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 the most important thing we did probably was that he became a cat. And not just any cat, but one who plays, prowls, chases mice and catches one for dinner. The class attempts to take every possible advantage of a child’s passion for drama and role-play. While he was busy being a cat, he was also moving to music that moved very softly (the prowl), music that moved very quickly and lightly (the chase), and music that slowly crescendo-ed to a loud accent (the pounce).
Experiences like these are meant to align the child’s sense of music with the way she naturally moves. This will, hopefully, inform the way she perceives and responds to music, and the way she might engage a musical instrument.
In a eurhythmics class sound equals movement, and vice versa. Many initial experiences are meant to help the student begin to discover this for himself. The child may hear music that walks, runs, skips, gallops or marches. Most children do not need to be asked to move appropriately to what they hear – it is often their natural impulse to do so. To give them a more personal experience, the students also are given opportunities each week to have the piano match as closely as possible their own improvised movement. You can try this at home. Put on music that walks, runs, skips, sneaks, slides, rolls, marches… and see what your child does!
In the first semester, the 4-5 year-old groups will have classes built around basic oppositions: slow and fast, long and short, heavy and light, for example. In the first 30 minutes of class, we experience the subject in as many ways as possible: songs, stories, and games requiring the students to follow changes in what they hear on the piano or drum. In the last 15 minutes, the students might have opportunities to create the music themselves. For example, if they have experienced soft walking and loud pouncing, individual students can try these sounds out on the drum while the class responds to what they hear. Or student conductors will create gestures for loud and soft, while the class responds on percussion instruments.
Leave a Reply