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Picturing Music
I’ve been thinking about representation lately. No, I don’t need a lawyer. I’m talking about how we ‘picture’ music. As an experiment last week, I asked my kids to draw a picture of rhythms we were working with during the session. I didn’t ask them to use notation. Some of them are too young to…
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Come Play With Us
I’m leading drop-in online guided improvisation sessions in February 2023 on Saturdays, 1:00-1:45pm Eastern. To learn more about it and find out how to join, click here. No improv experience necessary and only you (and whoever is in your house!) will hear yourself. A few past attendees were kind enough to write descriptions of what…
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Ensemble Skills for 1st-2nd Grade (Part 4 of 4)
This is the final part of a series on skills, goals and objectives for 1st-2nd grade Dalcroze classes. The lists from the previous posts on movement, rhythm and pitch would not have been out of place in many other introductory theory, ear training or music or movement fundamentals classes. I regard this final category, ensemble…
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1st – 2nd Grade Skills, Experiences and Objectives Associated with Pitch (Part 3)
Here are more curricular lists for 1st-2nd grade. This time the focus is on pitch. Rhythm skills for kids this age are a lot more predictable for me than pitch skills. Some kids have an easy, natural relationship with their singing voice, while others seem to struggle with the kind of self-consciousness that plagues older…
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1st-2nd Grade Dalcroze Skills and Experiences: Rhythm (Part 2 of 4)
Second in a series of posts describing what a typical class might cover during the year. Now we get to the heart of the matter. This is a formidable list, and not all that different from a list I might make for adult classes. Does this mean the children will master each of these things?…
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Skills and experiences for 1st-2nd Grade Dalcroze: Movement (Part 1 of 4)
The focus for this list is movement. In each Dalcroze class, I give a short warm-up at the beginning. The focus is usually on some kind of movement technique, and I often use the warm-up to provide an introduction to the musical subject of the day (for example beat and division, syncopation, simple triple meter,…
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Letter to 1st and 2nd Grade Families
note: here’s an end-of-the-year summary for the families of my 1st and 2nd grade Dalcroze classes. I refer to a list of skills and experiences. It’s a bit long for a post, but if you are intersested, I’m happy to send you a copy. Dear 1st and 2nd grade families, The 1st and 2nd grade…
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Meter
Part of a series of posts on the ‘musical subjects‘ I am working with in my classrooms and thinking about as a musician and teacher. I often turn to Walter Piston when I want some inspiration for teaching or for my own practice. Here’s what he says about meter in his book, “Counterpoint”: “In itself,…
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Subdivision, Simple Meter
Note: this is the first in a series of posts about the musical subjects I am working with in my classrooms and thinking about as a teacher and musician. If I continue long enough, I’ll eventually index and categorize them. Each one will include a subject, some notes, descriptions of some activities and some target…
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Guided Improvisation Sessions
As we returned to (mostly) in-person teaching and learning, I found myself wondering if I could create a short class that would actually work best remotely. I thought about things the internet does well, like encouraging a feeling of connectedness while simultaneously allowing users to be completely isolated. To exploit this paradox, I began teaching…
Writing about music and music education from a Dalcroze perspective: