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Karl Orff, (1895-1982), was a German composer and music educator. He came from a Bavarian family who were very active in the German military. His father's regimental band supposedly had often played the compositions of the young Karl Orff.

It should be noted, that he was one of the few German composers under the Nazi regime, who responded to the official call to write new music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, after the music of Felix Mendelssohn had been banned, and since others refused to cooperate. Orff had already composed music for this play as early as 1917, and 1927, long before this was a favour for the Nazi government. While Orff's association with the Nazi party has never been conclusively established, his work for which he is best known, Carmina Burana, a scenic cantata reflecting medieval German poetry, was hugely popular in Nazi Germany after its premiere in Frankfurt in 1937, receiving numerous performances.

Orff was a personal friend of Kurt Huber, one of the founders of the resistance movement, Die Weiße Rose, (the White Rose), who was condemned to death by the Volksgerichtshof, and executed by the Nazis in 1943. After World War II, Orff claimed that he was a member of the group, and was himself involved in the resistance, but there was no evidence for this, other than his own word, and other sources dispute his claim. Canadian historian Michael H. Kater, made in earlier writings a particularly strong case, that Orff collaborated with Nazi authorities, but in his most recent publication, "Composers of the Nazi Era: Eight Portraits”, Kater has taken back his earlier accusations to some extent. Orff's assertion that he had been anti-Nazi during the war, was accepted by the American de-Nazification authorities, who changed his previous category of grey unacceptable to grey acceptable, enabling him to continue composing for public presentation.

Moser's Musik Lexicon states that Orff studied at the Munich Academy of Music until 1914, then served in the military during World War I. Afterwards, he held various positions at opera houses in Mannheim and Darmstadt, later returning to Munich to further pursue his musical studies. As of 1925, and for the rest of his life, Orff was the head of a department, and co-founder of the Guenther School for gymnastics, music and dance, in Munich, where he worked with musical beginners. As a result of having constant contact with children, he developed his theories in music education, known as the Orff-Schulwerk method. He collaborated extensively with Gunild Keetman, in order to fully develop his philosophy.

The Orff-Schulwerk method is a developmental approach to music education for children. The term “Schulwerk” is the German term for schooling, or literally school work. Orff-Schulwerk is a system of music education which treats music as a basic learning system, like with language, and believes that just as every child can learn language without formal instruction, so too can every child learn music in a gentle and friendly manner. From a teacher’s perspective, Orff-Schulwerk is also a process of breaking down each activity into its simplest form, then presenting those steps one at a time, to eventually become a completed performance.

The Orff approach to music education uses very rudimentary forms of everyday activities in the purpose of music creation by young individuals. This includes singing in groups, and performing voice instrumental music, using a combination of melody and rhythm, such as with rhymes; and playing instruments such as the metallophone, xylophone, glockenspiel, and other percussive instruments. The music generated is largely improvisational, combining rhythmic patterns with original tonal constructions, building a sense of confidence and interest in the process of creative thinking.

Ostinato, along with other percussive tonal structures, are integral aspects of Orff-Schulwerk. Orff considered percussive rhythm as a natural basic form of human expression. Orff-Schulwerk music is largely based on simple, but forceful, variations on rhythmic patterns. This makes for very simple and beautiful musical forms, which are easily learned aurally by young children, and which can be performed with relative ease. Thus it has universal appeal.

Children are strongly encouraged to make music together in a group, and hence realize the joys of group co-ordination and cohesion. It also involves the participation of parents and other adults in music making, thus it brings the role of parent in child education into a central position. When interesting original music has been generated by the group, or by an individual child, then a desire to record it in written format arises. Thus the need to learn writing a musical score emerges by itself, and the child is intrinsically propelled to learn formal printed music.