Into the Unknown

One of the most challenging—and thus memorable— Orff tours I’ve done was in South Africa in 2008. I was there almost a month and each day, woke up and just went wherever they told me to. That included a preschool, a University Jazz Band, a Middle School steel drum band, an elementary school in the township of Soweto in a narrow rectangular room and 80 kids, a high school gym with another 80 teenagers “teaching” them body percussion (and watching their gumboot routines!), an adult choir with typically remarkable singing skills (these last two also in Soweto), a math class in Cape Town, an Orff workshop in Johannesburg with people of Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, British descent having to work together in small groups. It was an exhilarating tour-de-force that stretched me to my limits and confirmed my already-confirmed intuition that this work, properly done, is for all people in all places. 

 

I’m feeling some echoes of that in Hong Kong, teaching one or two days in seven different schools (have done five already) with all different ages and populations. Alongside a two-day workshop with International School teachers, another two days this weekend with Hong Kong school teachers and two in-services with school faculties. Since many teachers in the first weekend workshop also came to observe me teach at other schools, I felt compelled not to repeat material, which forced me to dig deep into the long bag of decades of accumulated activities. In the two days at the Quarry Bay School, my host told me that my first class would be with 350 kids—for an hour.  But not to worry, because some of the other classes would be much smaller—60 kids!  For an hour and 45 minutes. This is intimate work and my first thought was —What???!!!!! 

But with the large groups, I rose to the occasion with my considerable song repertoire with accompanying physical motions and I can now report that it is possible for 60 kids to play together and coherently on Orff instruments. It was a Mahler-size orchestra, but it worked! They also did fine playing clapping games that required moving around the room switching partners. 

Some of the success was due to the extraordinary focus and good behavior of these kids, which I can’t take the least bit of credit for. But some from my lifelong conviction that each class is a ping-pong game with a thousand unpredictable shots flying in the air and rather than try to anticipate each ahead of time and plan for each ping (impossible!), you simply need to train yourself to be wholly present in the game and prepared for each pong simply because you know how to play. 

 

The next school was the Jockey Club Sarah Roe School, which was unique not only for its long strange name, but its mission to attend to the special education kids of all ages and all different needs. New territory for me to work with whole classes at a time with some 16 kids per class, but I tiptoed into the situation hoping that my practice of meetings kids where they are and being able to feel out the next needed step would serve me. And indeed, it did! The details would certainly be of interest to music teachers, but for now, I’ll simply report that the kids rose to the material and the material wrapped itself around their different capabilities and helped by their wonderful teachers also in the class, each group —from the 5-years-olds to the 18-year-olds— left class buzzing with excitement and happiness. Me, too. 

 

Off to another school today and grateful that my training in both Orff Schulwerk and Jazz is serving me well in my Hong Kong tour. I agree wholeheartedly with George Bailey— it’s a wonderful life.