Kodály Certificate Studies
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The Kodály Certification Program at NEC
is for music teachers, supervisors of music curriculum, solfege instructors, choral
instructors, performers, musicologists, and church musicians. The main areas of study are pedagogy, solfege, conducting,
materials' analysis, and musicology.
The Kodály program is a subsidized program. All students taking courses or pursuing a certificate program receive an automatic 50% tuition remission which is the reflected tuition amount in the course catalog.
Thesis - A Music Retrieval System
Boston Area Kodály Educators workshops
For more information, please contact the program director, Mary Epstein.
Spring 2009 Offerings
Kodály Level I Musicology: Folk Dance in American Culture
Susie Petrov, Instructor
This course examines current and historical social folk dance styles as enjoyed by people in the Boston area and around New England. Students will learn the art, discipline and sequential pedagogy of teaching dancing to students in school. Participants will learn a large variety of dances and how dancebuilds a community of learners. Class members will delve into the history of country dancing and its relation to the social changes that occurred in communities through the Industrial Revolution. Texts: Beth Tolman and Ralph Page; The Country Dance Book, The Best of the Early Contras and Squares-Their History, Lore, Callers, Tunes, and Joyful Instructions, pub. Stephen Greene Press (Lexington, MA), 1976. Texts will be distributed and materials fees collected at the first class.
7 Tu: 5:30–7:30 pm
April 28; May 5, 12, 19, 26; June 2, 9
1 credit: $300
2009-2010
Kodály Music Level II Certificate
Kodály Level II Choral Conducting
David Hodgkins, Instructor
This course will consist of small-group conducting classes. Topics include how to prepare and memorize a score, correct conducting patterns in 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 plus more complex meters (5/4, 7/4, etc.), proper choral conducting techniques and body stance, interpretation of unison through complex part music in different styles, and basic rehearsal techniques. Enrollment limited to 10 participants. Texts: TBA (Note: students may purchase at the first class.)
Course Code XADL 607 - No pre-requisites. Repertoire to be determined by the instructor on first day of classes.
7 Tu: 4:30-6:30 pm
Sept. 15, 22, 29; Oct. 6, 13, 20, 27
1 credit (14 hrs): $300
Kodály Level II Pedagogy: Materials
Charlyn Bethell, Instructor
This course will review and expand the principles of the Kodály methodology—specifically the sequential teaching of music skills and the use of an organized body of music literature, both folk and classical, as a foundation for musical literacy—and provide pedagogical methods and materials for realizing these principles. Participants will learn approximately fifty songs and games from a multicultural folk tradition as well as art music from the classical canon. Strategies for integrating movement and folk dance into music classes will be introduced. Specific course topics will include: readiness techniques; the exploitation of different learning styles among children in the preparation, presentation, and practice of rhythmic and melodic concepts; lesson planning firmly based on child development; short- and long-term planning; assessment; basic song leading and accompanying; the teaching of chorus; the teaching of recorder; and approaches to integrating the nine standards from the national frameworks for the arts. Participants will analyze and memorize songs, continue to develop their music retrieval system (thesis), and create pedagogy units. Teacher preparation makes learning music not only more effective for children but a more joyful experience for all involved.
Course Code XADL 609 - Pre-requisite is Level I Pedagogy: Materials
Required Texts: Bradford: Sing It Yourself: 220 Pentatonic American Folk Songs; Bolkovac and Johnson: 150 Rounds and Canons. Kodály Weave Vol I and Vol II by Mary Epstein & Jonathan Rappaport, Song Retrieval by Flo Lunde, 2007 edition (Note: students may purchase texts at the first class.)
14 Tu: 4:30-6:30 pm
Nov. 3, 10, 17, 23; Dec. 1, 8, 15, 2009
Mar 2, 9, 16, 23, 30; Apr 6, 13, 2010
2 credits (28 hrs): $600
Kodály Level II: Solfège
Pamela Wood, Instructor
This class includes sight-singing, dictation, transposition, analysis, improvisation and ear training through the medium of the human voice. Both movable "do" solmization and fixed, absolute letter names are used to develop relative and perfect pitch. Training begins with unison pentatonic, diatonic, and chromatic melodies and leads to complex part-music that is modulatory in character. The foci of this class will be: in-tune unison, solo and part singing; relative solmization, absolute pitch names, and rhythm names; pentatonic, diatonic major and minor and modal systems; sight-singing and musical memory; rhythmic, melodic and intervallic dictation; stick and staff notation, conducting, hand signs; chromaticism; G, F, and C clefs; modulations and harmonic progressions. Musical material includes folksongs through masterworks of all periods and styles, and includes many of Kodály’s composed exercises. All skills are developed simultaneously through live music making and written theory.
