Michael Joviala

Musical Subjects

  • 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 Tuesday Dalcroze group came a long way this year. Dalcroze learning is based on the accumulation of musical experience. We move, sing, play games and use our imaginations for 45 (or fewer!) minutes per week. In a music conservatory like Diller Quaile, a portion of that time is spent relating their experiences to skills, knowledge and understanding they will need as they learn their instruments. However, children especially will have a hard time explaining exactly what they learned or even did. I’ve attached a long list of skills and experiences they have had this year, but even I am overwhelmed by looking at it! We did all that?! Wow. It’s important to remember that the kids may have not, say, completely mastered the concept of meter, but they can probably perform a requested action (a jump, for example) on the first beat of a measure, even when the music changes between meters. They may not be able to explain what the difference between consonance and dissonance is just yet, but they have created shapes with their bodies to express the differences, which are all too apparent to them even at this young age. It’s best to keep that in mind when looking at the list of skills and experiences that I culled from my record of lesson plans for the year. It’s just a beginning.

    Demonstration classes are the most effective way to understand what goes on in a Dalcroze class, but those were difficult this year because of COVID, so here’s a description of a typical class. Hopefully that will give you a context through which to understand the larger list of skills and experiences.

    I like to start my classes with a physical warm-up, and I love to do it with them. Their class is at the end of the day, and I imagine they need to be grounded in their bodies as much as I do. For each class, I choose a movement subject, a rhythm subject and a pitch subject. I don’t always get to each, but that is the goal. (To make it easier, I sometimes try to kill two birds with one stone!) In this class, from week 19, my movement subject was isolations (i.e. moving a single part of the body by itself), meter and basic vocal exploration. Here’s what we did.

    I began by putting on some music by a young jazz vibraphonist I like named Joel Ross. This week there was nothing definite they were supposed to hear in the music, but I hoped it was set a tone of focused, creative curiosity. I began by slowly moving a single part of my body (maybe an arm, my shoulder, a foot), and gave them the direction, “Move a different part of your body at the same tempo.” When they got the idea, I let different students lead. After a while, I switched the directions: “Move the same part of your body at a different tempo.” I had a couple goals in mind. One was to expand their movement vocabulary. This can be accomplished by watching others, and perhaps by moving, say, an arm much more slowly than they are accustomed to. The other goal was to work with the concept of tempo.

    After the movement warm-up, I usually move into the rhythm subject, which often calls for more specific kinds of movement. Today the subject was meter (regular groupings of 2, 3 or 4 beats). An important musical skill is being able to keep track of the first beat of the measure, even if the groupings change. First we sat, and we tapped the floor on count 1, and the remaining beats of the measure we clapped silently. At first I called out the number of beats, but soon I was just playing on the drum as they followed the changes. When they could do this well, I switched to the piano. After they mastered this, I asked them to step only on count 1 and clap the remaining beats. It’s challenging for this age to take a single step and hold it while doing something else. By this point in the year, though, they were getting better at these kinds of activities.

    This is a very focused activity, and when I begin something like this, I know I will have to end it soon and give them something much freer. So our next movement game is what we call a “reaction” game. They were asked to move to music that suggested walking, running, skipping, lunging, etc. and at the signal (“hop”), they were to stop and clap four beats. This also gives them an experience of meter, but now I can change the tempo, the style, the dynamics, etc. to give them the experience of lots of difference kinds of music. If they are very good at this, we can alternate between stopping and clapping 4, then hopping 4, and perhaps more. This helps build their musical memories and powers of focus while still moving with joy and abandon (hopefully!).

    After all this, they earned a rest. We melted down to the floor and allowed bodies to succumb fully to gravity. I typically have a moment in each class like this to allow body and mind to recuperate. At this point in a class I will often bring them up to sitting for some board work to tie in whatever experience we’ve had to notation or terminology. This time, however, because the subject was somewhat a review, I chose to move into a bit of vocal exploration. Many of the kids are a bit shy to sing. This has been an increasing trend over the past 10 years or so, and I am at a loss to explain why. To help them to loosen up their voices a bit, I pretended to shoot a basketball, and asked them to use their voices to trace the arc of the ball, gliding up and down. I then asked students to lead this as well.

