Elemental Music

The elemental, the primitive, primitive art and primitive music are intellectual constructs influenced by ethnology (then: ethnography) and ethnomusicology (then: comparative musicology) in the culture of the turn of the century 1900 (ca. 1880-1925). Orff's term elemental music [Elementare Musik] is preceded by the term primitive music, which he adopted from the ethnomusicology of his time (Weinbuch, 2010, 50-72). His sources are the music anthropological works of Curt Sachs and Robert Lachmann. Both see "originality and primitiveness as complex cultural characteristics in non-Western cultures, which must under no circumstances be derived from the European idea of simple and natural" (Lachmann, 1929, as cited in Kugler, 2000, 281). In his early essays (1932-1933, reprinted in Kugler, 2002), Orff uses the terms primitive music and Elementare Musikübung[Elemental Music Exercise] side by side. Under primitive music he subsumes the music of non-Western cultures and European folk traditions as well as spontaneous musical production by children. Elementare Musikübung is the subsequent artistic-pedagogical concept with which elemental music is to be introduced. With the title Elementare Musikübung of the first series of Orff-Schulwerk publications, Orff chose the term elemental music in order to avoid the negative and misleading connotation of the adjective primitive in everyday language.

From Orff's statements on the Schulwerk Elementare Musikübung(Orff, 1932-33, as cited in Kugler, 2002) and on the Schulwerk Musik für Kinder / Music for Children (Orff, 1963/2011; Orff, 1976), the following characteristics of the term elemental musicemerge (Kugler, 2015, 54 f.):

1. General orientation of all behaviours and structures towards sensorimotor skills and physical rhythmic expressions, combined with a dominance of percussion inspired above all by the percussion instruments of foreign cultures (Varsány, 2015).

2. Close connection between musical production resulting from improvisation and movement in general and dance in particular. Movement is to be understood in a broad sense as expressive movement with and without an instrument, gestural, conducting and performing.

3. Melodies are primarily created on the basis of pentatonic and modal scales, later also major scales. They emerge from original vocal actions such as calling, humming and whistling or from improvised playing on melodic instruments. A scenically oriented understanding of language also gives rise to intermediate forms such as recitative [Sprechgesang] and free-rhythmic recitation (speech). In polyphonic structures, parallel motion, also known in early polyphony and in folk music cultures, plays a dominant role (Weinbuch, 2010, 135ff.).

4. The reduced rhythmic-melodic structure is reminiscent of the musical cultures of the Middle East. Harmonic structures unfold on a monophonic basis (drone) or by means of stepped harmony [Stufenharmonik]. Orff was influenced here both by the concept of primary sound forms by the Munich musicologist Rudolf von Ficker for the organum practice of early Western polyphony and by the sound practice of Indonesian music (Weinbuch, 2010, 137f.), of which he owned recordings.

5. The formal units in their microstructure are based on the pattern or ostinato principle. They are thus close to the pattern structures of Black African and Indonesian music and belong to the phenomena of periodic and repetitive music (Schneider, 1988, 358ff.), as C. Fischer has demonstrated specifically for the music of Gunild Keetman (Fischer, 2009). The macrostructure is dominated by sequence forms [Reihungsformen] and refrains.

Orff himself attempted a definition of his elemental music: "Elemental music, elemental instruments, elemental speech and movement forms. What is elemental? The word in its Latin form elementarius means: Pertaining to the elements, primeval, rudimentary, treating of first principles. What then is elemental music? Elemental music is never music alone, but forms a unity with movement, dance and speech. It is music that one makes oneself, in which one takes part not as a listener but as a participant. It is unsophisticated, employs no big forms and no big architectural structures, and it uses small sequence forms, ostinato and rondo. Elemental music is near the earth, natural, physical, within the range of everyone to learn it and to experience it, and suitable for the child." (Orff 1963/2011, 147). Of the intellectual currents in Orff's student years, the phrases urstofflich, uranfänglich (primeval, primordial) and erdnah, naturhaft(close to earth, natural) point to the aesthetics of Expressionism. Weinbuch has described the influence of ethnomusicology as "ethno-musical characteristics of elemental music" (Weinbuch, 2010, 73-142).

