The newest publication by the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Academy of Music is an unique collection of curated Jewish songs, dances and easy choral pieces. Recommended for classroom music teachers and choral conductors who are constantly looking for new, multicultural repertoire, to get true inspiration from this book.
Not only does the exotic repertoire make Hargittai's book attractive, but the fact that it was written according to the Kodály Concept, each piece comes with teaching tips, thorough methodology guidelines and games to help teachers deliver the songs in a meaningful and engaging way to students, makes it a valuable professional textbook as well.
Let the author speak about the book and her inspiration:
This book is a great collection of Jewish-Israeli songs, dances, and easy choral pieces. It can be a colourful addition to your teaching material, helping with multicultural repertoire, which is interesting and even exotic. Nowadays part of our teaching repertoire became unsuitable due to some songs being potentially hurtful or offensive. Therefore, we need fresh, new singing material, we need to expand our song bank. We all know the pain of finding any random foreign song on the internet, not knowing if it is appropriate, unsure about the background and the meaning. These songs come with explanations about the Jewish Holidays and the background is provided for every song. The words are written phonetically in English, the meaning is explained.
However, this book is much more than that. Imagine it as a Russian Matryoshka doll. You can open the book, sing the songs, teach the songs, play and dance, share and teach them to anyone who is willing to sing, play and move. If you are curious and open another layer, you will find detailed lesson/activity plans for every song in three different levels: beginners, intermediate and advanced. You will see a step by step approach following the Kodály philosophy’s principles, you will see examples on preparing, presenting, practising musical elements that were taken out from real music, from the book’s song material.
And then you will find the real treasure, the tiniest matryoshka doll, your IMAGINATION. This book will give you a great deal of inspiration and confidence, that by following the Kodály principles you can use any musical material, no matter from what culture or background. You can build your own huge variety of activities where the sky and your imagination are the limit. The Kodály way gives you a great deal of freedom but at the same time guides you with its clear principles.
The book is available in the Bookshop of the Kodály Institute.
