In-Person Workshops
Elemental Music, Movement, Mindfulness and More!
Helping students release the musical creativity within their imaginations is one of the most powerful experiences we can hope to have in our work. In that spirit, this workshop be a playground of exploration and discovery. A mindful moment of reflection,centering, and imagining will begin our time together. A few ideas mined from the Orff Schulwerk volumes, combined with simple stories, created by the participants, will be transformed through participant-centered Orff Schulwerk process into mini-projects that can be transferred right into classrooms for use with your students. We will include speech, singing, moving, playing untuned and barred instruments, maybe some ukuleles, recorders, and more. Come with a ukulele, a recorder, a hand drum, and a sense of adventure-- the magic of discovery awaits!
Playful Pedagogy in Elemental Music and Movement
We begin with a Mindful moment, and then move to Yoga Pretzels and incorporate Elemental Forms. The book, “Your Name is a Song,” takes us on an inspired adventure to explore names in rhythm and melody, on unpitched percussion, and hand drums. The names become a rhythmic creation with a life of its own and all in the spirit of honoring and valuing how each of us holds dear the sound of our names.
Next, a delightful exploration of favorite colors takes place. Through our favorite colors, we explore more rhythms, and soon arrive at some rhythmic building blocks that will allow us to improvise and compose within a structure. We add hand drums to the mix for some added wow factor, and even play a game of poison rhythm with participants leading the game. This progresses to comfort and ease in manipulating those building blocks into elemental forms, and eventually set rhythmic compositions.
A second book, “The Boy and The Moon,” is offered and the participants are asked to create a drawing of a part of the book they remember the best. These creations are used as a springboard to elemental form-based movement explorations and then participants are guided to create barred instrument improvisations in the same elemental form. These two aspects are then integrated to become an elemental movement and music experience.
Possible extensions or substitutions of this workshop include hand drumming based on phases of the moon, mixed meter improvisation and composition, and an experience with the artwork of Keith Haring’s “Pop Shop” that takes us to incorporate Hip Hop music and even a ukulele!
Elemental Bridges to
FUNctional Harmony
The actual Bridge of Avignon explored playfully will reveal the “frozen music of architecture” in new movements, melodies, and a I-V bass line. This MFC, OS Volume III piece provides a structured pathway to FUNctional harmony!
Create and Play the Elemental Way
We begin with a Mindful moment, and then move to Yoga Pretzels and incorporate Elemental Forms, explore Diversity and Inclusion through “All are Welcome Here,” a children’s book set to a Volume I MFC Melody. Focus on rhythmic building blocks connected to basic colors for improvising and building rhythmic phrases which are then transferred to hand drums and then develops into a poison rhythm game! Finally, a culmination of these color rhythms occurs in an exploration of elemental forms. Creative and expressive movement that incorporates practice holding mallets, mirroring and shadowing with partners that then leads to another children’s book, “The Scarecrow,” and an exploration of la pentatonic and do pentatonic melodies and improvisations. The workshop culminates with a movement game called “Trolls and Elves” based on the story of Peer Gynt set to the music of “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” Playing and creating are hallmarks of the elemental approach and this workshop is chock full of both!
Leap to Adventure!
This workshop was created for a once in a lifetime opportunity to present it on February 29th- Leap Day! As a result, it is filled with quotes that relate to leaping, and also grounded in the ideas of being brave, risk-taking, self-reflection. The whole workshop can be adapted quite easily to any day of the year.
We begin with a mindful moment that leads to a round from the Shaker culture titled, “Round and Round,” in the dorian mode. We create movement for this melody as a group. The workshop hits a stride as we use the idea of leaping as a springboard to collaboration for creating speech, body percussion, and movement components that will eventually be transferred to hand drums. This experience melts into a piece by Keetman from the “Erstes Spiel am Xylophon.” We explore the melodic possibilities that this gem invites us to discover on barred instruments. Next we process a children’s book, “Tomorrow I’ll Be Brave,” that features rhythmic building blocks made up of empowering words from the story that hold deep meaning for any human. A divergent rhythmic creativity, improvisation and composition partner task grows forth from this book’s beginnings and the artistry of each individual is highlighted.
As the workshop winds down, participants get to choose two focus words that resonate with them and these become their inspiration for their own personal experience relating to their very own powerful words through music and movement. They then join forces with a partner and combine their creations into an abstract music and movement rendition of their focus words. Lastly, they create a sculpture by writing their words on uniquely shaped pieces of card stock and then adapt their performance to somehow relate to that new piece of visual art.
Making Musical In-Roads: From Basics to Brilliance
Beginnings aren’t always easy, but they can be thrilling and fun and lead us to some pretty amazing experiences. We’ll take our cues from some basic examples in the Volumes, folk songs, poems, and rhythmic patterns, then we’ll call upon your artistry to move the group into the middle of the process (see: improvisation, movement, body percussion, recorder, drama, composition, arrangement) and then by stretching the skills we’ve been reinforcing through elemental process teaching and learning we’ll arrive at the meaningful, pleasing end of musical brilliance. Simple, right?
I’m sure there’ll be time for a game, and maybe a dance, probably a story or two thrown in for good measure as well. The participants should bring a recorder, enough energy and joy to sustain them throughout the workshop, and some extra to share with the other workshop members! We’ll play, sing, grow and laugh together— so basically it’s going to be brilliant!
Introduction to Orff Schulwerk
The Orff Schulwerk Approach is an invitation for students to make their own music! This session is for anyone who wants to explore the magic of creative music making!
