Kodaly Method: Comprehensive Music Education from Infant to Adult

by Lois Choksy

Includes yearly plans for each grade level, and a specific core of songs suggested for each new learning point within each grade. This second edition is a greatly revised and augmented version of the first edition. Among the additional material is a detailed section on the preschool years. The teaching repertoire given at the end of the book now contains 172 songs, 80 of which were not in the first edition.

Genres: Music, Education

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Isabella Leake · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that's worth its weight in gold. If you are (like I was 24 hours ago) intrigued by the Kodály method but don't know a lot about it, this is an excellent place to start. In less than 150 pages the author lays out the principles and rationale of Kodály pedagogy and walks through a plan for implementing the method in grades 1-6 in American schools. The final 50 pages contain songs that form the author's own core curriculum for music instruction.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this book is how accessible it is to a non-specialist. I am a competent musician, but I know next nothing about music theory or music pedagogy, and I've never had instruction in ear training. This book walks you through every step of the method in a way that appeals to common sense and common competency. All jargon is explained, and the shining logic of the method actually allowed me to grasp things like chord progressions and inversions (which have always eluded me) as I was reading about introducing them to 6th graders. 

In fact, the book filled in more than one gap in my music education. As I read, starting with very basic melodies in the 1st grade chapter, I actually began to hear the notation in my head ("inner hearing," in the parlance of the method). So I'm excited about about improving my understanding of and facility with music as I introduce these concepts to my early elementary children.

Besides the potential to remedy my own lopsided education, the things that thrill me the most about the Kodály method are its aim to educate the amateur, its reliance on nursery rhymes and folk songs, and its insistence on cultivating a felt need for every musical or notational convention (truly a "thing before word" pedagogy). To my thinking, based on my own experience, proclivities, and admiration of Charlotte Mason, this is an absolutely golden triad of principles — basically, you couldn't frame a pedagogy of music that seems more "right." 

[Yycdaisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Years ago I read this book for a university course on Music Education. At the time, back in 1977, I was very impressed with the Kodaly Method. It can be a terrific way to teach Music Education in certain circumstances, like it obviously is in Hungary. As I started my teaching career I used it exclusively for quite a few years, but ultimately I ended up becoming an Orff specialist. The Orff approach is so much more interesting in every way in my opinion. My objection to the Kodaly Method is this: it's main focus is through singing. Perhaps I'm a curmudgeon, but singing, and in particular sight singing, does not seem like the most important thing in Music Education. Most children could care less about it.

Ten years later my son was involved with the Music program at Mount Royal College (now University) in Calgary. Lois Choksy was one the instructors in the orchestra program, and she went through a typical introduction to the Kodaly Method with these kids. These were children who were highly talented and privately studying their instruments, most of them for years and who were advanced musically. It was really interesting to see how many of these gifted young musicians were as bored and uninterested in the Kodaly Method as many of my own students in public school had been when I followed the method closely. Some may have benefited from the program, but it did not seem as effective as perhaps Mrs. Choksy hoped.

[Ashleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for one of my university courses in Music Education. This is a comprehensive book about the Kodaly method that includes history of the method, lesson plans, repertoire recommendations, and more. I specifically found the information about the structure of music education in Hungarian schools to be interesting and useful. It's not something I've seen explained in so much detail in other Kodaly resources.

Keep in mind that this book was published in 1974, and as such, some of the information is outdated. However, I think it still serves its purpose as a good introduction to the Kodaly method.

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an incredible resource. If you are Kodály based, read this book and consider purchasing it. The information will be beneficial to your curriculum. Well written and concise.

[Tamsyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very inspiring to me. The underlying dream Kodaly had was to inspire the masses to obtain music literacy, and in Hungary his methods have done just that. This book tells what the Kodaly method is capable of doing when music is approached as a core subject from elementary school, and how it helps children excel in all areas of academics. It also talks in depth about the Kodaly method in American Public schools, what are reasonable goals for the American classroom, and how to do it. It also addresses some of the challenges of doing it in America. One of the true gems of this book was the songs at the end. They are American folk songs arranged in the sequence children should learn to sing. Kodaly is a child-developmental approach, and I really like that. I'm planning on using the Kodaly method in my homeschooling of my children, and it's encouraged me to raise the bar with my students as well. This was a great read, and now a treasured resource in my library.