Interview with Jennifer Undercofler, director of Face the Music

Posted on March 22, 2012 by TriState Dalcroze

On March 25th, The TriState Chapter presented its spring workshop, “Kids and New Music: A Dalcroze Master Class”, at the Lucy Moses School for Music and Dance from 2:30 – 5:30. Anne Farber and I led the workshop together with Jennifer Undercofler, director of the teen new music ensemble called Face the Music.

Anne led us in a fun canon in 5 that challenged us to hold on to a strong internal pulse through tempo changes, rests and movement. I led the group through rhythm patterns inspired by Dave Brubeck’s Blue Rondo a la Turk, a wonderful piece full of changing beat patterns in 9/8. My sequence culminated in improvisation over the blues chord progression a la Brubeck. All of our work was in service of the ensemble’s performance of Steve Reich’s Double Sextet, an extremely challenging piece the kids have been working on. The afternoon concluded with a full performance. Bravo to all! Pictures coming soon on Flickr.

Prior to the workshop, I spoke Ms. Undercofler about her work with the ensemble. The interview follows.

See you in June for our final presentation, the return of the annual Songshare, this year at the home of Sara Bonsignore. Enjoy the spring!

Michael Joviala

President, TriState DSA

Michael: What was the inspiration for the ensemble?

Jenny: Face the Music was something that I started in my second year at Special Music School because I was very inspired by the kid’s level of dedication to practicing their instruments, but I was struck by the fact that they weren’t doing much music by people who were living. I kind of started it as an experiment to see if anyone would sign up, and 8 kids signed up. It went along for a couple of years. We did some open instrumentation pieces. By the third year, I picked a piece that I liked that had a certain instrumentation. It was Michael Gordon’s Yo Shakespeare. I knew it would be too hard for the kids, but I didn’t know how excited they would be by it. It then went from being something kind of recreational to something kind of serious because we ended up having to put in some serious rehearsal time to get ready for a particular concert. The group has grown because the kids have been ambitious about what they want to try to do. It’s been really exciting.

M: What is it that’s so exciting for them about this?

J:  I think they have more of a sense of ownership working on music by living composers than they do with music by dead composers. It’s also the music itself. They feel like they have a say in what we play. I think the music has a sound that is more contemporary to them, and I think that is motivating. They know that they are the only ones of their kind for miles around, so there is a certain kind of pride in being a new music ensemble

that’s doing all this cool stuff. So there’s a group identity that has built up as well.

M: I’m sure. How much of a say do they have in choosing the music?

J: They have some. I try to take cues from pieces that they like and find things in a similar vein, or something that will stretch them a little farther in that direction. Sometimes I’ll run things by certain members of the ensemble who have been members for a while. Honestly, I do most of the repertoire picking. If they have composers that they are interested in doing, I’ll go see what I can find.

M: And who are their favorite composers?

J: Well, Steve Reich is definitely one of them. They also like this Dutch composer Jacob TV, and Michael Gordon remains a favorite. We played Yo Shakespeare to death, put it away, and now they want to play it again.

M: And have they met any of these composers?

J: Yes. They haven’t met every single person whose music we played, but they’ve certainly met the vast majority of them.

M: What are some of the typical musical challenges that this type of music

presents?

J: There is a level of rhythmic challenge that is higher in most contemporary music than you would find if you just pulled out a, say, Beethoven sonata. We are often dealing with polyrhythms, and music that has a fair amount of rhythmic complexity between parts. And this isn’t even in music that is particularly ‘uptown’. But what’s surprising is that this is usually the easy part. Kids adapt to that level of difficulty pretty quickly. They don’t sit there in fear because they don’t see a whole bunch of bars in 4/4. What’s difficult is probably common to all literature, it just takes a little longer to get there with contemporary music: how do you go from what’s on the page to a convincing performance? And what is that going to require of the group: anything from dealing with bizarre equipment issues, to composers who write things that are so technically difficult for the instruments that the tempos they set don’t actually work.

M: I’m wondering if, being young, they might have fewer preconceptions about

what music should be than older people?

J:  It’s a double-edged sword. Young people are much more open-minded. By the time you’ve gotten a degree in music, your mind has been formed in certain ways. These guys don’t have any of that. We never have questions about whether this is legitimate music or not. They’re game for it. But kids’ hearts beat faster, and I have a hard time with them when we play slower music! When they have not liked pieces, it’s either that maybe the piece doesn’t really stand up to the highest possible standard, or the piece is just too contemplative, or maybe the pulse isn’t that evident. So I have to be careful how much of that stuff I give to them. That’s just an age thing.

M:  Well I’m guessing that there’s a lack of life experience that maybe makes some pieces more difficult for them.

J:  Yes. I had Brooklyn conductor and cellist Eric Jacobsen come in and work with the

kids on a piece by Osvaldo Golijov that his group (The Knights) have recorded, called Last Round. They have been having serious tempo issues with this piece, and part of it is that my and the kid’s conceptions of what the tempo should be were very different. And Eric identified the problem right away because he is halfway between their age and my age. He told the kids that their sense of tempo is en route to my sense of tempo. I am totally convinced that it does slow down with age!

M:  So, these kids, though they are not exclusively from the Special Music School, are all musically gifted and highly trained. Do you think this kind of ensemble could work with kids who are more typical for their age and development?

J:  I think so. We have the luxury of being able to tackle professional level pieces

like the Double Sextet. When I first started the group, I looked for things that required little or no practicing and that didn’t have specific instrumental requirements. I started to get fairly familiar with that body of literature. My feeling is that it can be done on a fairly basic level. You could do this with kids who are at a fairly basic playing level, and you could also get them to write for each other as well.

M:  That’s a great idea.

J:  As long as you are willing to take what the kids come up with and turn it into something that is really playable. There would be a little bit of work involved in that. But, yes, I think it could be done, and in fact that is one of my ultimate goals, to see if we can have more of this. It feels like something that should be going on more. Every major American city should have one or two Face the Music’s. It’s been ridiculously easy. Of course there have been challenges, but getting kids to do it has been easy.

M:  From an audience-building standpoint, it makes a lot of sense for composers to write for ensembles like this. The orchestra audiences are getting older, and it makes sense to build this kind of excitement from the ground up.

J:  Absolutely. When the kids interact with the composers there is the feeling of it being a living art form, and that it’s worth going to a concert because you want to keep up with what’s new. And that’s a totally different vantage point from going to a concert that you already have a CD of. Your experience of that piece is not going to change that much. It’s just a different attitude toward audience building.

M:  At the workshop we will be working with Steve Reich’s Double Sextet. It’s a particularly challenging piece. How are the kids doing with it?

J:  They’re doing well. The basic level of challenge is that the meters keep changing. The pianists and vibraphone players have a lot if notes, and the vibraphone and string players have a lot of counting. The assembly part of it is one level of challenge. I don’t want to jinx it, but I think that we do have it assembled. But now, just like we were saying before, the question is how do you turn it into a piece. One of the challenges is about feeling the energy, feeling the tempo in the long notes, and having it be something that the group feels collectively as opposed to just from the vantage point of each one’s own part. Another thing we’re having difficulty with is that Reich actually asks that the string players not vibrate. And it’s really hard not to vibrate. When you want energy on the long notes, one of the first things a string player will want to do is vibrate. That’s something we’re trying to work out of the piece and it’s hard. Another issue that has come up is that in all three movements he has a long note with an accent on the attack, and then an accent on the lift. It’s written the same way in the second movement, and yet the character is not the same. It’s the same idea, and yet if you do it the same way in the second movement it just sounds wrong. Again it’s a matter of how you make it work musically. How do you differentiate between kinds of lifts.

M: Right. There’s no notational difference, but the feeling is different.

J: Yes. The context is different. The last thing is that we are having issues with endurance. Particularly the keyboard players and vibraphonists. Not even the physical demands as much as the concentration involved. The intensity is on for the entire piece. How to pace yourself? Some of that goes back to how you feel the tempo as a group. If you feel like you are alone, it is daunting.

M: Or if god forbid you have different conceptions of the tempo, and you are fighting. A lot of these kids have had a Dalcroze background. I wonder if you have a sense of how that has been informing the way they tackle a piece?

J:  I don’t know about this piece specifically because actually not that many of these kids have had Dalcroze. But now that you mention it, I wonder if that explains the ease with which Face The Music players have such a general ease in dealing with rhythms. That’s probably why. About a third of the entire group has come through SMS, so has had some exposure to Dalcroze. That could certainly be why measures of 5′s and 7′s don’t thrown them. So, actually, that’s kind of cool! I never really thought about that. It could very specifically be that.