Springing Forward
In this workshop, we'll explore speech-centered rhythmic patterns, and sing melodic patterns which will morph into a new melody and text for a new song. We'll improvise on recorders, un-pitched and barred instruments, and incorporate creative movement from participant ideas. All these components will spiral together in the process teaching magic that Orff Schulwerk offers when teachers downshift the "sage on the stage" mentality, and become the "guide on the side." Together we'll build strategies for how students can move the process forward in the classroom and provide their own creativity within given structures.
Bring a soprano recorder if you have one nearby, and to help make a personal contribution to the group, bring an object (or picture) that you can hold in your hand and travel with that says "spring" to you.
Colors Springing, Voices Ringing—
Orff Schulwerk and New Beginnings
This workshop is based around children’s literature and creativity that stems from the beautiful picture book, “Red Sings from Treetops.” We’ll share in a process together where important verbs and descriptive adjectives are chosen and used as a springboard for individual and group creativity. A special canon will serve as a unifying piece of music and a music literacy component will take shape as this piece of music comes to life slowly through solfege. We’ll explore components of folk dance and use these figures to create our own folk dance that will be accompanied by instrumental music we create on Orff Instruments through exploratory improvisations that will become a brand new piece which will be premiered at our workshop! The beginnings of Orff Schulwerk are centered around the Volumes titled “Music for Children.” The power of Orff Schulwerk comes from unlocking the potential for creativity and releasing the magic of music by children!
Growing from Season to Season: A workshop in elemental music and movement.
Our work together in this workshop begins with a “Springtime Cuckoo Canon,” which is inspired by a model found in the Orff Schulwerk Volumes by Gunild Keetman and Carl Orff. We explore movement and form in the “Tanz” from Carmina Burana by Orff next. This leads us to anthropomorphize (to assign human characteristics to a character or like an animal or other living thing) a daffodil in a speech piece which we will create together in the same way that it can be done with students. The day continues with a folk dance, and an Orff ensemble piece that is processed through movement and student creativity given heavy emphasis. An original canon written in the elemental style will be shared as an example of how we can create materials needed to suit our students’ needs. We will use a “Spring Thing” where the presenter will take a risk and work in the evocative mode of engaging students where the content comes from the student creativity in the learning environment. This can be very exciting!
A short visit with how assessment can be hidden inside fun activities will be explored and a look inside how the teacher evaluation system based around Student Learning Outcomes can be useful and not so scary. Check out the presenter's blog post on Teaching With Orff on this subject for more information.
The workshop will conclude with a piece inspired by the major meteorological phenomenon known as a hurricane! Body percussion and speech, spiral into a drumming and movement experience with high energy and excitement as the storm builds strength and power!
User-Friendly Ukulele
The Ukulele is able to be seamlessly integrated into your elementary, middle or high school classroom fitting hand-in-glove with the approaches and curricula already at play there. Everyone's a little bit happier with a ukulele in their hands!
How fast and easy is it for students to go from holding a ukulele for the first time to strumming chords and singing? How about playing melodies? Reading tablature? Improvising? Accompanying other instruments and singers? Great questions! In this workshop, you’ll quickly see how the Ukulele brings new levels of interest and excitement to your music classes.
**This session was presented at the American Orff Schulwerk Association National Professional Development Conference at San Diego, CA in 2015, as well as PMEA District Professional Development Days.
**It is possible that the presenter could provide up to 30 ukuleles to borrow. This will ensure that all participants have access to a quality instrument. A rental fee for this option would need to be negotiated. Workshop must be driveable from central PA.
Developing Structured Improvisation
When the world of music flows only toward your students, they never feel the joy of ownership in new musical ideas they have created. This workshop brings opportunities for improvisation and composition that are developed out of a variety of models found in the original source materials-- Orff Schulwerk Music For Children Volumes and Supplements. We will extensively explore the media of elemental music and movement-- movement, speech, body percussion, singing, barred instruments, and maybe even some ukuleles!
The most exciting music for any musician is that which we discover ourselves conceiving and realizing musical experiences at the same time!
Tapping into the Power of Play Parties and Singing Games
Begin with a game and let the mysterious wonder of the Orff Schulwerk process take the learners on a journey through a progression of possibilities of fun singing games and play parties with unique twists and untapped potential for exploration.
Exploring possibilities with Play Parties and Singing Games is a excellent support of Orff Schulwerk teaching and learning in that it roundly includes American history, culture and traditions as well as provides rich content for music learning that is curricular and spirals through every age student.
Inspiring Musical Experiences from Famous Artworks and Sculpture: Movin’ and Groovin’ at the Museum
Using an array of famous artwork as the inspiration for creativity, participants will explore visual artworks to discover descriptive words, phrases, movement gestures, moods, meters, and so much more! Pieces from the Schulwerk Volumes and supplementals will serve as models of possibilities for development with participants and students. The workshop centers around the wordless poetry of the visual arts and how to bring the silence of pieces like “Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyeth, “Starry Night,” by Van Gogh, “The Great Wave of Kanagawa,” by Hokusai, to more abstract paintings by Kandinsky and modern art sculpture by Keith Haring to life in music and movement.
How to Balance Technology with “Unplugged” Experiences
Technology can take a lot of the stress out of managing your materials. Laptops and iPads are becoming more and more prevalent in our elementary and middle schools. How to integrate these tools into our “acoustic” classes can be a challenge as well. We’ll take a look at options that put the emphasis on making the music, and integrating these tools to the advantage of music and movement learning process instead of simply using technology to check the boxes for our administration. Possibilities for blended learning can be explored as well that can offer beyond the classroom extensions for instruments like recorder or the soprano ukulele.
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