Orff was a man of the theatre and so he later added to his definition: "Elemental music impels towards scenic representation, towards theatre" (Orff, 1978, 263). This aspect of elemental and elemental music is clearly linked to Orff's childhood (Orff, 1975, 22-39). The rich experiences with theatre and drama begin with the down-to-earth Bavarian Punch and Judy show and with visits to the Munich puppet theatre. This was followed by experiences with a travelling puppet theatre, with children's plays at the GärtnerplatzTheatre and first attempts at staging with a small puppet theatre inherited from his grandfather. The first visit to the opera with Richard Wagner's The Flying Dutchman becomes a formative experience. Orff attended theatre and opera several times a week during his school years and got his first paid job as a theatre conductor at the Munich Kammerspiele(Orff, 1975, 60f.).

The hermeneutic experiments at the Orff Institute (from 1961 onwards) are largely about the same thing, but from different perspectives:

- Elemental music arises from the integration of music - speech - movement or speech                                                  

- music - movement. Barbara Haselbach (1975, 155 ff.) speaks of the three components of Orff-Schulwerk and understands this to mean firstly the combination of speech, music and movement, secondly the instruments and thirdly improvisation.

- Elemental music arises from the "elemental processes" of rhythm, melos and harmony and aims at an "elemental creative activity" (Keller, 1962/2011, 119ff.).

Haselbach's explanation largely follows Orff's definition from 1963 and comes from the teaching tradition at the Orff Institute in Salzburg, which Orff and Keetman themselves founded. Wilhelm Keller also taught there for a long time and further developed the aspects already mentioned by Orff: "In the early stages of musical culture, as in all human activity, rhythmically expressive body movements were just as important for the performance of the prototype of instrumental music as vocal expression" (Keller, 1962/2011, 123). Accordingly, the typical instruments and the process of playing are important to him. Keller subsumes playing as instrumental performance in the narrower sense and, above all, the social aspect of playing together in a group in the broader sense. This leads to social and special educational work with the Orff-Schulwerk (Keller, 1996). Ostinato and drone structures are aimed at a "set of sounds" and not a "set of notes" (ibid., 127). Notated modelsare always intended to trigger elemental music in the group, but do not lead to the reproduction of compositions. An essential addition to the understanding of Orff's conception of sound in elemental music are his 1932-34 editions of the Orff-Schulwerk Elementare Musikübungand the compositions before Carmina Burana, i.e., the Werfel cantatas 1929/30 (Thomas, 1975, 187-211), Chorsätze nach Texten von Bert Brecht1930/31 (ibid., 212-283) and the vocal movements fromCatulli Carmina.

In recent research on Orff's elemental music, Michael Kugler's conceptual model “Motion - Percussion – Improvisation” (Kugler, 2003; Kugler, 2008) focuses on cross-cultural, i.e., transcultural (interculturality), musical behaviour and structures. Motion comes first in this attempt at interpretation, as Orff initially worked with gymnasts and dancers and, by his own admission, was influenced by Mary Wigman's expressive dance [Ausdruckstanz].He himself did not participate in dance at the Günther-Schule, but developed an improvisational form of movement that he called “Dirigierübung” (conducting exercises). Three essential aspects of movement determined the practice in the Günther-Schule, the workshop of elemental music: firstly, "physicality and physical experience in general . . . came to the fore," secondly, "making music and moving in musical learning processes . . . were closely related” and thirdly, "the entire artistic production aimed at a unity of dance and music" (Kugler, 2003, 114). Orff thus realises that the movement aspect of musical behaviour includes "directly sound-producing movements, supporting . . . accompanying movements . . . as well as expressive, gestural, mimic, and dance movements" (Kugler, 2003, 115).

