Elementary Music Pedagogy

The Detmold study programme, Elementary Music Pedagogy (EMP), is distinctive for its unusually high proportion of practical work, intended to prepare students for the multi-faceted requirements of their future vocational field. For a first experience of teaching practice in different groups (small children with parents, nursery and primary school children, senior citizens and people with disabilities, children’s and youth choirs and various instrumental groups) the Detmold EMP cooperates with numerous institutions including music schools in the town and surrounding area, the Detmold Lebenshilfe organisation, various kindergartens, primary and special needs schools, the Detmolder Schloss-Spatzen children’s choir and the cathedral music departments in Paderborn and Münster. The students are also active in different projects, whether it be with the preparation of specific concert formats with special needs pupils or with Lebenshilfe members, singing and music making with refugee women and mentally disadvantaged young people or music therapy work with children from Bethel. Last but not least, the Detmold Music Kindergarten gives students the opportunity to experience and explore the whole spectrum of music in the nursery. Detmold EMP has been in existence since 2006 and students who have graduated with a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree are much in demand in the professional market and are employed throughout Germany in musical and cultural educational institutions. They are making a real contribution to society, since by opening doors to music and music making, they are allowing many people access to their basic right to a musical education and indeed to music itself.

As future artistic and educational specialist personnel who will be communicating music in a wide range of contexts, our EMP students are exceptionally well-positioned, not only from an educational point of view, but musically as well: they can sing and play an instrument, dance and make music using Orff instruments and have plenty of practice in speech and drama. The artistic presentations in the EMP are usually put together by students improvising and making their own arrangements, typically combining body, voice and instruments. Music is put to playful and flexible uses. The results, which are often presented publicly on stage at a workshop or at final examinations, tend to come under the category of cabaret.