M: So, for some of the kids on Sunday, this will be their first exposure to Dalcroze.

J:  Yes.

M: Ok. Well, we’ll see what happens! Thanks for talking with me!

J:  You’re welcome.

 

March 8th, 2012

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Interview with William Bauer

Posted on October 14, 2011 by TriState Dalcroze


On October 20th, 2011 we will be presenting our first workshop of the season with presenter William Bauer at the Diller Quaile School of Music in Manhattan. The workshop is called, “Something in the Way We Move: Dalcroze Meets the Beatles”. In the following interview, I asked Dr. Bauer about his plans for the workshop, as well as his background and other projects he is currently involved in. Bill’s hypothesis on the possible African origin of some of Dalcroze’s most radical and far reaching pedagogical ideas were particularly interesting to me. Enjoy the interview, and I’ll see you at the workshop! (see previous post for full details…)

Michael Joviala, President TriState Chapter of the DSA

*************

MJ: Why the Beatles?

WB: I’m tempted to reply, in mock indignation, “Why not the Beatles?”  In crafting their songs, the Beatles made use of the same raw materials classical composers such as Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf used.  They harnessed the power of rhythm, dynamics, tone color, melody, and harmony, and combined these resources in imaginative ways to produce organized and expressive results.  Owing to their enormous cross-generational popularity, the Beatles’ music has woven itself into the fabric of our collective consciousness to a degree unmatched by the work of any other musicians of our time.  Songs such as “Yesterday,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “She’s Leaving Home,” to name a few, have become “classics” in their own right.  In the undergraduate course I taught on the Beatles at the College of Staten Island last semester, there were students who knew more about the Beatles than I did.  In the nearly fifty years since it burst onto the global stage, the group’s music has not lost its freshness and relevance.

MJ: What kinds of things did they know that were new to you?

WB: One student in particular was an amazing resource. He sent me links to You Tube videos. One was an incredible documentary [The Making of Sgt. Pepper], created in Japan, that included things like George Martin in the studio playing the separate tracks of Strawberry Fields. So you got a track breakdown of Strawberry Fields. Where are you going to get that, you know? I wouldn’t have even thought to look for something like that, and he knew all about it. We also talked a little bit about Charles Manson, who was of course influenced by the Beatles. Apparently he believed that the Beatles were speaking to him in a special language and that songs like Helter Skelter were telling him it was time to embark on a revolution in America to spark inter-racial hatred. And this student knew about a video, which is a claymation reenactment of the Sharon Tate killings.

MJ: Whoa. Yes, they seemed to have inspired a lot of craziness, along with the good things.

WB: Yes. Lennon’s killer, for example.

MJ: They have played many roles in our culture, that’s for sure. And in the upcoming workshop, you are interested in the role they can play in music education, and in particular Dalcroze.

WB: For Dalcroze educators, the Beatles’ music has special relevance.  Much of it was originally conceived as dance music and the rhythmic propulsion of their music makes it hard to resist.  Such vibrant musical materials give us a highly effective tool for reaching students.  I believe that expanding our repertoire of musical styles will help us build a following for this distinctive approach to music education that we use.  The Beatles give us a great resource for showing young people that the approach we use has a broad range of applications.

MJ: Describe your background in Dalcroze.

WB: Sometime around 1974, while attending Manhattan School of Music Preparatory Division, I heard from a girlfriend who was studying at the conservatory about some crazy guy who had his students stepping and clapping in five beats to the measure. A few years later, the new choral director at Albany State, where I was pursuing my undergraduate studies, arranged for that same crazy guy to give a daylong workshop.  That guy happened to be Robert Abramson.  Deeply impressed by this man’s brilliance as a performer and his total command of all things musical, I decided then and there to seek him out when I moved back to the NYC area.  For the next several years I immersed myself in studies with Dr. Bob.  I took private lessons in composition and piano performance with him, sat in on his classes at Manhattan School of Music, and attended other workshops (working the midnight to seven shift at the Stanhope Hotel made this immersion possible).  He became a mentor and friend (and, later on, a colleague).  In 1983, I attended the first Manhattan Dalcroze Institute that Bob offered and received my certificate in studies with him and Ruth Alperson. My first window into alternatives to Bob’s distinctive approach was Ruth’s teaching, which has continued to inspire me.  Shortly thereafter, Bob encouraged me to present at a DSA National Conference, where I encountered other ways of using the method.  Even then I was already playing with the connection between popular music and Dalcroze education.  After pursuing my graduate studies at Columbia University and at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, I obtained the license at Bob’s summer institute.  Since then, I have benefited from studies with Lisa Parker, Anne Farber, Marta Sanchez, Annabelle Joseph, and a host of others who have shown me the remarkable diversity of approaches that the Dalcroze system can embrace.

MJ: What are your academic interests? Has Dalcroze affected your academic work in any way?

WB: My scholarly work has focused on jazz vocal performance practices.  I’m especially interested in speech prosody, which includes the timing, phrasing, and articulation of the words’ delivery, the intonation and accentuation of syllables, and other musical features of speech.  Speech prosody is what enables listeners to hear and understand individual words in the stream of sounds that makes up speech.  It also plays a key role in expression because all people use it to convey their attitude about what they’re saying.  I’m intrigued with the ways that speech prosody influences the choices jazz singers make as they improvise new melodic lines while singing song lyrics, because it helps them to bring forth their own distinctive voice. I’m also interested in the ways jazz singers use vowels and consonants in scat singing, or wordless improvisation. Betty Carter’s consummate artistry as a performer compelled me to write my first book, Open the Door: The Life and Music of Betty Carter, which the University of Michigan Press published in 2002.  I’m also interested in the ways American expressive culture has sustained oral and written traditions, and performance practices, that bear traces of their African and European origins.

Dalcroze studies piqued my curiosity about the musical processes and skills that give shape to human expressive behavior, whether it be playing an instrument, singing, storytelling, acting, dancing.  They also validated my interest in improvisation and drove me to develop my own skills in this area—not only in jazz, but in a variety of styles.  I can trace specific elements of my research to lessons Bob Abramson taught on the sound of the voice, the incredible range of timbres available to it, and on the ways people can enliven their performance of the spoken word through musical means.

MJ: I know you are hard at work on a book about Louis Armstrong. Would you describe the project?

WB: It’s about Armstrong’s singing. The recordings he made during his first decade as a leader reveal a lot about his development as a singer and about the techniques that he used to create his distinctive renditions of songs.  The research has led me into an investigation of the blues as a cultural resource, not only the 12-bar standard blues form, but the blues idiom, the characteristic ways of using the voice that blues performance practice engenders.  Armstrong’s name does not come up in discussions of blues singers.  Yet he was one of few men who recorded vocal blues during the reign of the classic blues divas, Ma Rainey, Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, and others, in the 1920s.  These urban blues legends clearly influenced Armstrong, but more important, they were all drawing water from an underground stream that flowed out of Africa, through black folk traditions such as spirituals, field hollers, work songs, and other vocal expressions, and that continues to inform American popular culture to this day.  Such contemporary singers as Tracey Chapman, Cassandra Wilson, the late Eva Cassidy, and Kurt Elling continue to drink from this wellspring.  In many ways, the blues has a definitive force in American culture—we have grown up with its sounds pouring into our ears and guiding our spoken intonations.

MJ: Why should a classical musician study the blues?

WB: It’s an interesting question because it has a subtext. Classical musicians are deeply involved in a particular sound and an aesthetic, as well as a way of thinking about music and what music is supposed to do. It’s actually a pretty specialized way of thinking about music. It turns out that in a lot of cultures in the world, especially traditional cultures, music operates differently. It’s more of a participatory thing and there’s more of a continuum between musician and non-musician. So what blues allows classical musicians to do is to let their hair down and experiment. It frees them up and allows them do to things that classical music doesn’t make room for. I’ll give you an example. Blues has a particular way of using the voice that I call “drumming the voice.” It involves singing repeated patterns like riffs, and trying to interact with the groove in inventive ways rhythmically. So pitch becomes a servant to rhythm. That’s an inversion of European classical music where pitch provides such an important structural element.

MJ: Maybe even over rhythm.

WB: Yes, in a lot of cases.

