Kodaly wrote about the importance of introducing children to songs from their "musical mother tongue". In order for them to pick up new concepts quickly and clearly, he believed children should be presented with musical examples from their own culture, believing the idioms to feel more natural to them and therefore allow them to learn and explore the songs' content quicker and more in-depth than songs from another culture. As Australians, this presents us with a few issues wh

I remember, once upon a time, when I was in the deepest, darkest depths of my teaching degree, I would walk past a bookshop and freeze; my bloodhound-like Kodaly senses tingling, searching for the scent of possibility. Could this be the place? Could this be the shop? The one that contains that magical goldmine of a resource that will answer all my teaching questions and provide me with enough knowledge, secrets and lesson plans to last my entire career? As I am beginning to

I'm sure many of you are familiar with Haydn's Symphony No. 94, the "Surprise Symphony" - especially the 2nd movement. If you're not, indulge yourself for a few moments and check it out below: Now that you've calmed yourself down from the heart attack that would have occured around 34 seconds in, you might be thinking (much as I did) "wow, what a great piece of music to analyse with my kids" and you'd be right! This piece is great for looking at form (both the overall form of