Cultural Exchange

In my recent two-day workshop with Taiwan Orff teachers, I went down a few edgy paths. Because I worked with a translator and actual discussion would have been difficult and time-consuming, it was mostly me putting these thoughts out there. But when giving a brief history of Dalcroze, Orff and Kodaly, the three most known alternative music education approaches, I noted that all three came from a European culture (Switzerland, Germany, Hungary). Why should they be considered in Taiwan? Or China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau? All places in Asia where I’ve given workshops. Three points:

 

1)    All three educators above borrowed either consciously or sub-consciously from musical practices of other cultures. Both Dalcroze and Orff understood that music and dance are often inseparable in most places and that musicians should be able to dance and dancers should be able to play or at least sing the music. Kodaly’s use of solfege to teach singing has been in existence in a different form for millennia in India, as has Orff’s idea of teaching rhythm through speech. Orff’s use of xylophones and metallophones was directly inspired by the West African balaphone and the Indonesian gamelan and the percussion instruments used in typical Orff classes come from all over the world, including from various Asian musical cultures. 

 

2)    Virtually all of the teachers who have come to Taiwan are from Europe (mostly the Orff Institut) or the U.S.. Because of the history of European colonialism, there is a danger of imposing European/ American ideas and material. In my own case, I always share materials that have a certain cultural neutrality—body percussion or improvising with the first sound of your name or composing your own “secret song” on the xylophones. I share games from diverse cultures—Chile, Japan, Ghana, Turkey, the U.S. and beyond— and then ask them to find similar games from their own culture. Likewise, the pieces for Orff Ensemble might come for Finland, the Philippines, Bali, Thailand, the U.S. In all cases above, the accent is on the pedagogy of ways to teach them that are intriguing and musical and ways to extend them and try something new with them. 

 

Especially with children in schools. Schools as they exist throughout the world are mostly a European invention, spread to every other continent through colonialism. Likewise, alternative ideas of how to make schools happier and more effective for children also have come, both in music and other subjects, from Europeans like Pestalozzi, Froebel, Montessori, Steiner, Dalcroze, Orff, Kodaly and a few North and South Americans like John Dewey and Paolo Freire. All of the above share humanistic qualities opposing the imperialist mentality and thus, are worthy of consideration in schools worldwide. 

 

3)    We all have something to learn from each other. The next chapter in the spread of Orff Schulwerk is to have Taiwanese, Korean, Ghanaian, South African, Iranian Orff teachers travel to countries worldwide to share both the universal qualities of this work and their particular cultural interpretations. That begins with years and years of trying these ideas out with children and digging deep into the folk repertoire—rhymes, poems, children’s games, folk songs, dances, folk tales—and discovering what comes up. With their authentic voices sharing the material from their own culture while also including material and ideas from other cultures. 

 

These are just starting thoughts here at 6:30 in the morning, before going off to teach kids in Macau and considering the same questions as to what I’ll actually do with them. Just food for thought.