Course Code XADL 608 - Pre-requisite is Level I Solfege
Required Texts: 46 Two Part Folk Songs by Denise Bacon; Juilliard Repertory Library Vocal Volume 3; 333 Elementary Reading Exercises, Bicinia Hungarica, 77 Two-part Exercises and Tricinia by Zoltán Kodály; Sail Away ed. Eleanor G. Locke; 150 American Folk Songs ed. Erdei/Komlos; Classical Canons by Antal Molnar, Octavos; Reading & Writing Materials by Alfred John Young; Turtle Dove arr Denise Bacon SSA, "The Singers" (Three Children's Songs) by Ralph Vaughan Williams Unison, Done Made My Vow to the Lord arr. John W. Work SATB.
Tools: A-440 tuning fork, manuscript paper, pencils with eraser. Note: students may purchase texts at the first class.
12 classes, Tu and Th: 5:30-7:00 pm
Jan 5, 7, 12 14 19, 21, 26, 28; Feb. 2, 4, 9, 11, 2010 (snow dates: Feb. 16 & 18)
1 credit (18 hrs): $300
Kodály Level II: Saturday Workshop Series
Margie Callaghan, Instructor
Saturday Workshop series is for the novice and the professional spanning the teaching profession in performance and the classroom. The series is a joint collaboration among the Boston Area Kodály Educators, The Kodály Music Institute, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the American Choral Director’s Association. Our internationally recognized clinicians this year are:
Oct. 3, 2009-Elaine Quilichini, Artistic Director, Calgary Children's & Women's Choirs (14th Annual Choral Symposium-Vocal Vacation Reunion Celebration);
Oct. 21, 2009-Martha Holmes, General Music Teacher Newton Public Schools (International Folk Dances), Margie Callaghan, General Music Teacher Boxborough Public Schools (Presenting Music Listening Lessons), Tom Morris, Director Boston City Singers Jamaica Plain Training Chorus
Nov. 21, 2009-Constance Foss More, President, Kodály Society of Canada (Weaving Elementary Choir Rehearsals into General Classroom Lessons)
Course Code XADL 605 - No Pre-requisite
Location: Williams School, 141 Grove Street, Auburndale (Newton) MA
3 Sa: 9:00 am-1:00 pm
Dates: Oct. 3, Oct. 21, & Nov. 21, 2009
1 credit (15 hrs): $300
Kodály Level II Musicology: African-American Folk & Art Music
Betty Hillmon, Jonathan Rappaport, and Pamela Wood, Instructors
Participants will study the canon of African American folk music through performers and performance styles, historical context, and musical characteristics of melody, rhythm, and form. Participants will also study African American art music utilizing similar categories to investigate the work of selected African American composers. A strong emphasis will be placed on discovering pedagogical uses of this music for the classroom (elementary, secondary, tertiary). Assignments will include transcribing folk music to gain a clear understanding of performance style. Research projects will make use of the Spaulding and Firestone Libraries and/or the Smithsonian Global Sound website. Bring your staff notebook and wear comfortable clothing so we can "One, two, three and-a-zing, zing, zing" down the line.
Course Code XADL 610 – No Pre-requisite
Texts: Step It Down by Bessie Jones & Bess Hawes Lomax: University of Georgia Press, 1972; Put Your Hand on your Hip and Let Your Backbone Slip: Songs and Games from the Georgia Sea Islands-Audio CD album (Feb. 13, 2001); The Music of Black Americans by Dr. Eileen Southern: 3rd edition 1997, W.W. Norton Publishers.
2 Tu: January 12 & March 16, 2010
1 credit (14 hrs): $300
Non-credit through Teachers as Scholars Program: www.teachersasscholars.org
For credit requires a written project.
Inquire: mepstein@newenglandconservatory.edu
Kodály Level II Musicology: Hispanic/Latino Folk & Art Music: Songs, Games, and Pedagogical Ideas for Teachers to Use With Their Students
Faith Knowles and Dr. Nomi Epstein, Instructors
Canciones, Juegos y Ideas Pedagogícas para Maestros y Sus Estudiantes: Songs, Games and Pedagogical Ideas for teachers to use with their students. Using song and game materials rooted in Hispanic and Latino Cultures, Faith Knowles, a New Englander, will actively show teachers that they too can learn and teach in the Spanish idiom. Special attention will be given to music education techniques based in the Kodály philosophy. Supplemental classes will address folk music by native Guatemalan musician Rosalba Solis' first hand musical and cultural experiences and art music by young Roosevelt University faculty/composer Dr. Nomi Epstein in a study of ritual and primitivism through the lens of composition. Visiting Musician/Artist/Performers/Historians to be arranged.