MJ: It is certainly stressed more in the teaching of it.

WB: Right. That’s one of ways that Dalcroze education flies in the face of conventional music education. We really stress rhythm.  And actually I’ve been doing some research into Dalcroze’s year and a half in Algiers. He was 21 years old. It was his first appointment. He was conducting an orchestra of Arab classical musicians who were playing Western classical literature. He said that in order to get the musicians to understand the music, he had to invent gestures so they would feel what they needed to feel rhythmically. He writes that the seeds of Dalcroze Eurhythmics lie in that experience. He made friends with Arab musicians and experienced their music in a lot of different contexts. And I think his exposure to the culture and the music opened him up to possibilities that European culture could not have done.

MJ: Well, talk about a place in which there is no line between musicians and non-musicians, and music and dance are one. It certainly makes sense.

WB: Yes. He was struck by the way the dancers improvised.

MJ: Well, the French at that time seem to have been really interested in what they thought of as “primitive man.” You can see that in visual art as well.

WB: That goes back to Rousseau.

MJ: What do you think Louis Armstrong’s reaction to a eurhythmics class would have been?

WB: You know, I have no clue!  This man was so complex, it is hard to imagine what he would say or do.  He was very down to earth and completely comfortable in his own skin.  So whatever his reaction, it would be completely honest and off the cuff.  I will say that there is much in the way we Dalcrozians approach music that has parallels to the ways African-American culture has transmitted its musical values and processes from one generation to the next.  Walk into a black church of a particular denomination, and you will be welcomed into a congregation that moves to the music while it sings, that participates actively in sermons, testifying and bearing witness to the preacher’s exhortations.   As in the Dalcroze philosophy, there is no hard line between mind and body, but a full integration of the human capacity to feel, express, and communicate.  On that level, at least, he would find a Dalcroze class highly resonant with his own experience and background as a musician.

MJ: This is a time of a lot of discussion regarding the future of Dalcroze in America. What are your hopes, dreams and wishes for the community?

WB: Perhaps the Beatles said it best: “Come together!”

MJ: Great! Or at least, “We Can Work it Out”?

WB: Even better still!

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2011-12 Workshop Season

Posted on September 21, 2011 by TriState Dalcroze

Here are the details for the 2011-12 season of workshops.

Dalcroze Society of America, TriState Chapter

2011-2012 Workshops

1. William R. Bauer, Ph.D.

Something in the Way We Move: Dalcroze Meets the Beatles

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Registration: 6:30 pm

Workshop: 7:00 – 9:00 pm

Place: The Diller-Quaille School of Music, 24 East 95th Street, NYC

(between 5th Avenue and Madison)

 

2. Doug Goodkin

Annual Orff/Kodaly/Dalcroze Workshop

Orff Through the Ages

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Registration: 9:30 am

Workshop: 10:00 am – 4:30 pm

Place: Little Red Schoolhouse, 272 6th Avenue (at Bleecker Street), NYC

 

3. Jennifer Undercofler, and the Face the Music Ensemble

Kids and New Music: A Dalcroze Master Class

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Registration: 2:00 pm

Workshop: 2:30 – 5:30 pm

Place: Lucy Moses School for Music and Dance, 129 West 67th, NYC

 

4. Songshare with Sara Bonsignore

Monday, June 6, 2012

Registration: 6:30 pm

Workshop: 7:00 – 9:00 pm

Place: home of Sarah Bonsignore – address TBA

 

All regular workshops are free to members. Non-members will be charged $30 per workshop. Season membership in the Tri-State DSA Chapter is $75 for participating members, $45 for student members, $120 or more for patron members, and $100 for institutions (20% off workshop fees for member institution’s faculty). Membership in the Tri-State Chapter automatically includes membership in the Dalcroze Society of America.

 

 

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Eurhythmics Lesson Plan from the Lucy Moses Dalcroze Summer Intensive, August 2011.

Posted on September 12, 2011 by TriState Dalcroze

Cynthia Lilley’s Lesson Plan from the Lucy Moses Dalcroze Summer Intensive in August 2011.

6-8, 3-4
Hemiola Preparation
“Canzonette” from Monteverdi’s l’Orfeo

I.  Movement canons in 6/8

II.  6 pulses – subdivisions
A.  These are subdivisions.  Group them into equal beats.
1.  Walk the beats
2.  Find someone doing it your way; walk with them

B.  Hearing the 2 meters; creating the Composite Rhythm

1.  Clap what your feet are doing
2.  Vocalize  what your feet are doing
3.  Leave out feet
4.  Note that the composite rhythm is a Metric
Transformation, that is, a given rhythm set in two
different meters (one in simple meter, one in
compound meter) – creating a very different
feeling rhythm.

C.  Follows: both rhythms

D.  Discuss
1.  6/8 – Binary measure, Ternary beat
2.  3/4  -  Ternary measure, Binary beat

E.  Use language for both rhythms:  ie:  “Climb on the
buss,” “Pay the driver.”  Around circle, each student
chooses one measure;( be aware of phrasing in 4
measures).

IV Move (follows)
F.  Tennessee Waltz pattern:  3/4
G.  In the Good Old Summertime:  68
H.  “I was waltzing with my darling/ In the good old
summer time”:
3/4
6/8

V.  Reverse  A – quick reaction.
“In the good old summer, waltzing”
And
B:
”
Form: |AA||BAA:|
Ritornello: AAAA

A.  I play the canzonette from l’Orfeo melody with just A
section rhythm
B.  I add the B section

VI. Listen to music with libretto

VIII. Move again….

IX. Choreograph?

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Interview with Jeremy Dittus

Posted on April 4, 2011 by TriState Dalcroze


Email Interview with Jeremy Dittus and Michael Joviala, March 2011

On April 7th, 2011 the Tri State chapter of the Dalcroze Society of America will present a workshop with Jeremy Dittus at the Diller-Quaile school of music. Jeremy runs a Dalcroze training center in Denver, Colorado, and shares here his recent experiences in Geneva, including his observations on the differences between Dalcroze as practiced in Switzerland and as practiced here in the U.S. For more information on the workshop, click here.

Michael Joviala: You are the newest North American holder of the Diplome, which you received at the end of your two year stay in Geneva. Congratulations! I’d like to ask you some questions related to your experiences there, and your subsequent experiences after returning to the US. Let’s start with your time in Geneva. What are the most important skills you learned your study there?

Jeremy Dittus: Thank you! It’s great to be back home, and it’s exciting to think about the future of what the Dalcroze work will look like in 30 years here in the US. Geneva was an amazing experience for me, and I feel very lucky that I had the opportunity to study there. There are so many skills and concepts that I learned from the great teachers at the Institute Jaques-Dalcroze, it’s a difficult question to answer. In Eurhythmics, I discovered a new appreciation for what it means to treat the body as the instrument. In Geneva, the Eurhythmics courses are very dedicated to this concept; consequently, coordination of the limbs, harmonization of the mind and body, along with total control over time, space, and energy were redefined for me.  This was particularly the case in the classes of Silvia Del Bianco, Gabi Chrisman, and Ruth Gianadda. In Solfège, I learned many new ways of embodying melody and harmony, even with highly chromatic music. Here in the US, we focus much more on the Do to Do scales than they do in Geneva; conversely they focus much more on vocal improvisation. In the classes of Gabi Chrisman and Sylvie Morgenegg, we explored many interesting ways of incorporating vocal improvisation that I had not considered before. Often these improvisations included multi-leveled reactions that were challenging and stimulating, but at the same time were a riot to perform. With Improvisation, I adored working with Ruth Gianadda, Sylvia Del Bianco, and Laurent Sourisse; they each brought their own unique style and approach to their classes. Ruth focused on making all of the music for the Eurhythmics classroom as inspired and expressive as possible while maintaining clarity and the impulse to move. Sylvia brought all of the pedagogical elements of the Dalcroze method to the Improvisation lesson, which inspired new ways of teaching for me while always relating the work she did to composed music from the common practice period and beyond. Laurent provided an excellent approach to understanding harmonic progression and motivic development as well as a wonderful foundation for understanding musical styles from various genres. Through realizing figured bass realization and melody harmonization, I learned innovative, yet practical ways to navigate through chromatic tonal material, modulations, and sequences.  Finally, Marie-Laure Bachmann gave a fantastic overview of Dalcroze pedagogy and philosophy. I learned so much about the history of the Dalcroze movement and the Institute in addition to her specialization: psychology/kinesiology (psychomotrice). Our sessions helped me to make connections among the various branches of the Dalcroze work and understand what we do on a more universal level.  Having all of these diverse teachers in addition to the great teachers I had here in the US made for a wonderfully well-rounded, yet highly demanding education. I wouldn’t have traded it for the world, and I would encourage anyone here in the US to go over and do it!

