If you are a Cedar parent, you may have heard your student sing about a horse that caught a whooping cough, rain that will not go away, Queen Caroline, or John Kanaka. Learning these folk songs is part of the Kodály (pronounced code-EYE) approach that is focused on singing-centered music literacy.
Folk songs (our musical mother tongue) are used as sequential materials from which we learn musical concepts. Furthermore, they are stepping stones to understand and appreciate musical masterworks. Mostly passed down orally through generations, these folk songs also tell us interesting, joyful, and sometimes tragic stories from the past.
Here is a snapshot of what we do in music class:
