TME Tuesday: Getting Out the Orff Instruments - Opportunity for Assessment of Non-Musical Skills

This is Orff week in my music therapy room. I am fortunate enough to have a full classroom set of Orff instruments that I received way back in 2008 or 2009 when then President Obama sent out grants to schools to increase technology in our classrooms. Rather than getting a smart board back then, I requested the instruments to enhance my instruction, and my request was allowed under the rules of the grant expenditures. So, the good people at West Music made my school a deal on my set, and I have loved those instruments ever since.

Now, when I say that it is Orff week in my room, I do not mean that I am doing any sort of official Orff training with my students. When it comes to musical concepts, my students do not achieve things like steady beats, ostinato patterns, or even the idea of playing a melody line easily. So, my Orff weeks tend to be focused on exploring the instruments, but this week also gives me really good information about how my students process information.

My chosen population is children and adolescents with intellectual diagnoses and concurrent psychiatric concerns. My students are often referred to our facility because they are not safe in other places - whether it is in their home community or in their schools. If they have had a music education experience at all, it usually has not been a good one. They often come to me in a state of not knowing or really caring anything about reading music, but they are also very convinced that stardom is in their future - if they could only play the drums, everyone would think they were amazing and they would be famous!! Why bother to learn about music?

When we get out any instrument, I try my best to do a bit of teaching about the instrument and about music while we are experiencing the instrument itself. I do not get in-depth on anything because attention to lecturing is brief at best with my students. With Orff instruments, though, there are some things that naturally happen.

I always give my older classes the instruments unassembled. It is their job to follow the directions and get the instrument set up. Now, depending on the group, I may insist that they set up things the way they are designed to be set up - from big c to small a. For other students, I may just let them do what they do. By explaining what to do, demonstrating what to do, and then letting my clients go, I can assess all sorts of skills. This particular piece of Orff week tells me a bit about the following:

• letter recognition - can they identify lower case letters from a-g? Can they match the different c's?
• size recognition - can they tell the difference between the large f and the small f?
• pattern recognition - can they see the pattern that is inherent in the instrument? The tapering shape of the bars?

There are other things that I assess when group members do not have to put the instruments together. For example, this week, my first group members are putting together the instruments for the use of all the other groups. The last group is in charge of taking the bars off and moving the instruments back to my office for storage. So, when group members choose an instrument that is already put together, I look for other things such as:

• independence - do they go get their own instrument, or do they wait for someone to do things for them?
• memory - do they remember how to play the instrument? Do they wait again??
• hand use - is there something noticeable about how they hold the mallets? How they play the bars? Do they use both hands in simultaneous movement or in alternating movement? Do they move up the notes and then down?
• modulation of movement - do they hit the bars as hard as possible, watching the bars jump off the instrument? Do they use gentle arpeggios? Do they alternate?
• pattern recognition - if the bars do jump off (and they often do), can the students put the bars back where they go?
• level of assistance - how much independence do my students display?

If we are able to do so, we move into different TMEs based on group goals and objectives. Yesterday's groups engaged in improvisation for much of their Orff interaction time. I attempted a mystery song with my last group of the day - it was very revealing to see who could attend to the task long enough to play the line of notes and who was not able to do that task. We are going to do this for most of the week - the first group of every day will be the assembly time. The last group today will be the last afternoon group to do Orff. The last morning group to do Orff will be tomorrow morning.

Of course, by the time I get to work this morning, I may not be up to doing much with my clients. I had my booster shot yesterday, and I am feeling it! I am determined to push through all of this, but we will see what is going on in an hour or so. 

I enjoy setting challenges in front of my students and then seeing what they do with it. I am trying to get the staff members in the room to allow my students to do their own things rather than doing things for the students. It is taking time, but it will be happening.

Time to get some things in boxes and then head out to work. I am hoping that people show up today, even though we are all feeling a bit rough due to our shots.