MJ: Wow! That sounds like it was quite an experience. What, in your opinion, are the main differences between Dalcroze as practiced in the U.S. and in Europe? Are there things we could learn from each other?

JD: There are several differences between the programs here and abroad. I’d like to focus my response to the Dalcroze I experienced in Geneva at the Institue Jaques-Dalcroze (IJD), since that is where I spent the bulk of my time.  As a caveat, I’d like to say that these differences don’t carry value assessments for me; in fact, I tend to think of difference as a good thing! Further, my experience represents only one part of the US. We are such a large country, and I can’t claim to speak for all of it. Therefore, the comparison printed here is really based on my studies at the Longy School of Music and the IJD.

As a part of my Mémoire (the Swiss version of a dissertation), I included a chapter on differences and similarities between the US and the IJD. I noted 12 major differences, but selected a few of them and listed them here. I would be more than happy to forward this information to whomever would be interested.

The Eurhythmics courses I have had in the US have tended to be much more oriented towards musical concepts and musical movement. Geneva tends to be more focused on the development of bodily control, suppleness, and awareness. As a result, the majority of my Eurhythmics classes in America have culminated in the study of a piece of music with direct application of the musical concepts studied throughout the course. In Geneva, oftentimes a class will end with choreography or dance rather than a detailed study of a piece of music. Professors at the IJD are more likely to have a more “buffet-style” of course structure, where many subjects and exercises are addressed without any specific regard to connection between events. Under lesson plans like these, teachers can afford students a wide range of activities and ways to exploresubjects. On the contrary, many of my teachers from US place a great deal of emphasis on sequencing between exercises, and generally the connections between activities must guide the class towards a musical goal by the end of a class or series of classes.

In my experience in the US, Dalcrozians tend to be much more interested in process and internalization: how something looks is far less important than how it feels in the body.  The IJD tends to be much more interested in physical mechanics and technique. How something looks is often much more important than how it feels in the body. As a result, teachers at the IJD tend to give exercises that demand a high level of technical mastery, whereas in the US, the difficulty of the corporal exercises is not always as challenging. Because the difficultylevel of the exercises is so pronounced, students at the IJD tend to use a more economized, controlled, and uniform style of movement. This somewhat uniformed approach to teaching Eurhythmics in Geneva allows for teachers to address specific issues of time, space, and energy easily; however, it often is at the expense of the students’ need to take risks and explore movement creatively. Conversely, American students appear to utilize a much freer and individualized type of movement. The freer and individualized approach of movement used in different parts of the US promotes artistic expression but can look less clean and precise or even exaggerated to others, and it doesn’t allow for the more advanced skills in dissociation and inhibition required at the IJD.

Geographically, the compact and closely-knit communities surrounding the IJD allow for a completely different approach of the method. The IJD has an extensive administration dedicated to the instruction of their students so that teachers only have to focus on teaching their classes without worry of logistics or business practice. The IJD reaches far beyond its walls; not only are there private satellite programs throughout the surrounding environs of Geneva for students of all ages and levels, but even in the public primary schools, one can find courses of eurhythmics for students through age 12.  These public courses tend to be less rigorous than the courses through the IJD, but as a result, the teachers of these courses can focus less on musical events and more on mind-body training and social development.  Finally, the government in Switzerland supports these programs both financially and logistically; most schools have rooms dedicated solely for the study of eurhythmics. With licensure from the IJD, new graduates have the authority to teach in public schools. On the contrary, the immensity of the US does not allow for this same type of support or community found at the IJD. US Dalcroze teachers tend to be isolated, without a network of like-minded teachers close by; consequently, Dalcroze teachers in the US must be educator, business person, secretary, and entrepreneur all at the same time.  Because the US educators are spread out across the country, they can’t rely on one another to pool their resources and work together. The business and marketing aspects of the American Dalcroze teacher cannot be stressed enough as a major difference in pedagogical perspectives between the US and the IJD.

The IJD has an extensive curriculum established for all individuals: babies, children, young adults, adult amateurs, dancers, conservatory students, professional students, senior citizens, and special needs individuals. There are specific music and movement subjects established for each year of study along with goals and objectives for the demonstration of those subjects; these goals and objectives are in writing and made available to the public. On the contrary, the US does not have a unified, centralized approach to this work. Each teacher, even those in the same region, is expected to develop and regulate his or her own curriculum depending on the students who are taking his/her class.  Generally educators do not publish their curricula for public consumption; often teachers can be quite protective about their course structure for many reasons. I believe that for some this rationale is based on keeping intellectual property from being stolen; for others, it’s fear of misappropriation of their ideas; and for others, it’s a fear of criticism by colleagues. Further, because Dalcrozian ideology embraces a flexible curriculum, many teachers feel uneasy about putting their thoughts in black in white because it can create a rigidity that is decidedly anti-Dalcrozian. The matter is compounded by the diversity of children and cultures in the country. Children of Los Angeles learn differently from those children in New York, and they both learn differently from children in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Many students (though not all) who study at the IJD are at the beginning of their collegiate careers. They must take a wealth of coursework in music theory, music history, and other sundry courses relating to their musical and pedagogical development. At this point in time, it takes students 5 years of full time study to exit with the equivalent to our American License.  Furthermore, the IJD has recently changed their structure and have abandoned the Certificate and License; instead, they offer a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts, respectively.  Most Dalcroze students in the US already have a bachelor’s degree in music or more; this usually entails four years of intense study at a conservatory of music. Therefore students who do their certificate work are starting at the master’s degree level, and they usually have a significant amount of teaching experience already. Many License students have already obtained their Master’s degree, so much of the music theory and other coursework has already been acquired. However, in contrast to the IJD, most music theory taught in the US is quite abstract and solely intellectual, with very little practical keyboard applications, except for memorization of figured bass or chorale excerpts. Again, this makes the course structure and design of Dalcroze classes in the US very different because the focus is less on the substance of a given subject, and more on the practical application or utilization of it.

At the IJD the professors take a different approach to improvisation. Classes are generally 3-5 students per group, and each class takes on specific goals. These goals might include:

Improvising for movement

Improvising for images

Improvising different styles (popular music, world music, different compositional eras (baroque, classical, romantic, 20th century techniques etc.)

Improvising in different forms, addressing motivic development, etc.

In a given year, a student might have courses in jazz improvisation, movement improvisation, and film score improvisation. Each week the student might have all three of these classes, and each class will have a different professor. In other words, improvisation is explored for its own musical right and utility, and this can lead to a very rich improvisation education. In the US, teachers tend to focus more on movement improvisation for the Eurhythmics classroom.  While the goals listed above might be interspersed throughout the semester, generally, the students have one or two classes each week. In this way, they may or may not cover as much diverse material in agiven semester in comparison with Geneva. However, since most improvisation courses are designed to have a direct impact on what is played for a Eurhythmics class, the connection between improvisation and playing for movement is often very direct and clearly established.

I definitely feel we can learn from one another. Because of the various approaches to the method are unique, each community tends to focus on different ideas. When we see how becoming intimate with these ideas can impact our own teaching, then we tend to grow and prosper. However, if we look at the differences as negatives, then no growth takes place, and we remain isolated. When I first arrived in Geneva, I found it very difficult to change my perspective and embrace the differences that were before me. However, once I was able to make this adjustment in viewpoint, I experienced a noticeable change in how I related to the professors, colleagues, and my own students whom I taught while I was there.  I made connections and discoveries that I hadn’t considered before, and cognitive doors seemed to open more and more. Over the last few decades, I feel that the relationship between the US and Geneva has been strained due to a lack of communication about our differences and why they exist. I believe that both the Director, Silvia Del Bianco and the Dean, Silvia Morgenegg are committed to understanding our differences and bringing our communities closer together. Personally, I feel that the more we continue to work to understand their perspective, the more they will continue to work to understand ours.

MJ: This is an exciting time to be involved in Dalcroze in the U.S. What’s your vision of Dalcroze in America 30 years from now?

