Review

by Steven Calantropio
Education Director, The American Orff-Schulwerk Association

Those who study child development have long understood the important role of play in a youngster’s growth. Play is a child’s ‘work’, analogous to the nine-to-five careers that so many of us engage in throughout our adult lives. Through play, children imitate, explore and create - absent of the stresses associated with a real job - weaving both fantasy and reality into a tapestry of joyful cognition.

In We’re Orff 2!, author Tamara O’Brien, teaming up with lyricist Mark Carthew, draws upon her experience as composer, performer and pedagogue. Together, they have assembled a collection of songs, pieces, dances and activities that carefully develop musical skills and concepts through the idiom of play. Tamara and Mark skillfully incorporate the primary musical media of the Orff Schulwerk approach to music education into lessons that clearly lay out a path to skill development through active music-making. The children are guided in their understanding of these original works through imitation, exploration and creation/improvisation - the foundations of the elemental music education approach of Carl Orff (1895-1982) and Gunild Keetman(1904-1990).

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Throughout the volume, both teacher and student are led through the conceptual ideas of Orff and Keetman’s Schulwerk. We find the use of ostinato accompaniments, the development of small forms and canonic processes, the creation of movement activities, a variety of body percussion patterns and the exploration of non-traditional sound sources all designed to engage the developing music student in their assimilation of an age-appropriate musical vocabulary and syntax.

Tamara and Mark support each lesson with modern technology to provide aural and visual examples. Whether the teacher has been trained in Orff Schulwerk or not, the intuitive flow of each lesson sequence is readily understandable, thanks to the extremely clear directions, visual cues, graphics and uncluttered layout provided by the authors. The materials are readily accessible to creative teachers willing to engage themselves in the same play that their children accept so readily. You will find that the activities in We’re Orff 2! will serve as joyful starting points for teachers of music and movement in the creation of their own lessons based on these models.

Have fun!

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• Learn more about Orff Schulwerk
• Read about how We're Orff! delivers an easy to teach and fun Orff Method based course.
• Read about the We're Orff! program including resources, training and accreditation.
• Listen to Tamara O'Brien, co-author of We're Orff, talk about teaching and using the Orff Method.
• View a full demonstration lesson
• Check out the Wikipedia entry for Orff Schulwerk

Review

by Christoph Maubach
Orff Practitioner

Creating music and music education activities that are appealing to the young, and the very young, can be a challenging undertaking. Tamara O'Brien and Mark Carthew have found an answer to this challenge and created a well-rounded course, which provides a healthy offering of songs, ideas and activities.

Speech, rhyming, singing, dance movement, percussion, visual clues and all the advantages of modern technology make this an accessible publication full of good ideas. In a playful and child-centred approach, Tamara and Mark lead us to a world of musical imagination. The teaching-learning processes which are offered here follow the Orff way to music education. Children are involved through imitation, exploration and creation.

For those who have never worked with the Orff approach, the publication provides encouraging starting points. And for those who know about the Orff way to music education, there are plenty of ideas, and pedagogical signposts.

We're Orff takes children and educators into a world full of fun, imagination, moving about and sounding out - and all of it with a sense of ease.