South-Orff

Developing music together in order to develop the person

by ELIANA DANZI'
    School sections
    • Primary
    • Lower secondary school
    Educational subjects
    • Music, Rhythm and movement

South-Orff

South-Orff is a percussion instruments ensemble made up of students between 8 and 16 years old. The aim of the project is evident in its title and its assonance with the cardinal points: a methodological line, Orff-Schulwerk, based on experience, steered toward autonomy, aimed at analyzing color, rhythm, reception, based on the convergence of civilizations and diversities typical of the Mediterranean area. Music was experienced as a game played all together, as construction, experimentation, discovery: a multisensorial immersion that combined visual, auditory, semantic, tactile elements. The path offered the possibility to experience sharing, trust, creativity and to learn how to take care of oneself, of others and of the learning environment. The core idea was based on an integrated ensemble - body, voice, instrument – as a metacognitive cooperative learning environment.

Work tools

The path, in its implementation, turned out to be increasingly characterized by modularity and versatility. The students were the core of a didactics modelled on spaces, materials and instruments, and not vice versa.

All sorts of definite and indefinite pitch percussion instruments were used. However, it is possible to use any type of object: desks, chairs, bottles, buckets, etc., experimenting different materials and production modalities. Then, we used body percussion: from expressive movement to structured forms, the body is a very powerful means to develop awareness and coordination, besides rhythmic and vocal performance skills, never forgetting the educational objective of the positive consequences related to self-esteem and the fact of feeling well with oneself and with others.

Educational purposes

The skills, goals and training objectives selected by the teacher for this experience are shown below.

Competences
    Listening
    • Sound perception
    • Interpretation
    • Analysis
    • Comprehension
    Production
    • Execution
    • Improvisation
    • Composition
    Reading and Writing
    • Use of unconventional analogic music notation
GOALS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPETENCES [...]
    Primary
    Listening
    • Learning to listen to oneself and to the others
    • Identify the constitutive elements of a simple piece of music
    • Exploring, identifying and elaborating sound phenomena on the basis of quality, space and source
    Production
    • Exploring different expressive capacities of voice, musical objects and musical instruments
    • Producing timbre, melodic and rhythmic combinations applying basic schemes; executing them with the voice, the body and instruments (including IT tools).
    • Improvising freely and creatively gradually learning to master techniques and materials
    • Playing, alone or in group, simple vocal or instrumental pieces of music belonging to different genres and cultures, using also didactic instruments and self-made tools.
    Reading and Writing
    • Using analog and codified notation
    Lower secondary school
    Listening
    • Understands and evaluates events, materials, and musical works recognising their meanings, also in relation to his/her own musical experience and the different historical/sociological context.
    Production
    • Actively participating in music experiences through the execution and the interpretation of vocal and instrumental music pieces belonging to different genres and cultures.
    • Capacity to conceive and create music and multimedia messages, also though improvisation or collective elaboration processes, using also IT tools, in critical confrontation with models belonging to the musical heritage
    Reading and Writing
    • Using different notation systems functional to reading, analysis and reproduction of pieces of music
    • Integrating one’s own music experience with other knowledge and practices using appropriate codes and codification systems
Educational targets

The primary school students learned how to:
- take personal initiatives, complete tasks, evaluating with the teacher’s help the outcomes of the work with the aim to suggest corrections or improvements
- use the knowledge acquired to solve problems on the basis of experience
- adjust the ability to pay steady and alternate attention
- apply seriation, comparison, classification strategies
- assume a behavior of active participation to generate forms of social cohesion
- accept with serenity opposition and failure
- use oral communication to cooperate with others, for example in the realization of games or products, in the formulation of common activities for the realization of simple projects
- use materials, equipment, resources with care, showing a due sense of responsibility

The lower secondary school students learned how to:
- plan their work and identify priorities
- identify problems, formulate and select solutions, implement and evaluate relevant outcomes, planning possible correction actions
- use the knowledge acquired to solve problems, and generalize solutions in analogous contexts
- adjust the ability to pay steady and alternate attention
- apply and compare seriation, debate, analysis, classification strategies
- assume responsible behaviors of active participation to generate forms of social cohesion
- accept failures with serenity and show a good level of self-awareness
- cooperate keeping into consideration the different points of view and comparing their ideas with each other
- assume roles of responsibility within the group (coordinate the work, respect the schedule, document the work, find material, etc.)
- use materials, equipment, resources with care and responsibility, even indicating the reasons and consequences of non-responsible conducts

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