JD: Ha…finally an easy question! My goal is simple: by the time I’m 65, I hope to see a Licensed Dalcrozian teaching Dalcroze classes in every major US city. There are so many cities with markets that remain untapped. Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Chicago, along with many others could easily provide enough business to support full-time work for several Licensed Dalcroze teachers at the same time. I hope to provide future students with the resources to start their own programs and build them to sustainable Dalcroze schools. People love this work, and they see the benefits of what it can do for musicians and dancers. We just have to make the Licensure more accessible (without sacrificing quality) and give students the tools they need to succeed when they are out pioneering new programs. In some ways, it’s a monumental task, but it’s well worth the effort.

MJ: Wonderful! Finally, I’d like to ask you about your upcoming workshop for the Tri State DSA on April 7th, 2011 at the Diller-Quaile School in New York City. It is likely that there will be a mix of people there: folks brand new to Dalcroze as well as the very experienced, musicians of many different backgrounds and skill sets. Can you give us a hint of what we can expect?

JD: The wonderful thing about Dalcroze education is that it is such a rich and multifaceted way of looking at music and movement. Each teacher brings new experiences, different styles, and unique perspectives to the lesson so that no matter what your experience with the method Jaques-Dalcroze, there will be something stimulating to provide food for thought. I hope that our time together will be no exception. In each class, I try to provide activities that will be geared toward beginners and then work up towards activities that will challenge seasoned musicians and performers. Because Dalcroze pedagogy places the spirit of play at the fore, the Dalcroze classroom offers a safe environment to explore, discover, and even make mistakes! In the first part of the evening, we’ll begin with a Dalcroze class designed for adults and work up to a piece of music, discovering how the movement leads to a deeper understanding of the musical material. Then, we’ll have an applications session, where we will discuss specific Dalcroze techniques that will be applicable to individual practice, the applied lesson, group lessons, and in Dalcroze Eurhythmics classes. At the end, there will be time for discussion and specific questions that participants may have. My goal is to make this session as useful and inspiring to the participants as possible!

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Notes from the Joint Chapters Workshop

Posted on February 18, 2011 by TriState Dalcroze

Thanks to all who participated in our annual Joint Chapters Workshop in February at Trevor Day School. Here is a list of the activities and notes from the workshop compiled by Tracy Morgan, currently a student in Ruth’s Diller-Quaile methods class. (Also the mother of Delia, who participated in the children’s demonstration.) Anne’s instructions are indented, Tracy’s comments are in italics. Tracy will be writing a full report, to be published in the  spring issue of the Dalcroze Society of America’s Journal. Join today for access to the Journal, admission to our full season of workshops, and more! Click here for more details.

Pictures of the event can be found on our Facebook page, or on Flickr. Did you take any pictures at the event? Please add them on either site! See you in the spring for our next workshop with Jeremy Dittus, “Listening with the Whole Body”. For details, click here

.

Anne Farber, 10am – 12pm

  1. 1, 2, many voices

Raise fingers to show many voices or “violins” you hear.  1, 2, or many.  If you hear one voice, move alone.  If two, move with a partner.  If three, form groups.

If I play minor, you show me you’re with me in the music.  You can feel the beat, enlarge it, fill it in, step it or stand still.  You don’t have to step the pattern.

2. Pattern follow

If I play major, find a partner and show the pattern exactly, perhaps “patsching” it.  (4/4  quarter-quarter-dotted quarter-eighth    2-8 2-8 2-8 quarter)

Anne stopped the group when she heard people clapping loudly, improvising on the pattern and doing complementary rhythms.  She walked to the back of the room and asked for just the pattern.  She had to stop the group one additional time to remind us to only keep the pattern.  We finally got it on the third time and she said “gold star.”

Again, keep the pattern despite the music changes (tempo, dynamics, articulation).

She did lots of variations.

3. Chalk talk

People took turns writing the steps that led to the above pattern (leading up to the tune of “Where Is John?”)

Anne first asked what the meter was.  4/4.  We said the pattern (just on the syllable TA)

  1. 1. Noteheads
  2. 2. Stems
  3. 3. Clap beat and say pattern, write the beats under
  4. 4. Bubbles, beams, dots, flags

4. “Where is John?”

Where is John?  The old gray hen has left her pen.

1    2    3          4    3    2       2     3    2    1     1

Where is John?  The cow is in the corn again.  John!

3     4    5          6    5   4  4   5     4     3  3        8

Tennis balls with partner, figure out ways to pass the ball that followed the music (bounce-catch, bounce-catch, pass-pass-pass-pass, bounce-catch, bounce-catch, wave in the air long).  Ended up in large group circle with one ball, then slowly added more (8 by the end of the exercise).  The ending “John” person walked into the circle with the ball each time.  Sing it in canon.

5. Pattern follows

Minor pattern  – just show me you’re with me in the music

9/8   dotted quarter – eighth – 3 eighths – quarter – eighth

We conducted (she played).  Triple meter – could be 9/8 or 3/4.  3 big beats.

We clapped and filled in the beats.  Anne asked who felt it as binary or ternary.  She mentioned that she loves 9/8, but that early piano books often notate music in 3/4.  This is somewhat deceitful.

6. Major pattern – “Shoo Fly”

Syn-co-pa  - dotted quarter – eighth – quarter  (rhythm of Shoo Fly)

Anne played “Shoo  Fly” as a mystery tune.  She said this is a great song for kids with two very contrasting sections. She handed out copies (with 2 voices) and people paired up with partners.  We were to show the missing beat (after “shoo fly”) and show the long “I feel” section.  Partners could sing top or bottom part.  Then they faced each other and made a long line of pairs.  Everyone sang the song, switching parts.

7. Quick Reaction Canon

At the signal, change what you’re doing.

Some examples of her rhythms:

9/8  dotted quarter – dotted quarter – dotted quarter

dotted half

running-and,  skip-and,  skip-and

dotted half

8. Fixed-Do Solfege

Anne played a few diatonic ascending scales (C, E, Ab) and asked, “How many tunes did I play?”  Just 1.  Then she played the F scale from Do-Do, ending with the tonic on Fa (same as Mixolydian mode).  Bb scale next.  Think of 5-5 songs (Amazing Grace, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Paw Paw Patch).

9. Keyboard Improvisation

Black Key Square Dance – in Gb.  She had various people play it as a duet on one piano (ostinato at bottom, improvised melody on top), then a quartet on piano and keyboard.

Ruth Alperson

Children’s Demo (9 children, 1st-2nd graders)

1) Names – Ruth played a motif for each child’s name and they had to listen and come sit down when they heard theirs.  She had some children step or clap their names.  Emily, Isabel, and Sophia had to sort out the rhythms of their similar names.  She tried to trick the last child.

2) Move the Circle/Quick Reaction – Ruth counted to 10 and the children were to silently move their circle (same sitting order) to a new designated location in the room.  They did this 3x.  Ruth counted faster each time.  They were so proud when they did it.

3) Drum Follow – Ruth played rhythms on the drum for each child to walk, run, tiptoe, or stop and clap.  Mostly quarters and eighths.  At the end all the children stood and walked, stopped and clapped, then tiptoed.

4) 1-2-many voices – Partners touched palms (facing counterclockwise).  Ruth played the dominant and asked, “What does this mean?”Get ready!  Ruth played 2 voices and helped them by telling them “with a partner” or “by yourself” a few times.  Then she told them to make a big circle – she played many voices in a grand ternary melody.  She went back to the 1 and 2 voices.  They caught on quite well.

5) Moving Shapes – Ruth told the children to freeze, then pointed out their various positions or “shapes.”  She played various sounds, clusters, melodies, and they were to move whenever she played.  At one point she had half the group watch the other half, then switch.  She asked if her music was “strokey” or “pokey.”

6) Vocal Warmup – Great preparation for singing.  Ruth made sounds such as sighs, wow’s, um-um-um’s, meows and woofs.  Gradually added pitch to the sounds.

7) If I Sing Your Name – She sang to each child (usually in a minor third) and they sang back to her.  She adjusted to a lower register for one boy who tends to sing low.

8) Hand Levels, Pitches 1-5 – Ruth sang various pitches on syllable NA.  The class echoed.  She used her hands to indicated pitch level in the air.

5-3-5    3-2-1    5-6-5   3-2-1

She asked the class for more singing sounds (RA, DOO, NO, ME, TOO ).  They sang “ TOO ” pokey or staccato.  She asked for a “strokey” sound.  A boy said “hmm” and Ruth used that syllable.

