Today I was lucky enough to visit the Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV)as part of the International Kodaly Symposium 2019 in Kuching, Malaysia. SCV is a living museum made up of various longhouses surrounding a lake in Borneo where the various ethnic groups of the region are represented and where visitors can learn a little more about their culture and lifestyle. There are a variety of traditional practices being maintained (such as these delicious Penyaram - cakes made of flour

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the inaugural Albany International Sea Shanty Festival over in Western Australia and was struck by just how much of a crossover there is between shanty music and the kinds of folk songs we often use in the Kodaly classroom! So what is a sea shanty? Sea shanties are rhythmic working songs that were used upon ships to help coordinate large groups of people. Say ten people all needed to tug on a rope at the same time in order to raise

One of the things I love about the Kodaly philosophy is the way it introduces students to so many different cultures through song. As an Australian music teacher, part of my curriculum includes introducing students to the music and culture of Indigenous Australians. As a non-Indigenous Australian myself, I have to admit I felt a little under-prepared. I didn't know many songs or anything much about my local language groups. I knew just enough to know that there are a number

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

Prep music lessons can be a magical time - the children are young, with a vivid imagination and a thirst for knowledge. They haven't yet learned to be cynical about school or self-conscious in front of others. I therefore try to make the most of this golden window of opportunity and have them perform in front of their classmates and in front of me as often as possible so that they get used to it and it's no big deal later on. This means lots of solo-singing games - one of my

The school I was working in last year was new to the Kodaly approach and had suffered lots of disruptions to their music program in the few years before I started working there, so some of the older students were at times a little difficult to get on side. The idea that I wanted them to sing, and not only sing but sing IN FRONT OF PEOPLE took a bit of getting used to. So too did the idea of folk dances. Eventually they came round and discovered that they can actually be real