Critique of the Orff approach 51

The Orff approach, particularly in the North American context, has been a focus of critique in the literature. Several music educators have engaged critically with Orff philosophy and practices in the light of a range of contemporary music education theoretical perspectives. Regelski’s term ‘methodolotary’ encapsulates one such basis for critique, that is, the uncritical reception and application of a fixed method and/or strict adherence to rigid prescriptiveness in music education that is regarded, by some commentators, as a potentially destructive possibility inherent in the Orff approach. A second type of critique focuses on the tension between the approach as intended (by Orff and others) and the approach as enacted. Concern with the ethical purpose of music education, for example, in relation to the way it can manifest itself in particular settings in inappropriate ways, is a third thread.

The term ‘methodolatry’, used by Regelski (2002), refers to the uncritical use of ‘methods of musical instruction’ characterised by an emphasis on training and transmission, which fail to fulfil the educative and transformative potential of music education (Bowman & Frega, 2012). Bowman (2007) identified the offering in North America of ‘levels of Orff (or Kodaly) studies’ and the ‘programmes they comprise’ (p. 31) as one of several examples of tidily packaged, one-size-fits-all, professional development programmes that militate against ‘sustained engagement with challenging problems’ (p. 31), since training has replaced genuine education:

Curricular passage is assured by close attention to sequence and the systematic elimination of ambiguity, which protects students from the challenges of authentic personal growth and the profession in turn from creative self-transformation. (p. 31)

Advocating for an ethical basis for educational practice in music, which is grounded in pragmatic action and recognises the diversity of ‘good results’ (p. 41), he dismissed all attempts at standardisation and uniform instructional

The kind of educational praxis that abjures the security and comfort of the tried and true, choosing instead to work without a safety net on grounds that the loss of creativity, responsibility and value is too great a cost to pay for predictability and security. (p. 41)

The focus of musical learning should extend beyond the refinement of skills to preordained standards. Rather, becoming musically educated should involve active sense-making and be characterised by ‘creative freedom, self-determination and genuine engagement’ (p. 33). By implication, the Orff approach as a ‘method’ needs to be interrogated in terms of its ‘educative’ (or non-educative) effects (Bowman, 2002, pp. 64–67).

Drawing on her experience of the Orff approach within the American schooling system, Benedict (2009b) employed a Marxist lens to interrogate the way in which she considered the Orff approach in the North American context to have become an example of music educational ‘methodolatry’. She propounded the view that, rather than enabling the creativity intended by Orff, ‘the

implementation of these methods in a strict and unmindful manner, often alienates both teacher and student from musicking’ (p. 213). Benedict (2010) described Orff’s original conception of a process as one in which meaningful and creative engagement with music and movement was one. The improvised music that was enabled by this process was not ‘high art’ but ‘music of the moment’ (p. 204) based in the interaction of music and dance. She contended that a codification of the process had occurred in the ensuing years, where movement had been

sidelined and the creativity at the heart of Orff’s original conception marginalised by the attention given to this codified ‘process’ (p. 204).

Abril (2013) a North American music educator and researcher with knowledge of and experience in the Orff approach, also draws attention to the destructive consequences of its becoming ‘codified and converted into a restrictive method of teaching’ (p. 19). He acknowledges that, although the Orff approach was not conceptually intended to be a method, adherence to fixed structures and sequences for both individual lessons and school programmes in the North American variant of the approach contradicts this intention. Quoting North American educational critic Alfie Kohn, Abril emphasises the need for vigilance in relationship to the uncritical reception of ideas:

There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea and there is time to fear its hold over us. The time to worry is when the idea is so widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply rooted that it feels to us like plain common sense. At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control: we do not have the idea: the idea has us. (Kohn, 1993, cited in Abril, 2013, p. 21)

Dolloff’s (1993) critical overview of the Orff approach and the role it can play in the facilitation of music cognition elucidated the theoretical ancestry of the Orff approach and described it positively as one which promotes musical and artistic development. It enables students to not merely learn about music but to ‘act as musicians’, creating, performing and listening ‘in a ‘multiplicity of musical activities’ (p. 44). She expressed the view that, although the Orff approach could be said to neglect the value of the role of listening to music, this could easily, and should be, developed and integrated into the approach (p. 40). She also suggested that (in the North American setting) there had been an over-emphasis on the pentatonic, calling upon a 1962 address by Orff (reprinted in D. Hall, 1992) to suggest it was a misapplication of his own intentions for the Schulwerk:

Time and again the question is asked whether a child must only play pentatonic, avoiding any other kind of music. This is nonsense of course, since it is both impossible and undesirable to shut a child off from all other musical influences. It is the main purpose of pentatonic training to help a child to form a musical expression of his [sic] own. (D. Hall, 1992, p. 42)

