Catherine Golding and Professor Jerry Jaccard, Department of Music Education
In this study, we were able to further the music education research in Hungary that Dr. Jerry Jaccard has been implementing for many years. Hungary has one of the most sophisticated and successful music education systems in the world. My research group and I will be using this information we found to improve our music education system in the United States. We each had a specific area of research. I focused on the effect of physical movement on vocal development. In Hungary, they use the Kodaly Music Education System. In the United States, we use a modified version of it. With the grant money I received, I was able to pay for my flight to Hungary. For other expenses—such as the hotel, food, rental cars—I was able to save and use my own funds.
We were able to visit a variety of schools and met many experts on the Kodaly Music Education System. Our studies began in Budapest at the Institute for Musicolgoy and Folk Song research. Laszar Katalin showed us the archives of Zoltan Kodaly’s and Bela Bartok’s categorization system. We were privileged to see their own records of folk tunes they collected and how they were organized musically. Lazar Katalin is an expert in children’s songs and games. She showed us her own categorization system—a combination of the Bela and Kodaly system along with her own modifications. My research team plans on organizing our collection of children’s folk songs using a similar method. This will help us as teachers to find songs with similar tunes and themes, making it easier for children to learn them.
That same day, we visited the Zoltan Kodaly museum. We had an extremely rare and privileged opportunity to meet and talk with Sarolta Kodaly, Zoltan Kodaly’s wife. This was not a planned interview but we gained many insights from the wife of a great composer and educator.
We went to the Béla Bartók Conservatory to observe two piano lessons and a Solfege and Harmony class. This was a specialty school. The students were extremely talented because they’ve been studying music since age 7 and by 8th grade they are well-trained musicians. We interviewed Lencsi, a very talented teacher and expert on the Kodaly system and gained many insights. We also attended Madame Butterfly at the Hungarian State Opera House. There we saw the fruit of Hungarian music education. The professionalism and talent we view and heard was astounding.
One of the highlights of the trip was attending the Hungarian Radio Choir School. It is a singing music school of 1st-12th grade. We observed the 5th-7th grade choir conducted by Gabrielle Thesz. We also attended their superb concert and were able to see how the work in the classroom translated into the performance.
With our host, Zsusanna Mindszenty , we were able to view music education at the University of Budapest. We observed two conducting classes and a choir. It was insightful.
At the Kodaly Zoltan Hungarian Choir School, another music school, we observed two choirs and three various music classes. They had a very well-rounded education at this school and many of the theories we discussed there could be implemented into U.S. education.
We observed a normal primary school and the after-school conservatory, the Leopold Mozart Music School in Budaurs. This was nice seeing the talent from a normal school to good musicians because this is what we’ll hope to implement in the U.S.
We then traveled to Kecskemét. There we observed a 5th, 7th, and university level solfa classes at the Kodaly Institute. This was another highlight as we had the opportunity to interview four talented professors and musicians.
In Nyíregyháza, we observed Denes Szabo, a teacher and conductor at the Kodaly Zoltan Primary School. His lessons and choir were full of talent and musicianship.
Our final research opportunities brought us to Debrecen. We attended another music school and an after-school conservatory. At the University of Debrecen we sat in an extremely high level of a solfege and harmony lesson.
Our research collection included notebooks full of notes, videos of classes, and sound recordings of interviews. They have been transcribed and archived for our personal use. Through this research experience we discovered many new ideas about how to make music education meaningful. I also gained new repertoire to have my future students learn. It was a very fulfilling and important research trip.
In many of the schools, they used movement to feel the musicality of the song. At the Hungarian Music Choir school, you could see each student tapping the beat on some part of their body. Gabrielle Thesz would have her students walk around and feel what they were singing. When we watched their performance their bodies swayed with the music in a natural, musical way. In Kecskemét, Dr. László Norbert Nemes and Dr. Orsolya Szabó talked about the importance of movement and displayed it in their classes. All musical teachers should know how to move and how to get their students to move.
There are some the things that could be improved for our next trip to Hungary. We observed many specialty schools, where music was the main focus of the school. Whilethatiswonderful, in America we tend towards having well-rounded children. Our public schools have seemed to push music to the backburner in place of mathematics, science, reading, and writing. I would like to find out how to instill the importance of music into the minds of all school superintendants so it has a permanent place. I would like to observe more normal schools.
Our research is still in an ongoing process—it seems education always is. For further research, I would like to study more specified on the vocal mechanism. Through observation, I noticed that when students would sing they had very narrow vowels but had a very full sound. In choirs I’ve sung in, we focus on round vowels to get that full sound. I’m curious as to how they were able to achieve that in Hungary.