Émile Jaques-Dalcroze’s approach originated with college-age students but applied to

students of all ages. He had an issue with students coming out of music education not
being able to express themselves musically, as well as having poor rhythm and pitch
skills. After discovering that there were no exercises developed for training music that
connected the mind and body, he began to develop his own exercises. He was not
interested in ear training as he thought that inner hearing came from connecting sound
to the body. He believed that music could be used as a way to develop temperament.
For Dalcroze the body was the intermediary between sound and thought, as we most
naturally learn music through our body + movements (eurhythmics). There is a racial
bias as he states that people of European descent have greater muscular capacity than
people of "savage races". Influences of climate, customs, and historical and economic
circumstances dictated your temperament and your sense of rhythm/musical aptitude.
Eurhythmics, improvisation, and ear training are all separate things, and he believed
that teachers should be able to improvise.

Zoltán Kodály focused on classification systems for Hungarian folk songs and
classified them according to their last note and melodic range. He believed that musical
engagement started with singing and the physicality that came with it. He also said that
music leads toward intellectual development. In his educational methods he borrowed
tools from others, such as solfege, melodic hand signs, movement, rhythmic syllable,
and education grounding. His educational process began with internalizing rhythm
against beat and incorporating rhythmic syllables. He also used a method of learning
pitches through hand signs, then solfege, and then finally putting notes on the staff. This
method is still used in elementary music classes today. This method engages melodic
and harmonic with the mind and the body.

Carl Orff wrote five volumes of Schulwerk, a series of publications depicting his method
of teaching children music. His method first links music, speech, and movement through
nursery rhymes and folk songs, then through body percussion and non-pitched
percussion instruments. Orff believed that folk songs helped create a textual connection
to simple melodic lines. Contrary to Dalcroze’s method, Orff’s method has a higher
dependence on singing in education. Orff dismissed functional harmony in practices of
early education, and instead, directed his attention to music created from improvisatory
movement. He valued natural rhythm because it was truer to the mind and thus, easier
for young children to execute. As the emphasis of his method was on music created
from instinct, the Schulwerk volumes did not include prescribed plans for the details of
its execution.

Shinichi Suzuki’s music education approach, known as the Suzuki method,

emphasizes starting music education at a young age, sometimes as early as three or
four years old. It centers on extensive listening to develop musical ability, encourages
active parental involvement, and it utilizes repetition and review for skill reinforcement.
Learning by ear is prioritized over sheet music in the early stages, fostering a strong
sense of pitch and expression. The method involves small, gradual steps in learning,
creating a positive environment for character development and ethical philosophy.
Group lessons, performances, and the belief in every child's potential.
Edwin Gordon's method (not philosophy) of teaching music focuses on a sequential and
comprehensive curriculum incorporating theory exercises and music making. With the belief that
everyone is born with some degree of musical aptitude (potential to learn, as opposed to musical
achievement which is what has been learned), Gordon suggests that the difficulty of tonal and
rhythm patterns must be altered for music theory learning to keep everyone challenged and
engaged.

He believes that learning music is comparable to how language is learned. Just as how it is easier
for younger kids to learn a language, he believes that children below 9 years old must be exposed
to different music and be taught music theory as their potential to learn music decreases after
that. Likewise, teaching tonal and rhythm patterns in the beginning of class provides the
framework for the repertoire the students are learning just as how learning vocabulary is used to
understand a story or article that would be read and discussed in class. To make reading music a
process of recognition rather than just decoding notes, Gordon prioritized developing audiation
or the deeper understanding of music one has heard or has performed in the past. It is not only
being able to hear the music inside one's head, imitating a pattern, or singing back from memory.
Audiation to music is comprehension of the syntax (structure and internal meaning) of string of
words, as compared to just memorizing a series of words, to language.

Some issues that arise from this method concern how it can be used in different classes (choral,
instrumental, etc.) to encourage a deeper understanding, and thus enjoyment, of music. Yes,
these music learning classes are important to the curriculum, but early childhood learning of
theory is considered as the most crucial. This can be done through informal guidance of a parent
or teacher beginning at a young age.