(This article was published in May 2006 as part of the Carl Orff Canada Association Journal, Ostinato)

I would like to address this article to the need for Master Class offerings for advanced students of Orff Schulwerk. My recent presentation to 22 excellently prepared and extremely curious music teachers  at the Royal Conservatory in Toronto helped me to clarify my thinking on  this subject.

The term ‘Master Class ‘ usually brings to mind a scenario with some  recognized instrumental virtuoso or diva occupying the stage in front of a small group of eager students anxious to perform for the gathering and willing to submit to a critique by the master musician.  It is a tense  atmosphere  as performers compete for the attention of the teacher who often patronizes student efforts  with personal anecdotes and comments. Traditional Master Classes affirm the advanced status of the student as well as the ultimate mastery of the teacher.

An Orff Master Class functions in an entirely different environment. In such classes, dancing, instrument playing, singing, creating  and intense study bring participants together with the goal of developing specific , topic related understanding and skill . The atmosphere , while advanced, still retains the charm and camaraderie of music-making traditions that participants expect in Orff Schulwerk training.

Simply put, we need Master Classes because  there is so much more to learn. As the broad scope of Orff and Keetman’s elemental style begins to open up to Schulwerk  students, it becomes obvious that subject materials cannot be adequately covered within the confines of a two week training course. In such a short training span, one can only get a hint of the intricacies of elemental style, of the depth of possibility for personal musical growth, and the requisite attainment of pedagogical skills.

It is the obvious limitations of  traditional Schulwerk training programs which have given rise to specialized Orff  Master Classes. Recent years have seen a proliferation of such offerings. Master Classes are typically  structured around a specific personality and his/her own proven area of expertise. Along with a high level of general knowledge, a  Master Class teacher should have an unquestioned expertise in some area  of elemental music teaching and learning. This expertise should be  consistently demonstrated and recognized by his or her peers.  For students, entry into Master Class usually requires the successful completion of a Level III course and the skills commensurate with such training.  Master Classes are usually offered at institutions  that support  traditional Levels I, II and III annually although there are exceptions to this condition.  The Master Class can run simultaneously with the levels teaching or be offered in the weeks before or after the levels classes. Typically, Master Classes  run for 1 week with between 30 - 32 hours of instruction by a single teacher.  The level of instruction is keen and pointed towards one specific subject area  of elemental music.  The active  Schulwerk approach to learning is usually integral to every experience in a Master Class.

With such  intense experiences directed towards one specific subject area, Master Class instructors  see great advances in students who apply themselves to the work at hand. The specific knowledge gained by participants in a Master Class experience can spark interest and improvement in other areas of music teaching and learning.

During the past decade in North America, we have seen Master Class offerings in such areas as  movement, jazz, medieval music, recorder, elemental composition and style, ethnic music, pedagogy and curriculum.  A ‘Master Class’ format is now offered at  the American Orff Schulwerk Association’s national conferences where small groups of participants spend a great part of their three conference days with one  Master teacher in a shortened version of the 1 week Master Class scenario. Two such sessions were given recently at the 2005 AOSA National Conference; one in folk dance and one in pedagogy / curriculum.

Master Class subject areas  arise from the perceived needs and shortcomings of traditional training programs. After a number years of teaching various levels of Orff training courses, I began to realize  that many participants in Level courses had little or no knowledge of the original Schulwerk materials: some students didn’t even own the books!

Unfortunately, part of this problem was  that the instructors in levels courses themselves often lacked such training and  chose to focus their teaching on the most practical of pedagogical ideas and lessons. .Such a decision is  very well intentioned considering the time limitations of training courses. If we are to establish elemental music training as a significant force in music education and performance, we will need to certify instructors with much higher comprehension levels and theoretical understanding.  With such a mandate in mind , I chose to develop a course  that focused on the actual materials found in the Schulwerk volumes; how they are composed, where they fit into a logical music curriculum and how further composition in these styles can be encouraged

I have given my own Master Class a title:  Exploring Elemental Music . It is focused on understanding the musical styles, techniques and materials found in the five Orff Schulwerk Volumes of Orff and Keetman. I focus on  the Margaret Murray editions. The materials are explored through performance, improvisation, analysis and composition. I also include examples from some of the other original schulwerk volumes, relating them to the developmental skill sequence of the original five editions.  A strong emphasis is placed on the parallels  between elemental musical styles and historical music developments. Without an understanding of these relationships, students often see the Schulwerk as a separate entity, with no connection to the mainstream events of musical development. Establishing such parallel relationships between elemental music and the historical musical styles of the Medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque eras brings the seemingly abstract examples found in the Schulwerk into chronological and pedagogical focus.

Even a Master Clss has time limitations and  with five teaching  days and five volumes of music to cover, one can easily see why the subject matter of the class must be pointed towards the acquisition of specific skills and concepts. For instance, I query the class on the meanings of the many pages of ostinato patterns that are found throughout the five volumes. These may be body percussion patterns ( Vol. I, p. 60) drone  ostinati ( Vol. I, p. 82-87) modal ostinati that imply harmonic accommodation ( Vol. IV, p. 8-9) or patterns that dictate functional harmonic change (Vol. III, p.8-9).  While these pages are confusing and often overlooked, they  outline a fundamental elemental music concept; specific accompaniment patterns should stimulate  opportunities for composition and improvisation using that pattern. Students realize  that in elemental style, music -making  often begins with accompaniment patterns rather than melody. Such a realization runs in opposition to the continuous orchestration of folk melodies where one must find ostinato patterns that somehow fit these predetermined melodies. Both concepts have value and appear in all volumes of the Schulwerk, but the former is  often overlooked in favor of the latter, depriving both children and adults of the opportunities to ‘become their own composer’ as Orff and Keetman wished.

Another task that might not be possible in the confines of a traditional level course is the analysis of the small instrumental pieces such as those found in Volume IV, p. 24-25. With a vertical stroke  of a colored hiliter pen,  students mark the convergence of notes formed by the lower and upper notes of the drone accompaniment along with the melody each time the upper voice of the drone moves to a new pitch.  This type of analysis exposes the underlying framework of the composition.  Students recognize  that the movement of the upper drone voice is almost always harmonized in harmonic thirds and sixths by  the melody.  The other pitches  that occur away from these hilited combinations  are more decorative than functional. The  slow development of triads occurring through the convergence of melodic  lines in consonant intervals is a trade mark of this phase of the Schulwerk and is mirrored historically by the vocal and instrumental polyphony of the middle and late Renaissance.  Understanding this theoretical development will validate chronological Schulwerk teaching. It also will validate  the learning of the drone accompanied modes before exposure to functional harmony changes.

Elemental music often appears deceptively simple. There are many intricate facets of the style that  advanced Schulwerk students can understand when given the time to do so. A Master Class scenario may be the only time that this is possible.  Our work is still a only a very small part of the larger world of music education. Universities and colleges will not readily offer these opportunities unless their validity and importance  is articulated by local Orff chapters and organizations. Knowledge gained from such higher level Master Classes disseminates through the participants to others. In this way, many friends, colleagues, and students  benefit from the  hwat has been learned. It is my hope that we will continue to see the proliferations of Master Classes in Orff. They can and should  become forums for advanced thinking and learning on specific subject areas of our unique work.