Frazee (2013), in a recent evaluation of the transplantation of the Orff approach into the North American context, identified a range of variations in the practices and beliefs of teachers in the United States as departures from the approach that, in her opinion, Orff intended. Such departures were: an emphasis on classical harmony and melody rather than on rhythmic and melodic counterpoint; the use of barred instruments to accompany folk songs rather than an emphasis on the use of instrumental pieces as a basis for improvisation; and an emphasis on music- making over movement. She also drew attention to the disjunction between the emphasis on outcomes in American practice and the kind of experimentation encouraged by Orff:

He intended his pieces in the Music for Children volumes to be models for children and teachers as they developed their own original expressions but the performance ideal has retained its authority in most

Abril (2013) also draws attention to a critique of the centrality of ‘play’ in Orff pedagogy, which suggests that this is in reality an adult construction of child’s ‘play’ and results in an inappropriately narrow and simplistic approach to materials and repertoire. He advises: ‘Teachers must be cautious not to take suggestions for sequencing musical experiences to any limiting extreme and not to equate childlike with childish [from the adult perspective]’ (pp 16-17). The

concept of play suggested here seems at odds with the concept of play proposed by Orff (2011a, p. 98), which viewed play as an exploratory, imaginative activity led by the child, rather than an imposition of particular structure or material upon children by adults. It may be that in the example above, play is being equated with the use of typical Orff melodic or harmonic structures in a limiting way.

Calling upon Shehan Campbell’s (2010) ‘study of musical value and meaning in the lives of children’ (p. 17), Abril (2013) discusses the problem of a possible disconnection between what may be a richly textured out-of-school musical life of the child (as illustrated by Lateesha in Shehan Campbell’s study) and a seemingly inauthentic school music programme which relies on materials chosen primarily for pedagogical purposes. He states:

Assumptions about children’s capabilities, development, and artistry have led to pedagogical practices that can be limiting, disconnected from the multicultural and complex culture of contemporary childhood, and overly rigid in their delivery (p. 19)

This kind of critique highlights the need for teachers to acknowledge the ‘funds of knowledge’, which are the ‘historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for household or individual functioning and well-being’ (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992, p. 133). The New Zealand Curriculum specifically references this term and states:

This is a term that closely aligns with what the New Zealand Curriculum seeks to achieve through the community engagement principle as it asks ‘How can we make visible, draw upon, and celebrate the rich funds of knowledge that our students bring with them to the classroom?’ (Ministry of Education, n.d.“Funds of knowledge”, para. 3)

Abril (2013) urges an interrogation of ideas or practices within the Orff approach that rely on recapitulation theory, where ontogeny is believed to parallel

phylogeny (mentioned previously) implying that children’s musical development parallels the development of music from primitive styles to sophisticated and

complex western art music. Such a view is no longer tenable for a range of reasons, not the least, Abril states, is the way in which ‘it privileges the white European cultural view of world and music’ (p. 15). Abril’s aforementioned critique re the privileging of the European cultural view of the world and music has relevance to Frega’s (2013) appraisal of the dissemination of the Orff approach in Latin America, discussed earlier, as offering instances of inappropriate resource development.

On a more positive note, Jorgensen (2003) referred to the Orff approach as a methodology among several methodologies (simply meaning a theory for the ‘what and how’ (p. 12) of music teaching), which had ‘desirable and undesirable features’ (p. 12). She argued pragmatically that teachers often make ‘situated decisions on the basis of practical experience, rather than rational theories and instructional methodologies’ and opt for an ‘eclectic methodological position even though the assumptions underlying these methods (may seem) to conflict and contradict each other’ (p. 12).

Also on a positive note, but from a very different angle, Andrews (2011) makes a case for the pedagogical work of Keetman to be recognised as an example of critical pedagogy for the way it challenged structures of power and knowledge by defying conventions of existing music education methods of the day. She asserts that a contemporary application of Orff approach can be a ‘means of changing the world through improving the lives of our students and providing them with agency to determine their own thinking and actions through music and dance [sic].’ Furthermore, she says, elemental music and improvisation not only encourage musical learning but, as well, ‘dialoguing, critical thinking, critical feeling, critical action, musical imagination, musical creativity and musical celebration’ (p. 318).

I will give the final word in this section of the review to Haselbach (1983), who as a long-term advocate of the approach – she was appointed as the first dance teacher at the Orff Institute when it was established in 1962 – nevertheless signalled a concern with the broader socio-political context of education during the early stages of the dissemination of the approach in the North American

Conference in 1972, she qualified her advocacy for ‘music and dance in the Orff Schulwerk way’ (Haselbach, 1983, p. 112) with a concomitant concern to address the ethical purpose of education. She invited reflection on the following

questions:

Have we become teachers through the conviction of the eminent importance of our task (as educators) or through disposition and gifts in a certain artistic field, or both? Does the education we pass on really belong to our time or could it with a few exceptions have taken place in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries? (p. 112)

Stating categorically that the task of music or dance teachers is not to educate towards ‘a secluded aesthetic isolation’ (p. 112), she urged her audience to consider the need for music (or movement) education to be ‘transformative’ (p. 113) for individuals in order that they might contribute in a constructive way to the social and political life of the time.