9) Notation – One child notated the noteheads for the above pitches (and even put them at different levels to indicate pitch, a surprise to Ruth but she left it that way).  Another child put on stems.  Ruth added the bubbles.  The children made up fruit words (Ruth helped them on the long sounds or half notes).

Beat beat half

Pear pear peach

Beat     beat   half

Grape grape plum

Beat  beat  half

Pear  pear  peach

Beat     beat   half

Grape grape plum

The children stood and sang while Ruth played softly and legato.  Clap it – let it move.

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Interview with Anne Farber

Posted on January 29, 2011 by TriState Dalcroze

In January of 2011, I sat down with Anne Farber to talk about her upcoming workshop for the Joint Chapters of the New York City area’s Orff, Kodaly and Dalcroze associations. The following is an excerpt from that interview. Anne talks about the inner child, the importance of introducing kids to the full American Songbook, and even weighs in on ‘Tiger Mom-ing”…  The entire interview will be published in the Spring Issue of the Dalcroze Journal, available to members of the Dalcroze Society of America.

Michael Joviala

Michael Joviala: The title of the upcoming workshop is “Dalcroze and Your Inner Child”. What does Dalcroze have to do with the inner child?

Anne Farber:  Well, that was a little joke. We knew that we were going to make a workshop for children and grown-ups, so we thought we would make a little joke about the fact that there is something that appeals to the child in everyone. It appeals to the child in the child, and appeals to that spontaneous creature that exists, presumably, in the grown-up.

M: But I think the Dalcroze work does have something to do with the inner child.

A: Well that’s what the inner child is. It’s that playful, adventurous, curious, feeling-full, but not necessarily rule-bound person who exists in the grown-up, and feels like an adventurous child.

M: Right, and what does that have to do with music, exactly? I notice in your title it says, “A Workshop For Musicians”.

A: Yes, well, of course I could join the researchers and say that we are musical from birth.

M: Do you think we are?

A: Yes. I think music belongs to us in our natures just as language does in some way. Although we have to learn it from others. I think responsiveness is critical to learning music.

M: Do people lose a feeling for music if it’s not nurtured in a certain way?

A: Possibly. More dangerously, their feeling for music can be thwarted with pressures of various kinds. Let’s not go there… the Tiger Mom…

M: I actually just read that article on the way over here. Do you have any comments?

A: Well, yes, I and the rest of the world have many comments… I have seen plenty of ‘tiger-mom’-ing. Even the sweetest little old mom in the world ‘tigers’ it up every now and then, but I think there is a way of training children musically that is so doctrinaire, so didactic, so rule-bound, their natural musical responses take second place to the necessity to adhere to the rules, and that’s too bad. What we want to do is to elicit, encourage and train our natural musical responses. Now, when I said that it is dependent on response to other people, no, the baby makes all kinds of sounds. I don’t know whether they are musical, yet. I don’t know. But the baby’s sounds then elicit sounds from others. I love to talk to babies in elevators. You know, the baby goes, “goo gah goo”, and I go, “goo gah goo”, and we’re off!

M: Well, they say that babies make all the sounds of all the languages before the necessary ones get selected.

A: Yes, all of the clicks and so on. But the baby sings! He’s not really talking when he goes [sings baby’s squeal].

M: Well, I’m wondering if a similar thing happens with music. Do some parts of music get selected in the same way that language does?

A: Oh, what an interesting question. Yes, as the baby matures and keeps hearing certain kinds of scales, rhythms and sounds, then, yes, he is raised in the music of the culture as he is raised in the language of the culture. And, we’re leaping ahead to another question, but I think one of the dangers today is what the kids listen to. We want them to listen to Schubert and Bartok, and maybe some Miles Davis. We want to give them a repertoire that we consider musically valid. And there’s a lot of music that’s streaming over the internet, and at the supermarket…

M: There’s music everywhere.

A: Music everywhere if we broaden the definition of music. There is an awful lot of stuff out there that invades their ears that is not what we want to build on. And we don’t have – I could get political about this – we don’t have a folk music culture anymore. Spirituals, cowboy songs, Elizabethan songs that came over into Appalachia, even songs of America. When I was at the University of Wisconsin in 1953 and I was playing for the Sunday night sing, all these people would arrive and they knew 150 songs into the fourth and fifth verse. We didn’t even need a lyrics sheet.

M: It’s so interesting that there’s so much available, and yet, where is it?

A: Well, the kids don’t sing in the house anymore. They’re not clustered around the piano. That’s some generations ago. I’m thinking about my own grandparents who came from the Isle of Mann across America to the state of Washington, and they carried their piano, and their violin. Those pioneers went across the country in their Conestoga wagons and they had their instruments.

M: That’s amazing.

A: It’s phenomenal. This was really an important part of what they had to carry with them. But we have dropped it along the way somewhere.

M: Can you envision a way to get that back?

A: I consider it one of my jobs to sing the American songbook to them. When I say the American songbook, I don’t mean only popular song, although I love popular song. I think that the popular songs of the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s are rivals to Schubert.

M: You’re speaking beyond Gershwin and Porter…

A: Yes. I’m speaking of them, but I’m also speaking of folk song, spirituals, and play-party songs. I use these songs from the repertoire in my classes.

M: And do you find that kids respond to that?

A: Sure.

M: Once they hear it, they like it.

A: The songs that have lasted are the ones that make sense, by and large. I love to teach them ‘Down In the Valley’. It’s about a guy who’s in jail and wants a ladder to see his love as she walks by the jail. And they get very interested in the story.

M: Right, we are hunting around for stories all the time, and they are right in the songs. Were you teaching piano before you became a Dalcroze teacher?

A: Yes. I had students when I was a teenager. But since I’ve become a Dalcroze person, I’m sure that I’m a different piano teacher.

M: How so?

A: Well, I take improvisation seriously. I take it seriously in its opportunity for musical freedom, but also in its opportunity to interest the student in form, in musical logic, in sequence, in those things which are so obvious when we enjoy a piece of music that we don’t think of naming them. Repetition and sequence and contrast…

M: Those things are in written music, so why is it that improvisation brings them out?

A: Because you have to invent them. You have to do it with what you’ve got.

M: And how did your Dalcroze work make that important for you?

A: Well, there is so much about Dalcroze that is about form. I have to interest myself in form when asking people to move, because it only makes sense if you’re moving and there are phrases. I guess the ultimate word is phrase. Phrase. Form. I think before Dalcroze I had form when I improvised, but I didn’t isolate it as an issue to be cognitive about.

M: Is that something that came naturally to you?

A: I think it came naturally. I think it comes naturally to everyone. Dalcroze is about handling form, physically, vocally and pianistically. We ask for a lot of improvisation, both solo and group.

M: I think a lot of improvisers will tend to just kind of rattle on though…

A: Well, that’s what gives improvisation a bad name. Improvisation is not just letting go. It’s freedom but it’s freedom that carries responsibility.

M: Right, and I guess when you are playing for a class you can’t just go on forever, because they’ll fall over.

A: Oh, I’m very aware of the necessity to phrase, and I look for a response to my phrasing in my students. And this is something that I am draconian about in my improvisation classes.

M: I remember. [laughter]

A: I was working with a young student today on tuning in to phrase by making it very clear that the music is coming to a cadence. That is, we want them to experience anticipatory listening. And so, we have to give them anticipatory phrasing. So that it’s not just V – I, stopping on the tonic, but letting the music telegraph its intentions.

M: And perhaps thwart them.

A: Oh, and perhaps thwart them. If there is a musical surprise, it better be something that makes us say, “Oh, ok. That works.”

M: Not just the rug being pulled out from under us.

A: Yes. I want to expand the present moment, or what I like to call the acoustic knife-edge of the present to include what I have already heard and what I think I’m going to hear. That’s anticipatory listening.

M: Yes, I love that idea.

A: Well, that’s certainly what Dalcroze is about.

M: In the workshop, Orff, Kodaly and Dalcroze folks all come together. How do the three work together? Are they complimentary in your opinion?

A: I would say that Orff and Dalcroze are complementary enough, and nicely so. They are both very interested in movement and song. Orff pays more attention to the instrumentarium, but as you know, I love to use the xylophone a lot. So, I think that people trained in either one will not find conflict in the other. Kodaly is much more exclusive to the voice, and is more interested in training voices. It is, I would say, less interested in the larger musical picture. I don’t consider moveable and fixed doh to be a conflict. Orff and Kodaly use moveable doh and we use fixed, but you have to know both of those things anyway.

