Giving Flight to the Imagination

Giving Flight to the Imagination Using portraiture to tell the story of Orff Schulwerk and a family music education setting A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Sarah Brooke College of Education Victoria University December 2016 Abstract The Orff Schulwerk approach to music and movement education actively seeks to provide flight to the imagination through a playful, inclusive, engaging, creative and artistic pedagogy. As an approach to classroom music education it focuses on participatory music making in groups encompassing the social and emotional needs of the student. Orff educators interpret the Schulwerk in different ways, and as a non-prescriptive approach to music and movement education, this is to be welcomed. However, this freedom in interpretation has led to a variety of beliefs and practices, some of which bear little resemblance to how the Schulwerk was envisaged by its creators, Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman. What seems to be lacking within much of the Orff community is a framework of philosophical understandings in which our practices can be placed. Reflecting on whether my own understandings of Orff Schulwerk lacked legitimacy prompted me to interrogate and consider my own practice, and investigate the philosophy of Orff Schulwerk. This investigation is presented in Part 1 of this thesis and I propose seven principles of Orff Schulwerk as a framework for understanding the overarching philosophy. I suggest that adopting such a framework allows for the creative freedom Orff educators enjoy whilst maintaining the integrity of the approach. In Part 2 of this thesis I tell the story of a research project I conducted with primary school children and their families. Volunteers participated in a project led by me as the teacher learning music together through the Orff Schulwerk approach. As the educator/researcher of this project, the methodology of portraiture is well suited as a frame(work) for my research. It promotes a narrative writing style and makes visible the personhood of the researcher and the humanness of the participants. Portraiture supports the significant reflective component. Findings from the research project demonstrate beneficial outcomes in families learning music together through the pedagogy of Orff Schulwerk. These families reported positive experiences from their involvement in the program: musically, socially and personally. ii Student Declaration Doctor of Philosophy Declaration I, Sarah Brooke, declare that the PhD thesis entitled Giving Flight to the Imagination: Using Portraiture to Tell the Story of Orff Schulwerk and a Family Music Education Setting is no more than 100,000 words in length including quotes and exclusive of tables, figures, appendices, bibliography, references and footnotes. This thesis contains no material that has been submitted previously, in whole or in part, for the award of any other academic degree or diploma. Except where otherwise indicated, this thesis is my own work. Signature Date iii Prelude I am about to conduct a premier concert of my own compositions. The ensemble contains a diverse range of musicians of all abilities, and I wonder if I can conduct them successfully. These works have not been heard before and I am nervous. As the composer, I have considered how to balance creativity with repetition; the strings with the percussion; and the nuances of each musician’s style with the unity a concert demands. I want to provide a positive experience for the concertgoer, and for all those about to enter the stage. Although I have some control about how I want my musical works to be heard, when I scrutinise what I have to work with—the musicians, the instruments, and the stage—I am aware of the external factors that have affected my compositions, and will ultimately affect this concert. Are these musicians committed to my music? Is the trombonist part too difficult for such a beginner player? What if the ensemble is out of tune or are not able to keep in time? Will the audience appreciate my compositional styles? As the thesis writer I want to present research that will provide a positive experience for the reader. I have scrutinised what I have to work with: the data collected and uncollected, the volume of related literature, and the protocols of doctoral research. This concert—this thesis—is presented affected by external factors. You will at times hear my voice as the reflective researcher/practitioner. You will recognise my voice as the conductor where I comment on aspects of the score and verbalise my thoughts about the ensemble. At times I question the timbre of the instruments. I describe the difficulties I face as the conductor aiming for a reimagining of the music I have composed. To highlight this self-reflective inquiry, my writing in this voice is in the present tense to indicate my thinking at the time. This voice aims to humanise me as a writer, beginning researcher, and educator. It is a form of journaling embedded into an academic piece of writing. This voice in the background may sound casual at times, just as it would in a personal journal. I understand that readers might question why I’m including my voice in this way. Any writing is filtered, including research writing. My voice removes some of these filters to encourage connection between writer and reader. I want a reader to nod her head in empathy, or understanding. To get a sense of me: the researcher, the educator, and the person. Research commonly presents findings once data has been collected, analysed and presented. But in the reality of the research, I formed opinions and ideas from the very beginning. These opinions and ideas changed as iv each new note was added to the score. I want a reader to relate: to acknowledge my ongoing thinking throughout this research Compositional Notes I present this thesis attending to the following. The format of APA has been modified to best complement the overall desired style of this thesis. The voices of the participants and the dialogue are indented. As long as the meaning has not been altered, they may not be in chronological order. My voice as a reflective researcher is indented left and presented italicised in a lighter colour to visually represent the background nature of my voice. I have chosen not to indent the first line in each paragraph so that the soloists/participants and the conductor/researcher are more clearly recognisable. I have left a larger gap between paragraphs to compensate for this. Vignettes have been justified centre, italicised and with 15 point spacing. Although my decisions of formatting style fall outside of many traditional doctoral presentations, I believe my stylistic choices provide the reader with the optimum opportunity to follow the various threads of this research. Many of the references in this thesis date back to when it was common practice to write ‘he’ when referring to a person that could be either gender. To avoid the overuse of he/she and her/his, I have made a choice to use one or the other, or they. Throughout this thesis there are references to the Orff Schulwerk approach to music and movement education. The Schulwerk; Orff approach; Orff teacher; Orff educator; and teacher using Orff, are all examples of a colloquial use. These are used within this thesis to reduce the cumbersome nature of repeating the fuller title. Another small but significant point relates to the lack of consensus on whether a hyphen is added between Orff and Schulwerk or not. You will see both within my thesis. Shamrock (1995) states that the publications by Schott and the title American Orff-Schulwerk Association are the only allowable cases of the hyphen, however some references do not abide by this. Goodkin (personal communication, January 2016) supports this. “Ah, the hyphen. When I came to one of my first local Orff chapter workshops, they spent 20 minutes talking about the stupid hyphen (this was around 1980!). Apparently, Schott owned the v copyright to the hyphenated version.” Both with and without appear in European publications but in Australia we tend not to include the hyphen and so I will follow that trend unless specifically written within a quotation. Film footage was taken during the research project and edited into a series of portraits, slideshows and interviews. These are provided on an accompanying DVD, and hyperlinked in the electronic thesis. This is to assist in providing more of a sense of the project than might be gained through the written word. Clicking on the underlined Hyperlink in the thesis provides access to the uploaded films on YouTube. These are set on an unlisted privacy setting and available only to those reading this thesis. Changing the setting to HD in YouTube enhances the quality of the video but depending on Internet connection, can take more time to upload. The clips are numbered and are placed in four categories: Portraits which show the participants within the sessions; interviews with various participants; slideshows which have audio tracks accompanied by still photographs from the sessions; and a performance which is included from outside of the research project and used with permission from the performers. The photographs throughout this thesis are still frames taken from the film hence the quality are lower than regular photographs. They are included with permission from the participants. As anonymity is impossible due to the nature of the activities, the participants’ real names are being used with their permission. This filmic evidence is not provided as ‘best-practice’ examples, and in fact includes some of the more musically unsuccessful episodes within the project. It aims to highlight some processes of teaching and learning, and no ‘polished performances’ are included for this reason.

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