Kodaly pursues the goal of "making music belong to everyone". This educational goal is based on his understanding of the relationship between music and people's all-round development. He believes that music is closely related to human life itself. People can't live without music. Without music, there is no complete life. The importance of school music education even exceeds the music itself, and cultivating the audience of music is to cultivate a society. They live in different countries and nationalities, so their contents and emphases are different. However, on the fundamental goal of music education, they all stand at the height of anthropology and sociology and tell the essence of music education. This is also the direction that every music educator needs to unswervingly adhere to. Kodaly believes that creativity is actually the innate potential of human beings, and this ability can be tapped as long as there is a suitable environment and methods. He emphasized that only works created on the basis of national folk music have worldwide charm. The teaching practice of Kodaly system mainly grasps two links of creativity cultivation: the perceptual accumulation of national music tones and the preliminary perception and practical application of music structure. And in practice, let the children improvise for the songs they are familiar with.
The most prominent and important item in Orff's system is the principle of improvisation. Orff believes that improvisation is the oldest and most natural musical expression and the most direct emotional expression. Orff's teaching activities develop children's musical experience through children's active participation and singing practice, and try to create music through improvisation.
They adopt different ways, but both emphasize that music education should pay attention to the influence of creative process and the feelings and experiences brought by aesthetic experience. This is the difference from professional music education. There is no right or wrong in music creation activities, but they can experience the joy of discovery and exploration, the joy of success, express their originality and personality, and enrich their experiences. In the study of creative activities, we also found that children who can freely express themselves and fully vent their emotions are easy to get rid of psychological tension and gain emotional freedom and adaptability to the environment. This will bring them lifelong happiness, self-confidence and success. This is also the most valuable inspiration from the music creation activities of Kodaly and Orff. Kodaly attaches great importance to the use of folk music. He did a lot of work with the famous Hungarian composer Bartok and collected folk music materials. Since then, a large part of Kodaly's education has been to give these excellent works to children. Kodaly also emphasized that music education should first be firmly based on national music, which is one of the important principles of Kodaly's educational thought. At the same time, Kodaly also attaches importance to the extensive study of other national music in the world. He emphasized that national music is the foundation and starting point, which is not narrow and closed, but that if its foundation is rooted in the soil of national music first, it will accept all the excellent music culture of mankind in a wider field. Kodaly has always positioned music education as a kind of culture, and clearly pointed out that music education has the mission of cultural development.
Orff's elemental thought makes music really return to the pursuit of human nature. Orff's hometown is Germany, so many teaching activities are based on his hometown language, nursery rhymes, proverbs and folk songs and dances. He suggested that every different ethnic group and region should adopt this method. It seems that both of them attach great importance to the use of folk music. Their educational systems have a lot in common, such as high-standard educational requirements, artistic requirements and aesthetic requirements. But there are also significant differences:
Orff system does not strictly require teachers to teach according to the prescribed teaching schedule and fixed teaching materials. He emphasizes the creativity and flexibility of education and teaching, and thinks that teachers in every country, nationality and region can carry out personalized teaching according to their own understanding of Orff system. Therefore, Orff's teaching quality is directly related to the quality of teachers.
With the support of the state, Kodaly has comprehensively implemented Kodaly's educational reform thought from kindergarten to primary and secondary schools. Through systematic and comprehensive music education, Hungary has jumped into the advanced ranks of world music education in decades. Has a large number of high-quality teaching materials and strict artistic standards. Kodaly also emphasizes the cultivation of teachers, but unlike Orff, Kodaly's system is supported by a large number of high-level music textbooks. Judging from the reality, it is particularly urgent to carry out distinctive music education for children and build teaching materials.