Category: Dalcroze For Children

Spinning Kids of a certain age often like to spin when they come into a classroom. I’ll leave it to the psychologists to explain why, but sometimes I’ll start where they are. So today I began to play music that matched their spinning. I gradually changed the music and pointed out that it no longer…

Here is our first class of the New Year: If I move, students are still. When I stop, students move freely. Simple instructions (affectionately known as ‘opposite day’), but devilishly hard to execute for this age. The urge to mirror is very strong in us. I made my phrases in tempo and predictable. Each student…

Here’s what we did: All move freely; I choose one person’s movement to play after which the class guesses who I was playing. This was by request. I like this game because it encourages the kids to move in their own way. Make a shape with 3 or 4 people. Simple instructions, but took them…

Back Telephone The traditional game of telephone (whisper a phrase around the circle and see if it comes back the same) only with rhythms gently tapped on the back. We tried 2 rhythms and both came back perfectly. I used the second rhythm to introduce the 4 sixteenth note rhythm (known at Lucy Moses as…

7-9 Year-old Dalcroze; 11/22/16 Make a shape with curves. Make a shape with straight lines. This seemingly simple direction was first intended to be a physical warm-up. As I watched their choices, I began to play accompanying chords: towards dissonance for the curvy, and towards consonant for the straight-line shapes. After a time, I stopped…

This weeks activities: Move to the music. At signal, stop and clap 4 times. At next signal, stop and pat knees 4 times. Continue to alternate at each signal. This is a continuation of the same game we played last week, with an added challenge: keeping track of a past event. 1 voice/2 voices: walk…

Here’s what we did this week… Move to the music; when the music stops, stop and clap 4 times. I had to tweak the directions to this until the music felt right to me. In the past, I have made it work with a signal (usually a high accented note from the piano). It ended…

We had a long break (4 weeks) after only a few classes. It was as if we had just seen each other last week, though. Here’s what we did: Warm-up: A group of children stand throughout the room. They cannot move unless they have the magic ball. The ball only retains its power if it…

The 4:45 group (7-9 year-olds) had their best session yet. Here’s what we did: Explore ways to walk (heels, toes, sideways, large steps, small steps, through molasses, without picking up your feet, etc.) Sometimes at this age, creativity can take a back seat for a while as skill mastery moves to the fore. In this…