ABSTRACT
Zoltan Kodaly's philosophy of music education grew out of a study of Hungarian folk music that he undertook in 1905, when he began collecting and analyzing samples of traditional music. The classic principles that tie Kodaly to the sound–to–symbol approach include the following: Experience comes before notation, Students should be grounded in the folk music of their culture, Melodic and rhythmic patterns are employed to teach the musical language that appears in folk music and Singing games and movement exercises aid musical development. Performance skills begin with spontaneous exploration and progress through imitation, guided exploration, improvisation, and composition. Sound itself is not music. Sound becomes music through audiation, when as listening in language people translate sounds in their mind and give them meaning. Recently, Micheal Houlahan and Philip Tacka re-examined Kodaly’s traditional teaching in the context of educational psychology and learning models. Sound–to–symbol instruction gives students the ability to recognize and correct their own mistakes.