    We ended with an improvisation. I told them I would answer any question they asked, as long as they asked it with their singing voice. (This was a follow-up from the week before, in which I had sung them questions like, “What did you have for breakfast?” in a singing voice, and asked them to sing their answers back. I remember this having the desired effect. They forgot they were singing and got interested in things they could ask me. I moved on from this type of exploration after this class, but I now wish I had returned to it. I think it was paying off!

    And that’s a class! We sometimes end with a song, but not this time. 40 minutes goes by pretty quickly! By the end of the year the class was working well as a group. They had made progress in using their bodies effectively and creatively in many musical ways and I was really enjoying their ever-emerging personalities. Never a dull moment! I wish you all a good summer and hope to be able to work with your children again. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have about our work.

    take care,

    Michael Joviala

  • 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, meter has no rhythm. It is simply a means of measuring music, principally for purposes of keeping time, and as an aid in playing or singing together in ensemble music.” (Walter Piston, Counterpoint. Norton, 1947. pg. 26.)

    This rings true to me. The language of meter—that of an accountant or an actuarial—gives it away. We count, we measure, we create bars and lines. Piston provides easy and obvious examples of music in which the melodic and harmonic rhythm do not agree with the grid on the page. For me the point is not that meter really exists only on the page, rather it is something we can feel as a living thing. It should be as flexible, responsive and alive as a beating heart.

    In groove-based music such as jazz there is no other way to do it other than to feel it. Once you feel a regular grouping of beats into, say, three or four, there is nothing more to ‘measure’. The cycle of the meter in groove and dance based music is so much more than an ‘aid to playing or singing together’, though it certainly is that, too. Each beat has the potential to contain whatever can be imagined in time, with it’s own function in the cycle.

    In the classroom, I find myself working with meter in ways that I don’t have to with other rhythmic phenomena such as beat, division of the beat or syncopation. I’ve never taught anyone to synchronize to a beat. I have simply set up the conditions in which this primal human behavior can take place. Not so with meter. For children (and even many adults) synchronizing an action to different parts of a measure takes effort, understanding, practice and often patience.

    With children, the first thing I want to know is whether or not they can detect the regular, recurring grouping of beats into meter. Do they notice when this grouping changes, say, from four to three? Though I do not have any proof of this, I suspect they can feel metrical differences long before they can articulate them. This is why I like to slip different beat groupings under their basic locomotor movements. I’ll let them walk or even skip in 3 once in a while and watch them. They will sometimes look at me to see what I’m up to. Often, they’ll subtly change the way they are moving to reflect what they are hearing. Those are special moments!

    By the time they are a little older (say 5 or 6 years), I can begin to get them to synchronize to specific parts of the measure. This week I (somewhat spontaneously) told a story about 3 spare parts in a warehouse that decided to find a way to work together. (One child did not understand the idea of ‘parts’ so it was not entirely successful!) In groups of 3 they assigned themselves an order and created their own movement possibilities. I improvised music with nothing but three grouped beats. As they gradually found a groove, I began to play more ‘naturally’, stretching phrases over the bar lines, adding longer durations to the melody here and there. For some groups, I even slipped in a bit of the Bach Minuet in G that many of them have heard. My 3rd-5th graders are comfortable enough with the concept of groupings of beats that we were able to explore meters of 5 in different combinations this past week (3+2 and 2+3). They were able to toss and catch stuffed bears (the balls were missing, so I had to improvise!) in groups of two and three.

    For older kids, especially those that have had lessons, I also try to connect the work to the time signatures they encounter in their music books. I try to loosen the vice grip the quarter note has as representative of the beat. Any note value can be a beat after all, so I am careful with my language, “One way of writing the beat is with a quarter note, etc.” Children are taught to say that the quarter note ‘gets’ the beat. I am not at all convinced that this has lived meaning for most children and even many adults. I know it doesn’t for me. Why should a quarter note ‘get’ anything? If anything, it should be the reverse: the beat should get the quarter note as choosen by the one notating (the composer, the arranger).