M: Many public music school teachers are faced with a set of challenges: they might have 25 kids in a class, they have to adhere to a state curriculum, they don’t have a space to do full scale movement in… Why should they take a Dalcroze class?

A: Because we will give them strategies to use at the desk. To use standing up beside the desk. We will give them ideas about how children learn. Yes, I know that they have to adapt to all kinds of conditions and circumstances that they do, and we would, find very frustrating. Yes, I definitely think that Dalcroze has much to offer them. Don’t you?

M: Absolutely. Even just what Dalcroze does best, which is connect people deeply to music, I think can give you inspiration and ideas. I think its important to know that they can walk out with strategies that they can apply on the ground running in a less than ideal world.

A: Yes.

M: Thanks for talking with me.

A: My pleasure.

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Notes from Philip Burton Workshop, October 24th, 2010, NYC

Posted on October 25, 2010 by TriState Dalcroze

note: The following are notes provided by Philip Burton detailing what was covered at his workshop in October.

Warm and Stretch

  • Energetic warm up to get the blood pumping – always done prior to stretch

Sun Salute

  • Work to refine the Sun Salute to a controlled, smoothly flowing stretch sequence

Ar / Er / Eu rhythmy studies

  • Nose/ear coordination
  • Arm folding (discovered actions)
  • Hand folding (discovered actions)
  • Realization that the state of Arrhythmy is a true state, an honest state, not a “bad” state.
  • Errhythmy is technical accuracy but may contain hyper tonicity
  • Eurhythmy is the desired state of performance and usage, tonic, look of effortlessness

Patterning and Closures

  • Automatic responses to trip up the responder

×     What do cows drink?

×     What do you do at a green light?

  • Fair and Balanced Sampling: UK Tory / Labor Parties’ “survey” of public opinion concerning national service.  Surveys patterned to yield desired response percentages – done by a single pollster for opposing samples.  “Yes” closures factored in to pattern the respondent to answer as desired – the perfect, fair and balanced sample yielding opposing opinions.

Walking lessons

  • Circle walking to express count 4 (anacrusis) and count 1 (crusis)
  • Logical reversal or changes of direction fall easily using the rhythmic devices of anacrusis and crusis
  • Arm swing in walking is a display of three basic countermotions: arm/arm; leg/leg; arm/leg same side

Dynamic Movement

  • Dynamic Circles: Sub-1/Intimate; Medium; Full; Extended.
  • Plains of Laban: Door; Wheel; Table (high, medium, and low)
  • Circles and Plains make movement objective and purposeful, less random.
  • Taken from Laban action drives substituting the words Slow, Heavy and Flexible for the Laban terms Sustained, Strong and Indirect respectively.
  • Weight for expressive movement divided into two categories: Real and Illusionary
  • Examination of the four slow dynamics: Glide (directional clarity); Float (flexibility / countermotion); Press (weight added to Glide using shift of weight as anacrusis); Wring (countermotion in torso, disagreement and distortion)
  • All dynamics, especially the heavy ones, should maintain tonic in muscle support to encourage easy breathing at all times.
  • Illusionary expressiveness is not a matter of “feeling;” it should be a matter of “expressing” thus leading the observer to feel the expressions of speed, path and resistance.
  • Dynamic movements are springboards to emotional connection.  The good doing of dynamic movements frequently touches the emotional life.  Arithmetic that leads to Geometry, or Exterior work to touch the interior soul and bring to performance honest feeling.

Teacher’s Assessment

Time allowed us to sample only about 20% of the Dalcroze Movement Training Syllabus with nothing done in-depth, and the tempo of lessons based on student receptiveness and participation.  To go any faster would have been counterproductive.  Only 16 of the 50 prepared music selections were used; only three of the handouts and two of the six multimedia presentations were used.  It was interesting to pull this work out of storage after 12 years.  My rhythms were bumpy, my transitions clumsy and my body – well, it’s been a while, but students were receptive and gracious.  Lessons were learned.  The quality generally of student in this workshop was at such a high level that it made me want to teach again.  This was emotional for me.

A final word: The “Language” of Musical Movement

The most important take away from this introductory session may be the realization that teachers of Dalcroze are not studying Western music only.  They are training in a musical language of physicality that should be viewed as key to their expertise.  This new language is not supposed to replace personal physicality as if the training were trying to “correct” anything about you.  No.  It should be regarded as a new language, an additional language to be mastered as if one were learning Russian or Icelandic.  It’s a bit like the disordination lesson of touching nose and ear simultaneously – uncomfortable at first, but given time, achievable.

Still, when an English speaker, for example, learns a new language, an accent is usually evident exposing him as a non-native speaker.  It is this “accent” that we work to refine, trimming away the look of dance vocabulary or other physical disciplines that can act as mannerism, retreat or other block to hearing and expressing.  The goal is to “speak” like a native – without accent or mannerism.

Fluency, then, for any language means that the rhythms and accents, the stresses and sounds, phonetics and phrasing of that new language all refine themselves toward a cosmetic standard – a prototype that can truly be described as unmannered, standard or pure (at least free from “regionalisms”).  This movement work does not necessarily look like a ballet dancer, or a combat expert, or a circus skills performer, or any other recognizable movement vocabulary.

Because the movement training underpins Western music, movement and gesture are transliterated by the music according to flow, melody, harmony, dynamic, volume, energy, tempo, resistance, placement and rhythm expressed through physical uniqueness.  The goals are thetranslation of music into physical language and the transference back into performance for the purposes of greater interpretation, experience and dynamic expression.

Name of Song Artist Used for
The Firm, Main Title Dave Grusin Warm-up
The Last Spring Edvard Grieg Sun Salute
Button Off My Shirt Ronnie Milsap 32 Ct partnering sequence

Ar / Er / and Eu rhythmy
Flight Feet / Root Hands Andreas

Vollenweider

 Walking together
Rondo: If you hold out your hand Dave Grusin Walking together
Pines of the Janiculum Respighi Slow Dynamic Movements
Wonders of Ancient Glory Edelman Slow Dynamic Movements
Young At Heart Mike Stirckland 16 Steps (Many Lives)
A Wink and a Smile Marc Shaiman 16 Steps (Many Lives)
Memphis Stomp Dave Grusin 16 Steps (Many Lives)
Park Avenue Stroll Marc Shaiman 16 Steps (Many Lives)
New Hampshire Hornpipe Dave Grusin 16 Steps (Many Lives)
Bluegrass Tune ? 16 Steps (Many Lives)
Jazz Break Count Basie 16 Steps (Many Lives)
Slow Tempo Tune (?) Swing Out Sister 16 Steps (Many Lives)
Patton March Jerry Goldsmith

(Patton soundtrack)

 16 Steps (Many Lives)
Oh Happy Day Ramsey Lewis 16 Steps (Many Lives)
What a Friend We have Don Grusin 16 Steps (Many Lives)
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Workshop Description

Posted on October 23, 2010 by TriState Dalcroze

Here is Philip’s description of his upcoming workshop taking place Sunday.  See the previous post for an interview with Philip, and see you on Sunday!

Dalcroze: Igniting Your Power to See, Hear and Express
with Philip Burton
Sunday, October 24th, 2010
Registration: 1:30 pm
Workshop: 2:00 – 5:00 pm
Place: Greenwich House Music School
46 Barrow Street, NYC

Physical connection to musicianship through movement is a cornerstone of Dalcroze education, and Eurhythmic training ideally allows musicians to produce heightened dynamic performance. Teachers’ abilities to inspire, musicians’ power to interpret, listeners’ capacity for dynamic response all hinge on the connection between sound and visceral gesture. But how do we unlock full physical potential and responsiveness without retreating into a codified movement technique that can become an end in itself? After we’ve finished our lovely movement, has our music improved?

Before we can make the required leap from the arithmetic of music into the geometry of dynamic musical expression, three finely tuned instruments must harmonize: the ear, the eye and the body. It is this expressive triad that we will exercise during our time together. We will work towards a universal “non-technique” that draws from a deep, wide well of physical choices to avoid being entrapped by a limited movement vocabulary.  Bring your piccolo body and expect to play it as a sting bass. Bring your tuba body and discover that you can move it as delicately as a flute. See you on Sunday!

