Kimberly Stromberg

July 9, 2014
MUSE 582
Kodaly Lesson plan
Kodaly Bibliography
Dr. Liu
This lesson is designed for freshman and sophomore girls who have had me for about 8 weeks.

1. Who can sing A today? Lets check it.

Now make that sol
In your head, sing down to do. time to think Sing do
Ok! Major Scale with hand signs please
AND Arpeggio (do mi sol do sol mi do)
Add the bass sol for fun
AND back to do

2. Watch my hands signs and silently sing what you see.

do re mi fa sol, sol fa mi re do
do sol fa sol mi sol re sol
do sol fa sol mi re do
do sol fa sol mi sol re sol
do sol fa sol la ti do
Lets try it again and sing out loud.
Again. Now faster.
This time add a clap every time you sing sol.
This time, only clap on sol, dont sing the note sol
3. Look at the notation on the board.
Listen to this scale. Does it sound right to you?
o play D dorian scale

What did you hear? Listen again, and think about how can we change it to make it sound major?

add the sharps to the specific notes.

That is a lot of sharps to write. Can you imagine Beethoven writing in every sharp for his C minor
sonatas? The whole paper would be like hash tag this, hash tag that! So instead, we cheat a little. We
put the two at the beginning, and then just use our solfege like normal.
4. O.K. Lets sing this with our hand signs.
5. Weve talked about home and away sounds. Who remembers what those are called?
Good! Does anyone remember which solfege syllables are in I?
How about which ones are in V?
And what about V7?
So lets sing a progression. I V add the 7 I

Looking at the board, lets see if we can add our Roman Numerals to our sight singing exercise.
Well do measure 1 together. Measure 1 has Do and Mi, so which chord is it going to be?

Lets sing through our chord progression only.

Who wants to be the bass note?

Who wants to sing the middle note?
Who wants to sing the top note?
Who GETS to add the 7 to the V chord in the penultimate measure?

Lets DO THIS!
One more time, can I have someone sing the melody on top?

Kimberly Stromberg
July 9, 2014
MUSE 582
Kodaly Lesson plan
Kodaly Bibliography
Dr. Liu
Zoltan Kodaly evolved his method by incorporating some other ideas into his
philosophical principals:
All people who can learn to read can learn to read music
Singing is the best foundation for musicianship
Music education is most effective when you start very young
Familiar folk songs from the childs culture should be used
Only use music of the highest artistic value
Music should be a core subject
Kodaly incorporates some ideas from Italian and English sol-fa systems, Dalcroze solfege
techniques, Curwen hand signs, Cheve rhythmic syllables, and the Pestalozzian teaching process.
His method was successful thanks to the implementation in Hungarian singing schools, starting
in 1950. Kodaly tries to develop the innate musicality already in children, make language of
music known to children, and to make great art music of the world available to children. He
does this through a highly sequenced approach that incorporates the knowledge he had about
child development. He wanted to teach concepts and skills that were within the childs
capability, but then constantly push to expand those same concepts and skills.
Melody, form, harmony and theory, expressive elements, inner hearing and musical
memory are the skills that are taught to the students. Kodaly provides a range of possible
exercises to teach these concepts, but lends itself to creativity much less than the Dalcroze or
Orff approach.
Lessons always start with finding the A. Very early the teacher will give it to them,
but quickly give them the responsibility of trying to retain it and find it for themselves. The

Kimberly Stromberg
July 9, 2014
MUSE 582
Kodaly Lesson plan
Kodaly Bibliography
Dr. Liu
piano is rarely used so the students develop independence from external auditory cues in order to
make music. Here are some of the activities suggested in the book:
Conducting while listening or singing
Singing while students listen to the teacher for a new rhythmic or melodic figure
Counting rhythms with the rhythmic syllables and connecting it to the song the students
are going to sing
Reading melodies with hand signs
Guess that tune
Movement with a song
Read music, erase measures, and have students rewrite the measures
Harmonic addition and analysis to a melody
Improvise ostinatos, descants, or new melodies
Notation exercises
Critical listening to hear those concepts being taught

There is a lot of stress on allowing the students to sing the music by themselves, and letting them
make mistakes so they class can learn from it. Kodaly works very hard to have activities that
teach musical independence and confidence. The curriculum is rigorous and can be applied in
American music education, but would need to be spread out over time due to the time constraints
of the teacher.