Vladimir Puskovitch

9/17/23
Dr. Matina Vasil’s article “The Role of Popular Music in the Schulwerk” explores the

idea of integrating popular music into the Orff Schulwerk classroom, and can be found in The

Orff Echo Summer 2020 Vol. 52 No. 4. Dr. Vasil has extensive experience as an elementary level

music educator (pre-K through Grade 6) as well as at the collegiate level, teaching classes in

general music, popular music education, and more. She is also currently serving as an editor for

The Orff Echo, or is the president of the Kentucky Orff- Schulwerk Association.

“The Role of Popular Music in the Schulwerk” begins by recognizing how today’s youth

may not relate to the folk music that Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman used when developing the

volumes of the Schulwerk, and how Orff teachers must be constantly adapting their practices and

music used to represent their current students’ cultural make-up. Dr. Vasil identifies how popular

music can be positively integrated into the Schulwerk curriculum because of its familiarity to the

students and because it can be more relevant to their lives. The article then goes into defining

popular music, claiming it must be mass-consumed and that it develops with new generations

and with new musical styles. Dr. Vasil then identifies the five overlaps between the Schulwerk

philosophy and popular music education: learning processes, teaching characteristics, music

from children’s cultures, musical characteristics, and creativity.

The learning processes between how popular musicians and the way students learn in

Orff Schulwerk classrooms are very closely connected, and there are four notable ideas shared

between the two. The first is that everyone is inherently musical, and that everyone should be

included in music education. The second is that the teachers of both popular music and Orff

classrooms act more as a facilitator of the creative musical process, rather than as a director who

decides every detail. The third is that students in both musical fields learn primarily through
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aural instruction and through imitation. The fourth is related to the second, in that the teacher is

not overly-involved in the students’ musical problem solving, rather they are encouraged to use

self-directed and peer-learning strategies.

The teaching characteristics between popular music education and Orff classrooms are

similar in that they are both flexible and self-driven. Again, this point stresses the role of the

teacher as a facilitator, and again knowing when to step in or when to hold back and let students

solve their own musical problems.

Music from children’s cultures can have a huge impact on how students respond to

learning, and both styles of educator know and understand this. Dr. Vasil identifies how Orff

educators and popular music educators know that by starting with music that is familiar to the

students, they will be more receptive to exploring music they do not know. It is also mentioned

how the content in the Schulwerk volumes can be difficult for all students to relate to, simply

because it was developed in Germany during the 1950’s, and this is where popular music can

step in. Technology has advanced to the point where kids are hearing music a lot of the time

through various forms (social media, grocery store music, etc.), which gives children a huge

exposure to varying kinds of music.

The musical characteristics of Schulwerk methods and popular music are related in that

they both use simple musical forms, rhythmic and melodic ostinatos, and simple melodies. The

Schulwerk is primarily pentatonic, while popular music tends to be more diatonic, but there are

examples of popular music that are modal and pentatonic. Both styles of music use repetitive

rhythmic and melodic ostinatos which lend themselves easily to teaching by rote in broken down

sections like the melody, a harmony, and percussive rhythms.

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9/17/23
Creativity that comes with both forms of education is also very similar! In fact, creativity

is the foundation of both processes and can be harnessed very easily to get students creating on

their own. In this section, rather than covering factual material, Dr. Vasil gives an example of a

lesson in which students learn a 2 chord pop song on the ukulele, then create their own

composition as a class by manipulating the duration of each chord being played and the order of

the chords. After this, students would then create their own composition, again by manipulating

the two chords as mentioned above.

Dr. Vasil then shifts into discussing how popular music can be integrated into Orff

Schulwerk classrooms, citing two primary methods that are both simple and effective. The first

method is by moving to popular music. Some examples of this include stretching warm-ups,

learning movement sequences, recorder warm-ups, and even passing games. The role of the

popular music in these instances is to act as background music that the students are internalizing,

rather than analyzing and learning specific musical information. The second method is by

covering popular songs. Popular music tends to be, but is not always, simpler in regards to its

construction, which lends itself very well to being broken down and covered, because it requires

only three basic parts to cover. These are a vocal/melody line, a melodic ostinato (harmony), and

a rhythmic ostinato played on various percussion instruments. By covering popular music, a

class can also explore music forms as the cover does not have to be exactly as the recording. Dr.

Vasil gives an example of an Orff arrangement of Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust, in which

there are four sections to the music: an introduction on congas, two different sections on

recorders (A & B), and an improvised section in G pentatonic with instructions to focus around

E. It is noted that improvisation should start with the students imitating the teacher in order to
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build their musical vocabulary to the point of presenting their own ideas. To wrap up this section,

Dr. Vasil addresses the need for teachers who are using popular music to do their research

surrounding music to make sure the media is appropriate for the school setting.

To conclude the article, Dr. Vasil again discusses how there are quite a few similarities

between popular music education and that of the Orff Schulwerk. She also writes that in music

education the music must be meaningful for the children, and that this is the “core of the

Schulwerk philosophy,” so why not have the music used in the classroom be chosen by the

students? With this, students will value the work they do more because they had a direct hand in

choosing the material, and they might just enjoy and appreciate the music more.

After reading this article, and then going back and reflecting on my general music

teaching, which took place at the high school level, I can see that I have already begun applying

some of what Dr. Vasil discussed in her article. One of my favorite activities we did in the

general music classes was creating a class-playlist, made up of music of their choosing.

Something I discovered during this activity is that if I were to strike every song that might have

profanity in it, or that might have some inappropriate language, there would have been almost no

music in the playlist. The majority of the music one of my sections chose was rap, and every

song had profanity in it and/or discussed crime, violence, and sex. Sure, I could say they need to

choose new music, but if that was their first choice, who am I to invalidate their choices,

especially if this is the music that they listen to, appreciate, and relate to? The playlist was also

not a one and done thing, they could add to it all they wanted just by giving me the names of

songs and the respective artists on a piece of paper with their name on it. We would then take this

playlist and play along with our rudiments, various warm-ups, and the specific rhythms they
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would be tested on. Another application of Dr. Vasil’s ideas is the concept of moving to popular

music. Only once, when the class was relocated to the choir room and we had the space to do so,

we walked in a large circle around the piano to music in the playlist. I would have loved to have

done more, like stepping in and out, using high and low hand motions, and more, but it took

some work to even get the students up and walking to the music, so I was fine with what we had

accomplished. I plan to take what I learned from Dr. Vasil’s article, “The Role of Popular Music

in the Schulwerk,” and apply the concepts of integrating popular music with the Orff Schulwerk

curriculum once I have my own classroom.