Day Three in the Orff Schulwerk House

It is funny how our preconceptions of activities we have planned can turn out to be totally misguided. We have now completed three days of the San Francisco Orff Level I course and I have already had so many epiphanies that I have given up counting them.  Simple things, such as:  Why starting the recorder with BAG is not necessarily the right way to approach teaching the instrument; how we are possibly trying to fit too much to one lesson when learning one song and accompaniments can be one whole session; how teaching the music and the words straightaway can ruin the fun of experimenting with the rhythms and sounds in the song; how movement and music are elementally linked and can help students learn one or the other; why just using the Orff text books as pieces and material for lessons in the manner they are presented is not the done thing and; that I am not a lost cause in the movement stakes.

I have also found that things I thought I would struggle with are not as difficult as I imagined (i.e. the movement parts), and that other areas that I thought I am secure in, I still have a long, long way to go (e.g encouraging creativity in music without being too prescriptive in the first parts).  The course has also forced me to confront my awkwardness when looking people in the eye for long periods of time, and how to be comfortable interacting with others using the body (non-contact!).

My thinking so far is that when approaching long and medium term planning the topics and concepts to be taught are agreed, but that when it comes to the short term planning, the initial activities are planned, but once the lesson begins there has to be an amount of leaway to allow for the creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking to successfully take place.  It is also possible that lessons might bleed over to the next session, or that the students ideas take the pieces off into radically new and different areas.  While this might look like an excuse not to plan lessons rigorously, I feel that the opposite is true, and a lot more thought, effort and reflection will have to be used to effectively allow the pupils to make the most of their ideas.

There is another seven days to go and there is still a lot to learn; we only just started on the instruments today, and tomorrow is the first day we get on the Orff ensemble 'proper'!

To sum it up in a pithy quote, so far the course is reminding me of something that Harrison Birtwislte said at a talk he gave at Goldsmiths College as to his approach to composing: "Plan your trip, but do not be afraid to take a longer route or stay a little longer in the areas that interest you."