Abstract
Orff Schulwerk in Diverse Cultures: An Idea That Went Round the World, edited by Barbara Haselbach and Carolee Stewart, is the most recent publication about the historical spread of the Schulwerk and its current international uses. Haselbach is the past president of the International Orff-Schulwerk Forum Salzburg (IOSFS) and Stewart is the former Dean of the Peabody Preparatory at Johns Hopkins University with numerous connections to the IOSFS. The book was published by Pentatonic Press in 2021 and is the second volume of the Texts on Theory and Practice of Orff Schulwerk series. While the first volume provides essays from the pioneers of the Schulwerk, this second volume is concerned with the worldwide establishment and local adaptations of Orff Schulwerk.
The book is organized into two sections: “Texts on Theory of Orff Schulwerk” and “Texts on Practice of Orff Schulwerk Around the World.” The first section is a series of five mostly re-printed essays, except for an original article by Doug Goodkin, regarding the global potential of the Schulwerk. These writings mostly relate to the philosophical foundations of Orff Schulwerk, including the strong assertion of the worthiness of the child, their potential for musicality, and how this relates internationally. The authors in the first section point out that teachers must utilize original source material, and include traditional sources from within the child’s culture. They discuss the frequent improper use of the well-known instrumentarium for performance rather than as facilitating objectives.
The second half of the book is organized somewhat by continent—Africa, North and South America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania, with 24 chapters written by individuals or small groups who are well-known within the country or region’s Orff organizations. Each chapter is five to ten pages in length and discusses the introduction and dissemination of the Orff approach in a particular country or region throughout the world. A significant portion of each chapter is dedicated to the relationship between Orff Schulwerk and the culture of the country. The implementation of the Schulwerk within the educational framework of each nation is discussed as well as the future for the methodology there.
Orff and his colleague Gunild Keetman published their original five volumes (Musik für Kinder) in the early 1950s as examples of how they thought music should be taught, and these volumes were most often used when the approach was introduced in each country. In some places, including Canada, China, Greece, Taiwan, the United States, Sweden, Japan, the Czech Republic, and some Latin American countries, alternative publications using musical examples of the local culture were used.
The earliest dissemination of the Schulwerk outside Germany occurred in the 1930s in Greece and Turkey via Polyseni Mathey and Eduward Zuckmayer, but in most countries the methodology was not introduced until the mid-1950s to the 1970s. Typically, one individual would work directly with Carl Orff and/or Gunild Keetman or a pioneering disciple such as Margaret Murray, Arnold Walter, Doreen Hall, Hermann Regner, or Barbara Haselbach at a professional development institute in Germany, Canada, or the United States, and then introduce the Schulwerk to teachers in their own country. Continued training in the late twentieth- and twenty-first centuries typically occurs at The San Francisco School or the IOSFS. Singapore and the Ukraine were the latest to become familiarized with the methodology (1996 and 2009, respectively) through teacher training programs in the United States, the IOSFS, and neighboring countries.
The origins of the Orff Schulwerk were a result of Carl Orff’s early twentieth-century compositional techniques and his work between the two world wars in Munich with Gunild Keetman and others that combined music, dance, and drama. Authors in the second half of the book, including Wolfgang Hartmann, in his chapter “The Principles of Orff Schulwerk,” point out that there was a distinct antagonistic relationship between the notation in the volumes and the improvisational nature of Orff and Keetman’s philosophy. Their desire was not to create a didactic plan so music would be taught sequentially—in their minds there was no correct way of teaching. Instead, they wanted to create ways to inspire creativity and flexibility with teachers and students alike. In the chapter on “Orff Schulwerk in Singapore,” Paul Grosse says that it remains a challenge for educators worldwide to stay true to Orff and Keetman’s original mission while providing sequential curriculum and teaching practices.
Most authors write positively about how the Schulwerk is used within their countries but do not always give a critical analysis of the success of the approach. To get a comprehensive view of music education within a specific country, it would be best to investigate other sources since the chapters in this book are brief. There are some striking similarities in chapters throughout the second half including the ongoing influence of governmental bodies regarding the dissemination of arts education in each country. Teachers in numerous countries use Orff Schulwerk in private schools, preschools, or classrooms that contain students with disabilities. Public school usage is mixed, depending on each government’s support of music education.
The Schulwerk is adapted to what is available and appropriate in each country. For instance, there is a shortage of instruments in Brazil and instructors encourage their students to create their own. Andean music is used in Northwest Argentina since it provides melodic and rhythmic components typically used in the Schulwerk. Movement and dance are handled with care in several countries due to the restrictive nature of the culture. For example, in the chapter “Orff Schulwerk in Iran: A New Beginning,” the authors explain that dance and expressive gestures are foreign or perceived as shameful in Iran.
This book would be well suited for graduate-level courses including historical/philosophical courses that emphasize the main music education philosophies of Orff Schulwerk, Kodály, Dalcroze, Suzuki, and others. It could be appropriate for an ethnomusicology course with a strong music pedagogy focus. It would also be excellent reading for those who are already familiar with the philosophy and history of the Orff Schulwerk in North America to consider how it was established and implemented globally. Readers must have a foundational understanding of the Schulwerk before reading it in its entirety. Generally, this book adds a more thorough understanding of Carl Orff’s “wildflowers” and how they took root around the globe.