Excerpt from a talk given by Agnes Kory, Kings College, University of London, 29 March 2000

1. Kodaly cherished the ancient Greek thinking which put music in the centre of education. As music had to belong to all, music education started in the nursery with nursery teachers of no less than 5 years of rigorous musical training. Kodaly established music primary schools which started each day with an hour of ear training (of the Kodaly kind, with teachers of 17 years of rigorous musical training): thorough and regular tests showed that children in these schools did better in all subjects than children in regular schools with 'only' two one-hour Kodaly classes per week.
2. Instrumental tuition was strictly based on Kodaly classes: instrumental studies were optional but Kodaly classes were not negotiable: musical literacy was measured by the ability to 'hear what you see and see what you hear': "If two fourteen-year- olds can sight-sing a two-part Bach invention, they have achieved more than if they had been banging the piano from morning till night".
3. As Guido (but unlike other sol-fa systems until Kodaly), Kodaly linked his sol-fa with fixed notation, insisting on the fluent knowledge of all clefs. We sung his progressively difficult exercises (and repertoire from the renaissance to the modern) in all clefs with fixed note names as well as sol-fa names which we used for intonation exercises and functional analyses: the tonic in the major scale is 'doh', in the minor scale 'lah'. The relative major/minor scales share not only their key signatures but also their doh, ray, etc.: the relationship becomes more tangible. We were fluent in all modes.
4. Kodaly stated that many ways led to Rome. His system has definitely produced a vast number of highly literate musicians who were able to hear even complicated musical scores on first sight without the aid of a piano. Kodaly's chromatic sol-fa is excellent for quartertone training and as an interpretative device. Coupled with the innovative Sary Method (based on Kodaly, Cage and philosophical considerations) the system can produce all embracing musicianship catering for music up to our present time.
5. Kodaly suggested many ways to develop musical memory, polyphonic abilities and other useful skills.