The term percussion encompasses both playing on percussion instruments and the percussive principle of sound production, e.g., by plucking on the guitar or lute, strumming on the dulcimer and santuri, and finally also playing on stringed keyboard instruments. Rhythmic activity is based on sound gestures (body percussion) and dance. Clapping, stamping, snapping and patsching usually form the basis of rhythmic organisation with pattern structures. In body percussion, the auditory level, the proprioceptive level and the social-communicative level come into play (Kugler, 2003, 120f.). The multi-sensory effect of body percussion is intensified by percussion instruments, because "percussive rhythms ... set the body into a single harmonised vibration via the sense of hearing, the sense of sight, the sense of pressure and the sense of muscle" (Claus Raab, as cited in Kugler, 2003, 121). Orff and his students at the Günther-Schule also began "with hand clapping, finger snapping and stamping in simple to difficult forms" (Orff, 1976, 17). The decisive impulse for the development of the then unique percussion instruments at the Günther-Schule came from a West African xylophone, a balafon. This percussion instrument opened up "a new world of sound" for Orff and had a decisive influence on his pedagogical concept and also generally on his "entire later work" (Orff, 1976, 89, 94). His interest in Black African and Indonesian music is clearly documented and is based on scientific literature and ethnomusicological sound documentation (Weinbuch, 2010, 74ff.).

On the one hand, Orff had a precise idea of improvisation in European art music; on the other hand, he was also impressed by the unwritten playing of non-Western types of music based on the pattern principle, because this creates an intensive "connection with the instrument" (Orff, 1932/33, as cited in Kugler, 2002, 191).  Orff himself was an impressive improviser and therefore demanded: "Teaching is entirely based on improvisation" (Orff, 1931, as cited in Kugler, 2002, 171). In the Orff-Schulwerk, improvisation means both the methodical way of making music as well as the formation of structure itself, and requires an approach without musical notation. In contrast to a later, specifically pedagogical and therapeutic concept of improvisation used since the 1970s, Orff's concept of improvisation is inspired by the older notated European and orally transmitted non-Western types of music, in which improvisation only takes place when the improvisers have acquired model-like structures through creative and imitative learning and their own artistic work emerges from this (Oliveira Pinto, 1998). As is well known, the same applies to jazz.

In her study of ethnological references in Orff's pedagogical and compositional work, Isabel Weinbuch comes to a definitive determination of the causes for the "intercultural relevance of the Orff-Schulwerk" (Weinbuch, 2010, 143ff.) and its unique international dissemination (International Orff-Schulwerk ForumSalzburg). The intellectual prerequisite lies in the fact that Orff consciously opened up the aesthetic boundaries of Western art music (Leuchtmann, 1988; Schneider, 1988; Kugler, 2008, 27ff.; Weinbuch, 2010, 146). This also applies to the compositional work, especially the use of numerous percussion instruments from non-Western cultures and their sound-aesthetic and semantic significance in Orff's late music theatre (Weinbuch, 2010, 162ff.). There is also a connection with musical world cultures through references to African and Asian models for the world fairy tale Die Kluge, through Orff's reception of Japanese poetry and through his myth-inspired works Der Mond, Prometheus and De temporum fine comoedia(Das Spiel vom Ende der Zeiten).

The great significance of elemental music in Orff's sense lies in the opening up of the Western concept of music through references to the behaviour and structures of non-Western types of music. Thus, from an intercultural perspective on music and music education, the Orff-Schulwerk can be interpreted as an applied "anthropology of music" (Sangiorgio, 2007). This already initiated the reception of the Orff-Schulwerk by students from many countries in the 1950s and the later intercultural exchange with Orff-Schulwerk associations founded in more than 50 countries. This intercultural dynamic of the Orff-Schulwerk led to "an intensive search by Orff-Schulwerk teachers for authentic traditions in the areas of music, dance, and play" (Kugler, 2008, 33), as well as fairy tales and theatre, and led many Orff experts worldwide to reconsider their own cultural identity. The evidence for this development ranges from the first application of the Elementare Musikübungin Greece in 1936 by Thrasybulos Georgiades (Kugler, 2002, 228f.), the documentation of the Orff-Schulwerk symposium in 1995 (Orff-Institut, 1995) to the international documentation by André de Quadros (2000). Another important source for research is the film series Mit Xylophon und Fantasie by the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (archived at the Orff-Zentrum München) from the 1970s.