Tuning Waldorf Music to the Key of our Students: How One School Reimagined the Traditional Waldorf Music Program
The early May weather cooperated perfectly; sunny and pleasant with enough of a breeze to lift and turn the ribbons that hung expectantly from the May Pole. The entire school gathered together in the meadow for the first time in over two years, while grades 5-8 stood eagerly by, ready with performances that heralded a completely redesigned music program. When the dancing began, it was accompanied by a mix of sounds unfamiliar to any of our past May celebrations: strident percussion instruments, sweet airs on the Irish tin whistles, boisterous jigs on the melodica, accompanied by guitars, ukuleles, double basses, and more.
The disruptions brought by the global pandemic created an opening for trying new things in our music department at Emerson Waldorf School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This break in continuity allowed space to explore questions that had been lurking at the edges of a strong and vibrant music program. Why did so many children who fell in love with their string instrument in fourth grade fall out of love by about sixth grade? Why was it so difficult for families (including my own) to motivate their children to practice instruments at home? Why did some children grow to resent instrumental music by the time they were in high school, despite the fact that, on the face of things, the music program overall was successful? If Waldorf education and its pedagogical principles are truly aligned to work with the essence of the developing child, then our music program was somehow out of tune and needed a redesign.
For years, our music program, like most schools in the US, had centered around orchestral and choral music. By high school, our choruses toured and performed while the full symphonic orchestra was judged highly in regional music festivals. Alums regularly pursued music after graduating, whether as avid hobbyists or by matriculating into top conservatories. A successful music program, right? Something was obviously working. Students were developing strong musical foundations. However, something was also not working. The students in middle and high school tolerated these formal ensembles, but few were enthusiastic. Many of the students who pursued music seriously in high school and as alums did not do so with the instru-ment they learned at school. For example, one high school student
half-heartedly played second violin while writing and recording her own songs with a local band. Another practiced his saxophone just enough to get a passing grade in band class while avidly writing and producing songs for local singers. Other students put together rock bands, jazz combos, pro-duced multiple hip-hop music albums, or performed paying gigs after school. We obviously gave them solid musical foundations, but in the teenage years, our students went their own way with music. If this was happening so well as a byproduct of our program, what would happen if the central inten-tion of the program was, by design, simply to inspire? Not to rehearse preset ensembles, not to practice targeted instrumental skills, not to perform master-works of classical music, not to travel to competitions. What if our full energies were put toward simply planting and nurturing as many different musical seeds as possible, and then helping the adolescents do their own musical exploring?
After a year of design and planning, we launched a new music program in the 2021-2022 school year. Instead of a traditional model, which channels students into specializations such as violin, viola, or cello during grade school, we decided to keep options open and expose the students to as many different musical experiences as possible so that they would enter high school with a more diverse set of experiences and skills. The grades program now focuses on four pillars: vocal music, string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. To keep our music place-based and culturally relevant, we’re favoring what we call a “folkways” approach, in which the cultures or ancestral heritage of our local region inform the content, allowing the students to explore cross-cultural connections. For example, grade school string instru-ment studies now focus on traditional instruments of North Carolina such as the guitar, banjo, and Appala-chian dulcimer. Percussion studies have the students practicing the precise control needed to play pitched and unpitched instruments with sticks and mallets while also learning about the complex interplay of rhythm typical in central African hand-drumming styles. They learn keyboard skills, woodwind skills, and sing in parts in a variety of styles, whether rounds, choral arrangements, or vocal jazz. By going as broad as possible, we expect students to finish eighth grade with solid, general skills—skills that they can begin to apply in high school according to their passions.
The high school program grows from these four pillars. With the expectation that students will have found some inspiration in their broad and general music education thus far, high schoolers choose one of the four areas to develop as their core proficiency. Out of those four areas, teachers guide students in putting together changing ensembles representing musical projects that follow the students’ passions while solidifying their skills. The current high school program is still gestating, but as students who have experi-enced the fullness of the four-pillared grade school program move up to high school, our faculty will be ready to collaborate with them to create flexible ensembles. Past experiments to explore the viability of this approach have allowed students to develop, for example, a semester-long klezmer ensemble, a small jazz band, or produce a madrigal dinner. These chang-ing electives serve as workshops in which the students can practice, hone, and apply the specific skill set they’ve chosen to pursue. We also hope that the process of imagining something creative, collaborating to bring it about, and improving one’s own skills to support the effort also gives them a model for their future work in the world as Waldorf alumni.
The early results are promising! One eighth grader who had previously said, “I don’t like music and I don’t want to do it” was so smitten with the handheld melodicas that he practiced on his own to learn a complex Irish jig that we played at the May celebration. Students now beg to take the various instruments home to practice them. Connecting the students to the music of their place, heritage, or time and keeping the music instruction broad and open-ended in the grade school have “struck a chord.” More importantly, it seems to be helping us shift the culture toward one of eager participation in which the children create out of their own enthusiasm and inspiration. Real results will take years to evaluate as the students’ progress through the grade school program and into the high school pro-gram. In the meantime, it’s heartening to see that our musical offerings are more in tune with the students.
Jason Child has taught general music, band, and chorus for over 30 years and has been at Emerson Waldorf School since 2005. He served for ten years on the Leadership Council of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America (AWSNA), is on the faculty of the Cuernavaca, Mexico, Waldorf teacher training program, has led programs for the Center for Anthroposophy, and is the father of four Waldorf students.
This article was originally published in the Fall 2022 edition of School Renewal - A Journal for Waldorf Education.