Articles about Dalcroze pedagogy organized by age.
Early Childhood:
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Reinforcing the Classwork at Home
The Dalcroze classes are now in full swing (ok, pun intended), and the kids have heard and experienced music with a variety of tempos, rhythms, and dynamics. They have been encouraged to express those changes in movement. Children naturally learn in many different ways. Some like to watch in class and ‘do’ at home. Some…
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For Parents: Classes for 4-5 year-olds
Parent: “What did you do in class today?”Child: “I was a cat.”Parent: “Oh.” It is difficult for young children to express exactly what they are ‘learning’ in a Dalcroze classroom. What happens in the room after we take off our socks and shoes and close the door? Of course, in the mind of the child…
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Curriculum Focus: Attention
One of the most important aspects of the Dalcroze work is the training and development of attention. There are many different forms of attention: focused, sustained, selective, divided, alternating have been identified by motor learning researchers. Like many other motor activities, music utilizes all of them, and in the Dalcroze class we attempt to foster the…
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Exploring Meter
A primary focus areas in the beginning of the year is the subject of meter (with subtle differences this is also known as ‘measure’ and ‘time signature’). Meter can be defined as the grouping of beats into 2’s, 3’s and 4’s. (They can be larger, too!) Usually the first beat of the group is felt…
Early elementary:
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7-9 year-old Dalcroze: 3/21/17
What can you do with 4 spots? The question is quite open, but the kids took it in the spirit intended (uses were restricted to ways to arrange and move through them). Here are some of the ways they discovered, and questions they explored: arrange in square, step only on the spots what’s the difference…
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7-9 year-old Dalcroze: 3/28/17
Here’s what we did: Tempo and dynamics Follow ( 2 dotted quarters, 3 eighths, 1 dotted quarter) In this classic Dalcroze exercise, the class moves a pattern through a variety of tempo and dynamics changes. The three eighths required us to develop some technique, as the students found it difficult to run for three and…
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7-9 Year-old Dalcroze, 4/4/17
This week’s activities: We first reviewed the notation and language for some basic rhythms for compound (ternary) meter: dotted quarters, 3 eighth notes, quarter-eighth. I put the symbols on the board, and asked one student to stand in front of the one he/she wanted to hear and see moved. After this quick reaction game, I…
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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…
Late elementary:
Adult
note: during the pandemic, when we were looking for ways to keep ourselves moving, I made some posts for adults to practice their eurhythmics skills. For more about teaching Dalcroze to adults, view ‘by subject‘.