2.7 The impact of the Orff approach as professional development

Evans’ (2014) theoretical framework for professional development provides a helpful starting place from which to address issues related to professional development. She describes professional development as the ‘process whereby people’s professionalism may be considered to be enhanced with a degree of permanence that exceeds transitoriness’ (p. 188) and argues that professional development need not be confined to designated or planned opportunities but may occur anywhere ‘accidentally and incidentally’ (p. 193). Her model moves well beyond a concept of professional development as ‘training’ and places an emphasis on professional development as ‘learning’ (p. 255). Her model also meets Young’s (2001) call for an understanding of the unpredictable and

serendipitous nature of professional learning often characterised by ‘eureka’ (V. Young, 2001, p. 255) moments in professional life characterised by the

development of an awareness of a ‘better way’ of ‘doing’ things (Evans, 2014, pp. 191–192).

Evans’ construction of professional development as behavioural, attitudinal and intellectual development through change in any or all of the eleven constituent components (see Figure 2.1) builds upon her framework of professionalism, which is made up of these same behavioural, attitudinal and intellectual

components. Inherent in this model is recognition of teacher agency, i.e., the facility for exercising judgement and the will to ‘act’. Central to processual changes, in Evans view, is ‘micro-level professional development in which the individual recognises something as a ‘better way’ of ‘doing’ things’ (applying a broad interpretation of ‘doing’ to include mental as well as physical activity) (p. 187).

She also acknowledges the multi-dimensionality of professional development, where change in any of the components of her model supports, reinforces or may cause tension with another component. She makes a distinction between

professional development which is imposed and that which is freely chosen or spontaneously occurring. In her view behavioural change can occur as a requirement of professional development, but she contends that herein lies the difference between development and learning. Professional learning is that which involves intellectual, attitudinal and behavioural development, whereas

‘professional development may be represented by (enforced) behavioural change alone’ (p. 192).

Figure 2.1: The componential structure of professional development

(Evans, 2014, p. 191)

study. The social cognitive theory of self-efficacy provides a further conceptual lens through which to view these changes. I have also taken the view that self- efficacy theory can be linked to the discursive construction and/or reconstruction of teacher identity, literature related to which will also be briefly reviewed below. Overall there is scant recent research on the impact of the Orff approach on the beliefs and practices of teachers. However the North American setting provides a few examples of self-reported changes as a result of teachers undertaking AOSA levels training.

A study by Sogin and Wang (2008), for example, which involved the completion of a questionnaire by 49 participants at various stages of training in the Orff approach found:

• Singing was a favoured classroom activity across all participants;

• There was an increase in playing, creating and moving activities as a result of training in the Orff approach and that this also increased as training in the approach continued;

• There was an increase in student participation in decision-making after higher levels of training. (Sogin & Wang, 2008, pp. 274-275)

Runner, Yoder-White and Wicker (2014) conducted a study involving 23 teachers which investigated the impact (as self-reported) of participation in Orff levels training on ‘teachers professional development and their subsequent work’ (para.10). This study found that teachers believed that course participation had impacted positively on their classroom practice through their increased comfort and interest in:

• Allowing students to improvise; • Providing active experiential learning; • Instructional design;

Developing original material with students. (Para.14)

Williamson’s (2011) qualitative phenomenological study, investigated 24 elementary music educators’ perceptions about their effectiveness in teaching music to children after participating in Orff training. This study found that these 24 elementary music educators’ viewed the training as having impacted positively on their perceptions about their ‘effectiveness’.

In contrast, Robbins (1994) narrative study ‘Orff SPIEL’, also from the North American setting, took a wider and more interrogative approach to the impact of

Orff levels training. Viewing the construction of knowledge as the result of a reciprocal relationship between teacher and learner, Robbins noted an absence in the training of time to process information and construct meaning. Her study offered a group of 6 teachers, who were undertaking Orff training, the opportunity to ‘collectively reflect’ upon the application of their learning in the approach to their classroom contexts. She reported that ‘learning to love the questions’ (p. 52) became fundamental to the teachers’ work and this led to the development of a reflective approach that enabled a deeper quest for meaning in the application of the approach.

A major focus of this thesis is the self-reported changes of nine teachers as a consequence of their sustained engagement with the Orff approach, both as learners in workshop contexts and subsequently as classroom music teachers. In broadly framing this process as an experience of professional development, this investigation of the impact of the Orff approach on teachers’ professional lives involves the following open-ended questions: ‘What changes occurred?’ ‘How did this happen?’ and ‘How might these changes be understood in relationship to their lives as teachers?