    When I stepped into a Dalcroze class for the first time, meter had long since calcified into ‘time signature’, a thing I ‘knew’ all about. Irregular meters perhaps could command my attention, but certainly I had long since mastered everything there was to know about 4/4. The power of creative, purposeful movement helped create a sense of mystery around this most basic subject for me that continues to unfold to this day, and that is something I hope to do for others as well as in my work with adults. The usual oversimplification applies here: the kids can feel it but can’t explain it, the adults can explain it but can’t feel it.

    If I seem wary of this subject, well, it’s because I am. I notice that I emphasize it much less in my work with young people than I did when I first started teaching, perhaps because I am so aware of things I have needed to unlearn. I’ll give Emile Jaques-Dalcroze the last word on the subject for now:

    “… the metric tradition kills every spontaneous agogic impulse, every artistic expression of emotion by means of time nuances. The composer who is obliged to bend his inspiration to the inflexible laws of symmetry in time-lengths comes gradually to modify his instinctive rhythms, with a view to unity of measure, and finishes by conceiving only rhythms of a conventional time-pattern.” (Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Rhythm, Music and Education. p.185.)

    Related posts for personal practice:

    Triple and quadruple time

    Changing Meter: Reaction Game

  • 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 skills for different educational contexts, of course with an eye to Dalcroze practice.

    Notes:

    In music education we talk of dividing and subdividing the beat. But when I play, I don’t really think of dividing anything. It feels more like simply playing faster or slower and often in the context of the prevailing beat and tempo. Dividing is a physical act: we divide a pie into pieces. Or it’s a calculation: everybody gets two pieces. But I don’t really experience those aspects in time, as such.

    Though the metaphor of division is strained, I still use it since it is so widespread. I say division (in both simple and compound meters) to mean a primary level (e.g. 2 eighth notes with a quarter note beat) and subdivision to mean a secondary level (e.g. 4 sixteenth notes with a quarter note beat). (A quirk I picked up from my colleague, Jeremy Dittus, in his quest for specificity!)

    Subdivisions in music are often too fast to move by stepping. They can be performed by speaking or with smaller body parts like fingers.

    Children can experience subdivisions as a single event, lasting a beat, or as a continuous event, that is, a kind of continuous shift. Even young children are very sensitive to this. I can see by the way they respond that when I play with subdivisions the music feels faster to them. It is, but technically, as long as there hasn’t been a tempo change at the beat level, it actually isn’t! I look for ways to draw this truth out.

    Even the young can hear one set of subdivisions if played the right way. The easiest way to test this is to play an inhibition game: they move with the music when they hear one set of subdivisions, and hold when they hear another set, toggling back and forth. (I avoid saying ‘freeze dance’, which has become popular because I don’t want them to freeze, just hold themselves still.) By changing the character, tempo, style, mood of the music the game does not become tiring. The children can even suggest ways to move, though at some point you will have to ask someone for “a slow way”. I imagine that even youngest children, can feel the relationships between beat and subdivision when we do this. There will be plenty of time to articulate it later when their math skills have caught up. Hopefully I am making the lives of their private teachers and band directors that much easier when they begin to encounter “1-ee-and-ah” in their written music. Older children (late elementary) love this game, too. They love to be right, and they love to detect things according to rules. This gives them both plus the opportunity to stand still, which they value much more than their younger counterparts.

    To introduce the subject to my early and late elementary classes, I used the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 1, whose theme is built on a very declaratory 1-3-5 statement, ending with two sets of subdivisions. I gave the kids a movement task (“find joints in your body and move and mirror your partner”). I asked them to change partners whenever the theme appears, which provided some hilarity as the theme kind sticks out like a sore thumb each time. (Give him a break — he was nine when he wrote it!) I wish the theme emerged just a bit more for this purpose, but if was fun anyway and primed them to listen for both subdivisions and the major tonic triad.

