Kodály as Educationist

Abstract

One day during the summer, after a long and widely ranging discussion, I left Kodály starting a Greek lesson. On another day we were to lunch together. Could I, he asked, walk to the restaurant? He, I discovered, had spent the earlier part of the morning walking in the Buda Hills. Kodály's physical activity and his zest for living are combined with a vivid intellectual energy, a splendid sense of humour, and an equal zest for learning. In analysis he is shrewd, in exposition direct. In short he has the qualities that one would look for in a teacher—in this context a school-teacher. That is what Kodály is, and as such he is, in the field of music, unique, for he remains at the same time a great composer.

Kodály, Literacy, and the Brain

“…Kodály’s commitment to building a musically literate society in Hungary is evidenced by his continuous output of children’s music for study in the schools (Young, 1962-1963). In addition to composing music for children’s choirs, he also created vocal books containing nursery songs, sight-reading exercises (such as 333 Elementary Exercises in Sight-Singing), and graded pentatonic, two-part (such as Bicinia Hungarica vols.…”

“…Following six visits to England to learn more about the choral tradition there, Kodály continued to develop and strengthen textbooks and music materials to be used in Hungarian schools until his death (Sinor, 1986). By 1962, the Hungarian singing schools could not accept the number of students who wished to study and people in England voiced envy over Kodály’s “handsome dividends in the sphere of amateur choral singing” within Hungarian schools (Young, 1962-1963, p. 37).…”