“Teach music and singing at school is such a way that it is not a torture but a joy for the pupil; instill a thirst for finer music in him, a thirst which will last a lifetime…”
–Zoltan Kodaly
If you were to visit the music room at FPD you would see children actively participating as partners in making music. Singing, playing instruments, and moving are treated as ensemble experiences. Students are not passively involved in their education, rather the room is filled with purposeful activity. The responsibility of making music belongs to the students and the teacher.
Orff Schulwerk and Kodaly are the two approaches to teaching music that are incorporated in the FPD music classroom. Both are based on children learning traditional chants, rhymes, and folk songs. Students play on the Orff instruments which include the wooden xylophones, metallophones, and glockenspiels to accompany their singing and dancing. Musical skills including music reading and writing as well as part singing, part hearing, improvisation, intonation, listening, memory, phrasing, and understanding of form are developed. In both approaches students learn by experiencing music first, then learn the concept experienced, followed by the application of the newly learned concept to additional song materials.
Music Instructor
Katy Howd
khowd@fpdmacon.org
Music is a love in Miss Howd’s life and she is involved in many music-based organizations including the American Orff Schulwerk Association, the Organization of Kodaly Educators, the Atlanta Orff Chapter, and the Atlanta Kodaly chapter. Further, Miss Howd is working on her Masters of Music Education with an emphasis in Orff Schulwerk and Kodaly at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. At St. Thomas, Miss Howd has the privilege of working under Dr. Jill Trinka, a nationally known music educator, who has completed extensive studies of folk music in America. Arvida Steen, the author of Exploring Orff, is Miss Howd’s Orff Schulwerk advisor and also one of the first writers of a sequenced Orff curriculum in the United States. After a performance assessment hearing this summer, Miss Howd was invited to play her flute in the 2006 summer concert series hosted by the University of St. Thomas.
Miss Howd holds Orff certification from the University of Georgia, University of Memphis, and University of St. Thomas. Moreover, Miss Howd holds Kodaly certification from the University of St. Thomas. Miss Howd earned undergraduate degrees in Music and Spanish from Mercer University. She is still active with the university and plays with the Mercer Flute Choir.
Miss Howd attends Vineville North Baptist Church and occasionally plays her flute at different churches in the area. She loves to visit her family, play with her nieces and nephews, and spend time with her friends. Miss Howd absolutely loves teaching music, learning music, and being a part of the active music making process with her students. She hopes to instill a life-long love of music to her students.
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