    Target Skills:

    Early Elementary:

    • Recognize one set
    • experience as continuous event
    • associate with
      • a rhythmic language
      • notation in simple meter, with quarter note beat
    • create patterns
    • improvise with

    Late Elementary (all the above plus):

    • Understand the relationship to the beat and division
    • Perform on command in movement that travels and movement in place
    • notate in at least two different meters
    • read patterns

  • 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 series of guided improvisation in short series from time to time.

    The idea is simple. Much like a guided meditation session, participants will use a series of instructions to lead them through an open improvisation session. Each participant will be muted, free to make as much or as little sound as they like. The instructions will appear on the screen as prompts. I’ll be playing, too. You’ll have the option of turning up the sound to see how I am interpreting the prompts, or you can keep me muted as you like. At the end, we will have a brief discussion, during which you can share experiences, ask questions or ask to practice something specific with me.

    The sessions are open to any instrument, including voice, and can even be adapted for movement. Though it is probably not suitable for complete instrumental beginners, complete beginners to improvisation are welcome. The prompts will contain a mix of very open and very specific, so even experienced improvisers should have plenty of inspiration.

    Each class will be unique. To prepare for the classes, I notice things I do when I improvise freely or I explore themes that call out to me. I’ve created the instructions out of things I find myself doing when I play alone. The prompt might be very specifc: “Play and hold a single tone; Keep imagining it while you play the next one.” Or very open: “Play a rhythm you would not easily be able to write down.” Though we might have time to practice a bit during the discussion, the overall goal is for each person to connect to their artistic selves through the experience and discipline of in-the-moment-composition, otherwise known as improvisation. After the class, I send you notes and the powerpoint slides.

    I used this format in a recent class for the Dalcroze Society of America as part of their Dalcroze Lab series. You can actually view a recording of that class here (note: there is a charge for this).

    Please join me and spread the word. Classes will meet on Saturday between 1:00-1:45pm Eastern on January 23rd through February 25th, 2023. Drop-ins are welcome at $10 per session, or you can pay for 5 classes. Respond to the contact form on this page, and I’ll send you the information. You can also visit the classes page here, which I’ve also updated to include the upcoming Dalcroze and Dalcroze teacher-training classes at the Kaufman Music Center.

  • Improvisation Workshop: Finding Your Sound

    Ever hear some music, maybe a jazz pianist who has a great command of the instrument, or a piece by Debussy that seems to take wing, and think, “If only I could improvise like that!” I have felt that many times, and I still enjoy trying to capture and take inspiration from the sounds created by others. But more and more I am coming to value a regular practice of listening to myself and finding my own sounds. In fact, these two pursuits are not separate.

    On Saturday, May 15th, I’ll be giving a workshop for the New York Chapter of the Dalcroze Society of America. As the pandemic hopefully begins to wind down in the United States, I am as eager as anyone else to get back into the classroom with students again. The heart of our work doesn’t exist in online teaching. But while we are still in this moment, I wondered if I could offer something that would only be possible by teaching online, with the participants isolated from one another. I realized it would be an opportunity to lead people through a personal investigation of this process, which is really best explored in one’s own practice studio.

    So this workshop will be somewhat unusual. I won’t be playing or offering any musical material to work with. We won’t be playing together. Instead, I’ve designed it as a guided personal improvisation and practice session that will be unique to each individual. The objective will be to strengthen your connection to yourself and the music that only you can make.

    You can register for this workshop here, and I’ve included the information I sent to the chapter below.

    Improvisation Workshop: Finding Your Sound

    What is your sound as an improviser? Having your own unique sound is one of the highest aspirations shared by jazz musicians, but it’s also something that improvisers of all stripes and genres can benefit from, especially those who, like Dalcrozians, teach through the medium of improvisation.

