17th Oct
Sensation before Conceptualization
Dalcroze Eurhythmics teaches concepts of rhythm, structure, and musical expression through movement. It focuses on the physical awareness and music experience through kinesthetic training.
It’s important to practice these exercises with music, especially with a musician playing live alongside. Unfortunately, we have no access to them(or online Dalcroze practice music), so we practised along with the lessons on YouTube (that mostly focused on rhythm).
This was my first time getting in touch with this practice, and I felt a new connection between the body, to the ear and to the music. I feel like I’ve learned more about myself through processing the rhythm, interacting with others, and discovering a new artistic language to understand music and physical expression. Music is no longer just cerebral but an experience that can be temporarily grasped. Echoing back to Meredith Monk’s: Dancing Voice, Singing Bodies. As an art practitioner, It’s about the exploration of oneself, finding artistic solutions and realizing the full spectrum of one’s expression.
The Moving Body in the Aural Skills Classroom
Movement to music stimulates all the capacities we use to engage in music: the aural, visual, tactile, and muscular senses; our reasoning faculties; and our ability to feel and to act on our feelings. This is one reason that movement to music is such a powerful pedagogical tool. Furthermore, the approach cultivates an active, cooperative learning environment, in which students learn by experimentation and from each other.
The first exercise:
The second:
The third: