What is Orff?
Orff Schulwerk, an approach to music education developed by Carl Orff, is experiential and holistic and is for all types of learners, aural, visual and kinesthetic. In Orff Schulwerk, children learn in an active way, where imitation and exploration lead to improvisation and music literacy. Speech, song, movement and instruments are the vehicles used to teach rhythm, melody, form, harmony and timbre. Carl Orff defined the ideal music for children as “never music alone, but music connected with movement, dance, and speech – not to be [merely] listened to, meaningful only in active participation.” Orff Schulwek is built on the idea that a child must be able to feel and make rhythms and melodies before being called on to read and write music. Orff believed that a child internalized and developed ownership of a concept by experiencing the concept before it is put into words. “Experience first, intellectualize second.” In the same way that a child learns to speak before learning to read and