    During this session we’ll both improvise and listen to ourselves improvising. As we play (players of any instrument, including voice or movement, at any level of musical and improvisational experience are welcome), we’ll explore the difference between improvising and practicing improvisation. We’ll work with our spontaneous reactions to what we hear, think and feel when we improvise and when we hear ourselves improvising. We’ll talk about ways to sustain this practice beyond this workshop (how does 5 minutes a day sound?) with a goal of strengthening your connection to yourself as a creative artist, whether you are in the classroom or on the concert stage.

    Nervous about improvising in front of other people? Not a problem for this workshop. Sound (and cameras for movers) will  be turned off as you improvise while I guide you through the process. We’ll come together as a group to share experiences and gain inspiration from each other.

    For full participation, workshop attendees should have access to a space in which they feel free to make as much sound (or movement) as they wish, uninterrupted and unencumbered. They should also have the ability to record and listen to themselves while also participating online.

  • 5

    Measures of 5 are most often broken up into groups of 3’s and 2’s. (The classic model is Brubeck’s “Take Five”.) In this activity, I play with length and placement of those groupings. The simplest way to interact with the recording here would simply be to step on 1. Better yet, move the entire length of the measure taking full advantage of the space around you (up, down, sides, diagonals, etc.)

    You’ll hear me call out numbers. For a further challenge, as you step on 1 acknowledge the number I call (2, 3, 4 or 5) with a hand clap, a tap on a drum, or maybe even a toss of a scarf. Want more fun? Use a balloon. 🙂 If using the scarf, aim to catch it on the next downbeat. (This might take some practice for some of the numbers.)

    Here’s the recording:

    Have fun!

  • Changing Beat

    I am playing in a measure of 2 or a duple meter. Here we play with beats of 2, 3 and 4 divisions. I start with 3, which I am playing with a swing feel on the recording. At “hip,” I take a way a division (e.g. 3 divisions becomes 2), at “hop,” I add one (e.g. 3 divisions becomes 4). “Return” signals a change back to 3. It could be notated in 6/8 with a dotted quarter beat for “3”; 2/4 with a quarter note beat for “2”, and 2/2 with a half note beat (and eight note subdivision) for “4”. The eighth note is kept at a constant tempo–or at least that is my intention! This is known as a “quick reaction” game in Dalcroze parlance. In this case, the signal is verbal (they can also be visual, musical or tactile).

    Follow along by stepping the beat and clapping the division. For more fun, try bouncing and catching a ball on the beat. Bounce from one hand and catch to the other, alternating hands each time. It becomes a study in the relationship between time, space and energy.

  • Musical Subject: Beat

    I enjoy working with the subject of ‘beat’. The phenomenon itself is so fundamental it can be a challenge to define it. It’s like asking, “What is air?” We can all produce a quasi-scientific definition of the air we breathe, but our experience of it could not be more fundamental to our existence. Yet it is very difficult to capture this experience with words. It is the same thing with ‘beat’.

    The definition of the word itself is slippery. Older children or adults more oriented to popular music are likely to associate the word with drum patterns. Classical musicians who primarily learn music through notation tend to associate the word ‘beat’ with groupings of beats, i.e. time signature or meter. Jazz musicians relate the concept of beat to a player’s sense of “time”: one’s personal style might be associated with being “ahead of the beat” or “behind the beat”.

    Like many fundamental motor experiences, people can’t really be taught to feel a beat in music any more than they can be taught to walk, ride a bike or skip. We can “teach” by setting up the right conditions for it to happen naturally, but I do think the we have to say “teach” in this case. With the Dalcroze approach, based on teaching through direct experience, I feel comfortable removing the scare quotes from the word.

