Kodály Method Guide: 5 Principles of the Kodály Method

The Kodály method is an approach to music education rooted in the idea that music should be a social and cultural experience. The Kodály approach to teaching music asserts that musical concepts, creativity, and collaboration are best taught in group music lessons, particularly for young children. According to the method, music teachers should emphasize musical material that is connected to their students' culture and heritage.

Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) developed the Kodály method in Hungary in the first half of the twentieth century.

• Kodály’s education: When Kodály came of age as a student, musicianship was frequently taught in one-on-one instruction, emphasizing works of composers like Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven—all of whom were German. Yet as Kodály studied art music in Budapest in the early 1900s, he became fascinated by traditional Hungarian folk songs—even collaborating with Béla Bartók, the most prominent Hungarian composer of the twentieth century.
• Development of the method: Kodály began to see the value of teaching musical skills through the medium of folk music that students had been exposed to from an early age. He felt he could teach musical literacy and ear training through sight-singing, solfège, and lyrics from his students’ mother tongue. As Kodály developed his teaching methods, he settled on a social, kinesthetic approach to music that could work in both a primary school and a conservatory.
• Implementation: In 1945, Kodály's ideas became part of the official curriculum of Hungarian schools, and music primary schools that taught the Kodály method spread rapidly over the next decade. In the years since, Kodály’s approach to teaching music has gained international recognition and won adherents around the world.

Proper instruction of the Kodály method involves adhering to a series of key principles.

1. 1. Learning by singing: According to Kodály, the human voice is the fundamental instrument, and it should be central to musical training. Students should gain musical literacy through sung solfège (also known as solfa), using a moveable-do system.
2. 2. Hand signs: Solfège and sight-singing can be supplemented by hand signs, as developed by the English pedagogue John Curwen, who was an influence on Kodály.
3. 3. Rhythmic proficiency: The sight-reading of rhythmic patterns (including whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, and various tuplets) must be taught alongside tonal solfège.
4. 4. Collaboration: Kodály believed that creativity and collaboration are essential to a musical education and can be brought out in group music lessons. Music students should collaborate with one another in exercises ranging from clapping to choral singing to instrumental accompaniment.
5. 5. Cultural connections: Music instructors should emphasize folk music (even pop songs) in a student's mother tongue to create a visceral connection to music.

Music teachers typically use the Kodály method in classrooms, where groups of students learn core musical elements like major scales, minor scales, and rhythmic patterns. The goal of Kodály music education is to give students a first-hand connection to music and to never make it seem like a dry academic exercise. Even fairly advanced topics like syncopation, counterpoint, and improvisation can be taught via the Kodály concept. Kodály education societies provide literature and exercises to help music teachers design a Kodály curriculum for their own music students.

The Kodály concept has similarities with another style of musical education developed by the German Carl Orff in the early- to mid-twentieth century. Kodály and Orff both sought to teach music in a social, exploratory way. Yet the Orff method emphasizes improvisation while Kodály training still emphasizes existing pieces from the musical canon—albeit presented in a different way than in traditional musical education. Kodály also took a notably Hungary-centric approach to his teaching while Orff emphasized Germanic culture and heritage.

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