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Interview With Philip Burton

Posted on September 29, 2010 by TriState Dalcroze

The Hut on Hen Feet

On October 24, 2010, the TriState Chapter of the Dalcroze Society of America is presenting a very special workshop with movement specialist Philip Burton. Philip is returning to the Dalcroze world after a too-long absence, and those of us who have experienced his transformative teaching are thrilled to have him back. In the following interview, Philip talks about his approach to education, his unique background, and why he feels that Dalcroze teachers might be the “craziest people on earth”. The photographs are from a staging of Pictures at an Exhibition by the Philip Burton Movement Theater, which appeared on PBS in 1995. For more information about the workshop, visit our website here. Enjoy the interview, and see you at Greenwich House Music School on the 24th!

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You have trained singers, musicians, conductors, actors, athletes and dancers in Australia, Europe and North America.  When considering the variety of dance methods, relaxation disciplines, combat techniques, and other movement modalities, is there any unique element in your work that sets what you do apart from the others?

Comparisons are difficult for me because my focus has always been on the work, not on myself in the work; that’s probably why I’m not rich today.  [laughter]  Dedicated movement specialists are generally spokes on one of two wheels: the usage wheel or the skills wheel.  The usage folks (Alexander, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, Yoga, relaxationists, etc.) were always defensive and territorial when I had memberships in movement societies in the 80s and 90s; and the skills folks were the combat, period styles, mime, character movement teachers who all had unique approaches to training performers – some successful, some lame.  If forced to answer, I’d say that I am aware that I have been consistently able to transform almost any self-conscious mover of average or higher intelligence into a poised, graceful one within a comparatively short time, and I fully expect to do this for some in the three-hour class I’m doing for you.

In addition to improving personal expressive movement, would our Dalcroze teachers find anything else particularly valuable in your class?

Observation power: A byproduct of my work is a much-improved eye sensitive to movement and gesture seen in others.  It is ear-training for the eye.  It is one thing to have self-awareness, but it is another to have power to read physical signals in others.  This is vital to the perceptive Dalcroze practitioner.  Generally, this is not part of most movement techniques I’ve studied, not even in the dance notation courses I’ve seen.  I can teach your students where to look and the basic ways of reading what they see.  If knowledge is power, this reading ability is dynamite for the Dalcroze teacher.

The Gnomus

You’ve described yourself as a Pre-Blue Screen movement specialist?

Well, it’s now green screen.  Prior to this technology, only animation was available to film makers and videographers for special effects.  I made a healthy living performing and creating movement for film and TV.  When I did the movement for Toy Story I, Pixar had me in a cage with contacts on strategic parts of my body and prism cameras mounted at 26 places all around me as I did the required movement.  Data was computerized, and I’m guessing that that work was stored and used in many films following that one.  Before Blue Screen Technology, the movement was done as live choreography (or “dynography” as I’ve coined it), and performers had to be made to look competent quickly.  Today we just film, manipulate as desired then insert the product digitally.  This certainly brought my career to a turn in the road.

You had to work fast, I take it?

Yes, the work always necessitated effective expression in the most efficient space of time.  Deadlines: plays, commercials, industrials all required quick turn around no matter the level of talent.  Union deputies constantly had to warn me that the performers were to be left alone during breaks.  Because I worked primarily with non-dancers, I learned to create a sort of palate of basic universal skills from which colors could be chosen, mixed and matched for desired expression and characterization.  Much comes straight out of Laban, but I teach it from his original writings and not in the way it is taught by Laban practitioners today.  I make this clear to students lest they think they are Laban trained at the end of their time with me.

Mosaics

When the Dalcroze teacher asks students to change or to find a new way of moving, does this “palate” aid in that ability?

This served me well in the Dalcroze classes I took in the 80s, as I was constantly being singled out as a positive example, “Oh, everyone stop and look at Philip,” it became embarrassing.  Not only did I know where in the body the music needed to be placed, I had the technical skills to show the how with competent dynamics.  When the teacher would say, “Find a new way in a different part of the body,” I already had four to six choices in reserve.  The study of what I call “contra-rhythmic” and “contra-eurhythmic” movement helps the musician become a “movician” understanding better choices for expression by forcing experimentation that purposely insults the music.  Expression in the human body is not generalized.  If you’re sad, I suppose you can have sad thighs, but it’s hard to express that in that body part.  I know that you’re sad not from looking at your thighs.  Specific parts express qualities better than others especially when it comes to the expression of weighted movement.

When you say “insult the music” you mean like break dancing to a grand march?

Yes, or, tap dancing to Moonlight Sonata; or jazz moves to Flight of the Bumblebee and so on – exactly.  Come to think of it, you asked earlier if anything sets my work apart from other movement techniques, and I can say that it is the understanding and the use of Weight.  The element of weight, Laban’s second element, is not fully understood in any discipline I’ve studied, and it is that quality that can act essentially as a virtual power tool of rhythmic expression.  Conductors especially appreciate this.  Weight is tied certainly to tempo, but we don’t understand or express weight in the same way we understand or express speed.  The huge discovery to be revealed about weight is that there are two kinds.

Two kinds of weight?

Yes.

In the human body?

Absolutely.

Interesting.  Will you be covering that in the workshop?

We’ll specifically explore that concept in the workshop.  This is the only purely original work in my collection of techniques, and it has liberated many a conductor, dancer and actor.  I guess, then, that this aspect really does set my work apart.  It certainly puts me at odds with Laban’s daughter who wrote a useless book on Laban for actors, but I can make that case and let the student decide.

What dance background do you have.

None.  Zip.  Hard to believe, but from the cradle to 24, puritanical conservative Christian indoctrination forbade much public movement from the waste down.  It’s hard to dance without moving the legs.  As an adult, I woke up – a late bloomer.

How did you get involved in Dalcroze?

An Alexander specialist who worked with me at Actors Movement Studio in New York also worked at Manhattan School of Music.  Observing my classes, she told me that there was a teacher at MSM who was doing the same thing I did.  Impossible, I thought, since I created my movement work from a series of techniques blended from diverse movement disciplines.  I doubted that anyone was doing what I did, but it sparked my curiosity.  She arranged for me to audit a class, and happily, it was an ideal first exposure – a simple examination of anacrusis, crusis and metacrusis with exercises in conducting.  I could hardly sit still I was so churned up and excited.  We didn’t do the same things, but our ideas were in sync, and so much of what I instinctively understood made immediate sense.  Times like these make me so glad I lived in New York where I surrounded myself with so many brilliant teachers.  I came to realize, at its best, just how complicated and multifaceted the discipline of Dalcroze is.

Chicks In Their Shells

What teachers/techniques influenced your work in addition to Dalcroze?

Delsarte, Decroux, Morse, Kipnis, Mable Todd, Stanislavski, Bonnie Prudden, Laban, Meisner and Alexander opened my work physically.  Bert Houle and Sophie Wibaux, two corporeal experts who trained with Decroux, were especially instrumental in my concentrated studies.  I did an intensive four-month program with them: nine hours a day, six days a week – it was brutal.  Understood correctly, the Decroux disciplines empower one to step rather confidently into each new study.  The training is dependent, however, on the right teacher.  Bonnie Prudden, founder of the President’s Council on Exercise and Fitness during the Eisenhower Administration, created a pain erasure method called Myotherapy.  It is pure “Muscle Dalcroze.”  It’s amazing.  Her work has been highly important in what I teach, and at 96, she’s still going strong.  It might be instructive to show that as well during a break to someone with a stiff neck.

What are the takeaways/expectations of your training?

The systematic skills in what I teach are to be mastered through the unique structure of each individual body, no matter your size or proportion, and yet there are cosmetic results to be mastered at the same time.  Mine is skills/expression based.  My work is neither to be practiced as if one were aspiring to some ideal model, nor is it to be rehearsed with spiritually blank eyes as if perfection is unattainable.  At my age, I’m not even sure what perfection is.  However, I know when I am moved by the competent expression of power and truth in movement, and if I can instill a vision of that knowledge and understanding in students, I call that success.

Dalcroze practitioners are the damned craziest people on earth!  How you do what it is that you do, I’ll never comprehend.  How can you look, listen, play, improvise, change, comment, correct, inspire SIMULTANEOUSLY! . . . and never break a sweat?  I observe with dropped jaw, and when you do it well, it is the most extraordinary thing that happens in music instruction.  My contribution, if any, to your development is that I can help you move with greater choice, confidence and physical eloquence.  The music stuff – that’s your gig – I’ll have to put on my IPod.

The Old Castle

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