The Orff Echo is the national, peer-reviewed quarterly journal and philosophical voice of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association. Our mission is to demonstrate the value of Orff Schulwerk and promote its widespread use; to support the professional development of our members; and to inspire and advocate for the creative potential of all learners. Non-members may contact the editor for information.
Interested in writing for The Orff Echo? Check out how to get involved in the process:
Extensions to articles published in The Orff Echo can be found in the AOSA Resource Library.
List of Orff Echo Articles
A Sequenced Schulwerk: Cultivating a Context for Musical Understanding Over Time
Author outlines ways for teachers to sequentially build short- and long-term curricular goals that capitalize on Orff pedagogy. Proposing backward design and students’ collaborative interests, she offers useful curricular considerations that can benefit teachers and students alike.
Toward Deep Understanding: Considering Concept-Based Learning in the Orff Schulwerk-Inspired Classroom
Considers inquiry-based learning, concept-based inquiry, and Understanding by Design to focus planning, curriculum design, and classroom practices, applying elements of concept-focused frameworks like essential questions to promote transferable skills and enduring understanding through Orff pedagogy.
Peer Teaching and Learning in Orff Schulwerk
Hepburn provides recommendations for the Orff-inspired classroom as she draws connections between Orff Schulwerk philosophical underpinnings and peer teaching and learning theory. Curriculum and classroom organization suggestions included.
Free Play in the Music Classroom: Using Play as a Supplemental Approach to Traditional Instruction
Cooper’s research shows the importance of free play in the lower elementary Orff-inspired music classroom. He experimented with his kindergarten classes and found that free play time enhanced the music lesson.
Network Associated Schools and Institutions of the International Orff-Schulwerk Forum Salzburg
Haselbach discusses the international network of Orff-inspired schools and other institutions that are assoicated with the Orff-Schulwerk Forum in Salzburg. Criteria for selection of the schools is discussed.
Can Anybody Hear Me?
Children’s Book Review: Picture book features an imaginative journey that makes learning to use soft and loud timbres of the voice easily accessible for primary grade children.
My Voice Is a Trumpet
Children’s Book Review: Picture book encourages children to become “trumpets”—to speak up for others, to wonder and ask, and to stand up for our world.
Teacher Evaluation in Music: A Guide for Music Teachers in the U.S.
Professional Development Book Review is a resource for improving educators’ understanding of the evaluation process.
AOSA’s Teacher Educators of Color
Through a series of interviews with nine teacher educators of color, and as a Filipino American, author investigates pathways for teachers of minoritized groups when they embrace their identity and positionality and navigate mostly White spaces.
Momentum for the Future: Honoring Our Students
Author communicates ways to honor student creativity, provide pathways forward post pandemic.
Songs that Children Sing: Clues about Innate Musicality and Cultural Influence
Focus on Research: Study examines how environmental condition and genetic predisposition influence music making.
Window
Children’s Book Review: Picture book wordlessly invites readers to peer through “windows” of imagination, possibility.
Wild Symphony
Children’s Book Review: Picture book of poems with soundtrack colorfully depicting 20 different animals.
Looking at the Roots: A Guide to Understanding Orff Schulwerk
Professional Development Book Review: Current, concise, definitive resource providing salient themes representing Orff Schulwerk.
“We Sang This Song Together”: Linking Home Culture and Class Curriculum through Song Collection
To connect the needs and backgrounds of students with available curricular resources, Jones created a school song collection through the lens of culturally responsive teaching and cultural humility.
Reinventing Orff Schulwerk Classrooms for a Post-Pandemic World
Trauma-informed teaching practices can be adapted for music and the Schulwerk to support recovery and healing from the collective trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.