Bridging Creativity: Examining the Interrelationship Among the Arts in the Kodaly Music Classroom.

Author: Violeta Vicario Andrade

Visual and performing arts are widely recognized to have the capacity to influence our emotions, senses and thoughts. In traditional cultures, such as Ancient Greece, visual arts, poetry, dance and music were core values of their culture and cultivating the body, mind and spirit were the overarching goals of education. This question arises: When and how did we lose that unity in our contemporary educational systems? ^[1]

In exploring the Interrelationship of the Arts in Music Education, my aim is to investigate and describe current practices in Spain, the Netherlands and the United States. Many art educators have created collaborative projects with educational goals. Interdisciplinary teaching is very common in progressive schools in the United States as well as public schools in Spain. To understand the difference between an interdisciplinary approach where specialists come together in collaboration and an integrative approach we need to expand our research. ^[2] I also want to develop learning and teaching resources that can support educators in enhancing the creativity and expressivity of student’s musical experiences. Finally, I seek to identify the strengths that a musical approach that integrates various art forms can cultivate in young learners. As Gail E. Burnaford, Arnold Aprill, Cynthia Weiss point out: “Children often learn best by being absorved in tasks that require the incidental use of skills and ideas rather than focusing on them in a detached way. The arts provide powerful ways of doing this.”

In order to investigate the interrelationship of the arts within the Kodaly methodology I would like to start my research with interviews and documentation regarding practices that have already integrated other art forms into the music class. Looking into what research practices integrating art forms have been developed will give further context to this research. A visual example of the integrative approaches I look for in my research can be found here.

I also plan to conduct research by designing a series of lessons that can be taught by other educators and evaluated to examine the potential benefits of integrating the arts into a music lesson for student’s progress and understanding of music. This research will be complemented with video materials and interviews with students and teachers, serving as a living testimony to the value of integrating the arts into the Kodaly-inspired music classroom.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (CAPE). (2001). Renaissance in the Classroom: Arts Integration and Meaningful Learning (p. XIX).

Overland, C. T. (2013). Integrated Arts Teaching: What Does It Mean for Music Education? Music Educators Journal, 100(2), 31-37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0027432113497762

Segni Mossi. (n.d.). This website showcases the work of a graphic designer and a dancer who are reseraching about the relationship among this two art forms in the context of primary education and social projects. Segni Mossi. https://www.segnimossi.net/en/