Abstract :
Using Marx as a lens through which to interrogate music methodology, in particular those
espoused by Orff and Kodaly, this article suggests that rather than the free play and creativity
Orff and Kodaly intended, the implementation of these methods in a strict and unmindful
manner, often alienates both teacher and student from musicking. Thus these methods
have become more real than the music itself and as such, music making within them is
abstracted from the use-value of musicking and consequently exchanged as a commodity.
The article explains how methods become a form of production that serves to reproduce
systems of domination as well as a very particular form of cultural capital. This lens also
allows us to realise that, as we move farther away from the process of inquiry originally
embedded in the conception and construction of these musical engagements, the educative
process becomes more and more myopic. This, in turn, determines, delineates and narrows
possibilities of and for meaningful learning.