    When I begin to plan a lesson related to this subject, I ask myself, “What are some things musicians need to be able to do with a beat?” The list is long and varied, but it might include things like:

    • Maintain a steady tempo
    • Change the speed (slowly, suddenly, just a little bit, a lot…)
    • Change the quality (light, heavy, in between…)
    • Feel it when it is not being overtly expressed
    • Recognize when there is no beat (recitative, for example)
    • Follow a conductor
    • Lead an ensemble
    • Return to an original or previous tempo

    This is just a start, but even with this list I can begin to imagine what we can do together to immerse students of any age and background into direct experience. For young children, I will look for ways to elicit the target behavior (e.g. speeding up, slowing down, returning to an original tempo) and let the music follow them. Images and stories are very helpful. The cat prowls, slows down, stops to pounce, etc. Older children can be asked to synchronize their movement to the music they hear. I aim to give them more responsibility, though. Once they are moving at my tempo, I’ll gradually give them more space, forcing them to take charge in maintaining the tempo. Students of all ages can lead an ensemble or partner (or even myself at the piano) in tempo changes of all kinds, as well as fermatas and ceasuras. The possibilities are endless, which can make choosing specific activities for a lesson overwhelming. (It’s the same problem you might have with an empty plate at a buffet.) I try to remind myself that these are foundational skills that will be revisited time and again under the auspices of many other related musical subjects: divisions of the beat, dynamics, tempo, meter and all the rest.

    This is an example of a playlist I have to explore this subject with students of all ages. In some selections the beat is very strong and clear, in others almost totally obscured (but still present).

    What would you put on your ‘beat’ playlist?

  • Changing meter: Reaction game

    Note: This part of a series of posts for adults interesting in practicing eurhythmics on their own.

    The following is a known as “Quick Reaction Game” in Dalcroze parlance. In a quick reaction game, participants respond to a signal (auditory (musical or non-musical), visual, verbal or tactile). In this case, the subject is “Changing Meter”. See the instructions below for suggestions on how to use the lo-fi home recording I made. Better yet, make up your own variation!

    Divisions of 2 on the last beat of the measure call for duple meter (e.g., 2/4); divisions of 3 call for triple meter (e.g.. 3/4); divisions of 4 call for quadruple meter (e.g., 4/4). Suggestions: gesture the measure freely; step the beat or measure and conduct; toss a scarf on 1, catching it on the last beat of the measure; clap the measure and step the beat, or the reverse, being careful to use space to express the measure grouping.

  • 7-9 Year-old Dalcroze: April

    Life caught up with me in April, so this is the first update for class activities in over a month. Here is a brief list of some of the things we have explored and games we have played over the past several weeks:

    • Toss the bean bag on the high note.
      • Kids hear melodic patterns in 4/4 time. Each pattern consists of quarter notes with a high note falling on beat 1, 2, 3 or 4. They walk and toss on the high note. Challenging for most. We spent some time in the beginning exploring things to do with a bean bag that can match specific tempo and dynamics requirements.
    • Lead your partner through touch.
      • Partners work to develop a set of signals to guide their partner around the room. Signals can include direction, starting/stopping, tempo, etc. I encouraged them to talk as little as possible. Pairs demonstrated for the group. The group attempted to discern and describe the signals they saw.
    • Movement Concertos
      • The student with a bean bag moves as she likes, the piano follows her with a single voice. When the piano plays with many voices, the entire class joins in the same movement. The children are encouraged to use a wide variety of tempo and dynamics as I attempt to mimic concerto form and style in my improvisation.
    • Improvisation with rhythm cards.
      • Partners sit across from each other. A holds up rhythm card, B plays rhythm following whenever A changes. All partners perform simultaneously.
        • variation: One student conducts for dynamics.
    • Metrical scarf toss
      • Quick reaction: step the beat and toss the scarf on the 2nd beat of a 4/4 measure if I call “2”, etc. (Students are hearing dotted quarters on their toss as I play.)
    • Dotted Quarter Quick reaction
      • Walk with a partner linking arms. When you hear a dotted quarter + eighth, change directions with your partner.
      • Walk alone. At “hop”, take one step backwards. (“hop” coincides with a dotted quarter + eighth.)
    • Pattern + soloist, improvisation
      • Group plays a pattern, one soloist is free to play as she likes. (All have percussion instruments.) We experimented with the form of this one, and really practiced listening for dynamics and responsiveness to the soloist.

    Those are a few of our greatest hits. I’ll give you one more update at the end of the year, which is coming up fast. Happy Memorial Day! Always interested in your thoughts and comments.

    Michael