Kodály’s Prepare-Present-Practice Sequence Part I: Beginning Band

Kodály in secondary schools? Of course! 

The Kodály concept was brought to America in the 1960s and gained traction with elementary general music teachers. However, the teaching practices we call “Kodály” are simply called good teaching in Hungary and are used throughout the education system. Rather than a unique system, the Kodály method is a sequential approach utilizing best practices learned over time. 

One of the most important principles of the Kodály method sequential approach for teaching new concepts and skills. This “Prepare-Present-Practice” process prepares students by developing their readiness, quickly presents the new material, and finally practices it in multiple modalities.  

Prepare

The preparation stage of learning leads students to perceive characteristics of the concepts that they will eventually read at sight. Students need to demonstrate their perception of the concept through kinesthetic, aural, and visual means. While primary-grade students may take months to prepare a concept, the time needed for young band students is much less due to their prior experience and developmental levels.

Students show their perception kinesthetically when they clap rhythms, move to the contour of the melody, conduct meter, or show the beginnings and endings of phrases. For example, when learning a new rhythm such as a dotted quarter–eighth  note pattern, students can simply echo patterns teachers play or sing songs by ear that contain the concept.

Students demonstrate their understanding aurally by describing what they hear. This requires teacher questioning that leads to that description. Using the prior example, the teacher can pull the pattern out of a song learned by ear and ask questions such as, “How many beats are in the pattern?” “How many sounds are on each beat?” “Are the notes the same length or different?” “How long is the long note?” The goal is for students to verbally describe the concept.

Visual demonstration of understanding requires the students to represent new concepts visually. When teaching rhythm, it is important to connect the rhythm in relation to the beat. One simple way of visually showing the new pattern is to draw four horizontal dashes to represent the beats and then draw shapes above each beat demonstrating the sounds . In this example, students should already recognize which beats contain quarter, eighth, or half notes, so they can simply draw those rhythms . They may draw the two-beat pattern containing the long and short notes as a quarter tied to an eighth plus the other eighth or they may create something else that shows that long and short. Another fun way to visually show patterns is to use chairs representing beats and bodies as sounds. When they can visually show that one person must cover one and a half chairs while a second person sits in the second half of the second chair you know that the students are ready to be introduced to the concept.

Present

The presentation stage takes very little time. At this stage, we simply name the concept and show what it looks like. For the rhythm example above, we count the pattern and show how it’s notated. Once we present the concept, we must immediately practice it to encourage transfer to new songs.  

Practice

In the practice stage, we provide various opportunities for students to engage with new concepts to develop a comprehensive form of literacy. Kodály described this type of literacy as the ability to, “hear what you see and see what you hear” and it is developed with activities such as singing, playing, notating, dictating, inner hearing, and composing. 

Students “hear what they see” by reading new patterns, singing them in solfege and absolute letter names, and/or counting them with rhythm syllables. They can also perform rhythm or tonal patterns from the board, on flashcards, or in the music. Another way to enhance this ability is to use “mystery songs” as students audiate known songs written on the board or using Curwen hand signs without the title given as in the skip & step concept found in Twinkle Twinkle:

Asking students to notate is another form of practice, much like primary school teachers who improve discrimination by having their students copy letters and words. We can do the same thing by asking students to notate music. To practice tonal patterns, we can create worksheets with missing notes that must be filled in or missing bar lines when practicing meter.

For beginners, it helps to use songs with repeated sections and have the “A” sections missing. 

This provides a model from which they can copy. The challenge is increased when they must fill in missing measures that have no model.   

Practice also occurs through inner hearing. When we practice a new concept, we play known songs but play the new concept “in our head” and play the rest. Then we can switch the task, playing the new concept and audiating the rest. The “stop & go” game is a fun strategy in which students play music while your hand is down and inner hear the song while your hand is up. This is great for developing a basic sense of group pulse within the ensemble. 

When we ask students to dictate music, they practice “seeing what they hear.” We can do this using “play after me” games in which the teacher plays a pattern which is sung or counted back by the student, then played, and finally notated. We can also identify individual patterns from a set of given patterns.

Further, by asking students to compose and perform small phrases, they are seeing what they hear inside their heads.

Conclusion

The Kodály-inspired ideas presented in this article provide teachers with a sequential, comprehensive approach to developing musicianship within young instrumentalists. When developing readiness through preparation, students comprehend new concepts when they are presented. Through multiple forms of practice, students develop a rich ability to “hear what they see and see what they hear.” It’s just good teaching!

If you liked this article, check out PART 2 HERE. 

Steve Oare is a professor of music education at Wichita State University. Prior to receiving his doctorate from Michigan State University, he taught for seventeen years in the state of Washington, first teaching elementary general music and beginning band in Lake Stevens and then middle school and high school band in the North Thurston schools. He earned his Kodály certificate and Master’s degree from the University of Calgary. He has presented numerous clinics at state and national conferences and has presented three times at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic as well as having published articles in numerous journals. He directs the WSU Summer Kodaly Workshop (www.Wichita.edu/kodaly) which is one of the few programs in the country that has a separate track for secondary teachers as well as training for general music teachers.

Related Reading:
Teaching Rhythm Logically
Motivation, Innovation, and Differentiation in Your Beginning Band
Tips for Teaching Rhythm in Beginning Band

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