deep experience of happiness in music.

We have also written original teaching songs and games that we believe serve as a support to the fundamental Kodály philosophy of teaching folk songs. Songs such as the Lunch Box song and Jumping Jacks were written to explore sol, mi and la and simple durations of ta and ti-ti. Many Kodály teachers have found them useful as a supplemental resource.

Into the Future.1. Future Plans

We are firmly committed to the different approaches of teaching music, and are working to create specific Kodály, Orff, and Music Learning The-ory lessons. Working with Kodály experts from around the U.S. we are in the process of creating hundreds of new interactive screens that will help teachers and students to learn the fundamentals of music, preparing them to be life – long music learners.

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2. Your Ideas

We will gladly and enthusiastically receive screen designs and ideas from teachers who not only embrace the Kodály philosophy, but also see the opportunities to use technology to enhance teaching. Our designers will contact you and work collaboratively to produce the resource that you think would be helpful not only in your classroom but in classrooms around the world.

ConclusionKodály philosophy integrates the best ideas, techniques, and approaches to mu-sic education. We believe Quaver should be part of those best ideas and ap-proaches. We agree with Zoltan Kodály, The pure soul of the child must be con-sidered sacred; what we implant there must stand every test, and if we plant anything bad, we poison his soul for life. Quaver has an awesome responsibility in providing music resources that enhance teaching and learning. We are excited to partner with Kodály adherents to provide great music resources that create rich musical experiences in the classroom.

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Grades K-8