Individual Course Code XADL 611-No Pre-requisite
Required Texts: Vamos a Cantar: 230 Latino and Hispanic Folk Songs to Sing, Read, and Play by Faith Knowles, collector and editor; Study Score and CD- "Sensemaya"-Mexican Symphonic Tone Poem by Silvestre Revueltas. Texts available for purchase on the first day of class.
7 Tu: 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Apr 27; May 4, 11, 18, 25; June 1, 8, 2010
1 Credit (14 hrs): $300
Kodály Level III: Solfège
Gabór Virágh, Instructor
This is the third course in ear training and sight singing for using Kodály methodologies. Listening and performing skills will be developed using pentatonic, modal, diatonic, and chromatic excerpts from the music literature. Course work will include basic teaching techniques and activities used in Kodály instruction. Each area of instruction listed below will include sight singing, performance drills, and the acquisition of recognition/dictation skills.
- Rhythmic work will include a review and more difficult work in simple and compound meters with conducting, syncopation, asymmetric and changing meters. Melodic work will include a continuation of pentatonic major and minor scales and intervals.
- Church modes, melodies with chromatic alterations: as non-harmonic tones, as secondary chord functions, as modal mixture. The course will include an introduction to twentieth-century melodic idioms.
- Harmonic work will include: cadences and more elaborated chord progressions, seventh chords in root position and inversions, secondary dominants and secondary sevenths chords, modal mixture chords and an introduction to the Neapolitan-sixth chord and augmented-sixth chords. Pedagogical tools will include: further hand-sign work, two-part hand-sign technique, memorization of two- and three-part canons, use of different modal sol-fa system, modulation: sol-fa changing strategies, other appropriate games, activities, and exercises to promote memory, coordination, inner hearing, and accurate intonation.
Required Texts: Oxford Sight Singing Volume 5, Classical Canons by Antal Molnar, Bach Book #1 by Erzsébet Hegyi (EMB Publisher). Additional texts to be determined by the instructor after the class begins.
12 classes, Tu and Th: 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Jan 5, 7, 12 14 19, 21, 26, 28; Feb. 2, 4, 9, and 11, 2010 (snow dates: Feb. 16 & 18)
1 credit (18 hrs): $300
Online Course
Kodály Level II: THESIS Retrieval System
Jonathan Rappaport, Instructor
This course will be primarily an independent-study project under the supervision of one of KMI's master instructors. Class members will work with the instructor and classmates predominantly online through web conferencing and email, with the bulk of the work being accomplished independently. The goal of the course is to develop a personal song collection and retrieval system that will enable a teacher to quickly access applicable teaching materials for nearly any element, concept, or skill area. Each participant will have a minimum of 125 songs and pieces of music (pre-approved by the instructor) relevant to one's personal teaching situation analyzed and filed alphabetically into a song collection. Every song or piece of music will then also be entered into an extensive retrieval system notebook, or via a computerized database, according to dozens of musical, pedagogical, cultural, and interdisciplinary categories.
Required texts and materials: Good Internet and e-mail access; basic computer skills.
Texts: Lund, Research and Retrieval ($25); Epstein & Rappaport, The Kodály Teaching Weave II: Song Analysis Forms and Definitions ($7.00); Rappaport, The Kodály Teaching Weave III: Song Retrieval Notebook ($59.95). Participants are expected to have several quality folk music collections from previous Kodály courses, such as 150 American Folk Songs; Sail Away; Step It Down; My Singing Bird; Sing It Yourself.
Materials: Several large three-ring binders; optional: plastic inserts for each analyzed song.
Course Code XADL 810 Pre-requisite is Level II Kodály Certificate Pedagogy Materials
14 Tu: 4:30-6:30 pm
Nov. 3, 10, 17, 23; Dec. 1, 8,15, 2009
Mar 2, 9, 16, 23, 30; Apr 6, 13, 2010
2 credits (28 hrs): $600
Event
Big Sing 2010
David Hodgkins, KMI faculty and Coro Allegro's Artistic Director, Instructor
March 2010 Time and Day to be Announced
3rd Annual Urban Children's Choir Festival
St. Cecilia’s Parish, 18 Belvidere St., Boston MA 02115
Sponsored by the New England Conservatory’s Kodály Music Institute, Massachusetts Chapter of American Choral Director’s Association, and Hilton Hotel Bay Bay, Boston.
Choirs from urban after school, community, school, and churches may apply.
Singers aged 7-18 are welcomed.
Each choir should prepare 2-3 songs lasting 5-8 minutes.
All choirs will perform jointly for a concluding festival piece.
Contact persons:
Mary Epstein (maryepstein@newenglandconservatory.edu)
Jane Money (jmoney@bostoncitysingers.org)
Fees: $1 entrance fee / $25 choir application fee
updated 22 April 2009