Teaching Music with SONOR & Orff Schulwerk: Real Talk from Real Teachers

In my experience, ORF is, if not one of the, it's the most child-centered approach to music. It involves them in play, it involves them in exploration, and that's what kids want to do. They want to play, they want to explore, and they want freedom to be able to express themselves creatively. So I think, in my classroom at least, it's my favorite approach to teaching. I love to see my students engaging in a productive struggle where they're, at first it's difficult and, you know, they see the end result but they're not sure how they're going to get there, and then we slowly work up to it, and next thing you know they're astonished at what they can play and what they can do. It's really, really rewarding for both me as a teacher and them as a learner and musician. Of all of the instruments that I have in my classroom, the sonar ones are the most reliable as far as like staying in tune and just making a beautiful sound. The students gravitate towards them, I think naturally, because they sense that and they feel that, and that's pretty much all I have out that's accessible to them as far as barred instruments go. I just feel like the, you know, the quality and the musicality that you can bring out of the instruments is very unique. The sonar instruments sound amazing. They're easy to play, they resonate right away, and they look so pretty too. You can see them and they're like, oh, shiny, and they want to play. And then I think, I think the ORF approach is so amazing and it really has, like, not only changed me as a teacher but kind of changed me as a person, allowing me, like, the freedom to create and explore and feel like I actually, even though I am a musician, sometimes I don't feel like I'm a musician, I'm just a teacher, but when I am doing something in an ORF approach, I feel like I'm making real music, and I'm glad to share that with my friends and my students. The sonar instruments do an amazing job of staying in tune and being in tune with each other, which is one of the biggest things that is hard to find in other brands, because they tend to not mesh well together, but with sonar, any of the sonar instruments go well together and will always sound good. They are practically impossible to break, which means the kids can use them and be kids and not have to worry too much about if a little accident happens, they're gonna, they're gonna hold up and still be able to survive, because I have many instruments that have been in here for over three decades and are still going strong. When you're teaching children, you want to give them the full experience, and being able to have all of these timbres, all of these ranges, you're giving them the full experience of music, because they need to be able to experience a symphony, and the symphony has the big, the big double basses all the way to the flutes and piccolos, and that allows for a larger musical experience, and to replicate that in the classroom, the best way to do that is to have these lower bass xylophones all the way to the soprano glockenspiels. When I was student teaching, my, my cooperating teacher, he had a bunch of interest just because working at a school, you inherit programs, but he always like, this is the instrument, these are the best ones, the sonar instruments, and I would play them, they sounded great, the kids loved playing on them, and since ever since then, anytime I went to a new school, I fought for sonar instruments because I know they're durable, they sound great, and they're just simply the best instruments to use. I love how Orff's show work develops creativity in children, and it inspires creativity in adults. As a teacher, I am constantly asking questions, and wondering what if myself, and inspiring that in my students, and I think that sonar instruments bridge so well into that, they help bring that creativity out of my students, and they pair so well with Orff's show work and its principles and tenets, and I think that those are things that make students successful in my class, is having those early on moments, those low barriers to entry, where they can do something and know, like, I am a musician, I can make choices, and I can sound good, and not have to worry about, like, is my finger in exactly the right place, or is, you know, am I covering the hole completely, and I do teach those things, but I do love the sonar instruments just because of their ease of access.