Elizabeth Tetlak 3/9/18

Exploration #1 Klykken
Dalcroze Method

The Dalcroze Method was developed by a Swiss music educator Emile Jaques-Dalcroze
during the early 20th century. Dalcroze’s approach to music education encompasses the idea of
understanding music and its fundamentals through expressive means and techniques that
incorporate rhythmic movement, aural training, as well as physical, vocal, and instrumental
improvisation. Dalcroze mainly focuses on allowing students to gain physical awareness and
experiences through a means of training that encompasses all of the senses. This method would
be useful for students because it allows them to experience music in an experimental and innate
way that is original and different from others. Student are listening to music, responding, and in
that process the students learn about music, they are being creative, and inventive.
The Dalcroze Method is made up of three parts organized in a hierarchy: Rhythmics,
Rhythmic Solfege, and Harmony and Improvisation. According to Dalcroze students need to
first understand rhythmics, which encompass ways to orchestrate bodily gestures and engage
with music expressively. This can include tossing bean bags across the floor in rhythm, singing
and moving with the whole body, and responding to high and low pitches with high and low
movements. These exercises aid students in developing a sense of rhythm that uses their whole
body along with rhythmic awareness either though instrument or the voice. The next step is
Rhythmic Solfege in which students engage the voice adding hands and then feet as well in
musical imitation or reaction. Musical exercises include bouncing a tennis ball on the floor back
and forth to the down beat in music, subsequently adding voice hands and feet to the exercise.
These musical experiences integrate body movement with melody and rhythm. The last step is
Harmony and Improvisation. In this final step students combine rhythm, solfege, and harmony in
instrumental improvisation where all of the stages of Dalcroze come together to connect the
hands, voice, limbs, and body with all the basic elements of music. According to the 2014
National Standards for Music at the middle school level. students should be demonstrating an
understanding of relationships between music and the other arts, other disciplines, varied
context, and daily life and should be generating simple rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic phrases
that convey expressive intent. The Dalcroze Method would be appropriate for students at this
age because exercises with Dalcroze can assist them in relationship between movement and the
music as well as having expressive intent within their musical creations.
Through the Dalcroze Method, students can explore many aspects of music including
rhythm and specifically meter. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary rhythm is defined
as “the aspect of music comprising all the elements (such as accent, meter, and tempo) that relate
to forward movement”. Meter is the defined as “a recurring pattern of stresses or accents that
provide the pulse or beat of music.” During this lesson students will explore how to understand
meter using their bodies and physical movement. In this exercise, the teacher will improvise
music on the piano in different and changing meters. Students will walk to the tempo and
perform a distinct pose on what they feel is the down beat of each grouped measure. Students
will then explain how, why, and when they choose to move and pose. This would be used in a
warm up activity before singing to get students feeling the music in their body preparing them to
sing. The larger essential questions students will be exploring is “how do performers interpret
musical works?” Though listening and responding students will make informed musical
decisions to be expressed with their body movement throughout the exercise.
 With any approach to teaching music there are faults or imperfections in the method that
might not work for every student in your classroom. While Dalcroze emphasizes music teaching
through movement students, especially at a middle school level, might feel hesitant to respond to
music using their bodies even in a “safe” musical environment making the activity difficult to
achieve. This method also does not focus on vocal production and vocal quality, but focuses
mainly on that aural perception of pitches rather than the quality. We also do not see a great
focus on notation which can be hindrance to some students making the connection from feeling
rhythm to seeing rhythm. The Dalcroze system is very piano focused and does not include the
use of many other instruments in the classroom.
Overall the Dalcroze Method is one of the many ways students can learn music and
express through music. This method allows students to understand music fundamentals through
expressive means and techniques that incorporate rhythmic movement, aural training, as well as
physical, vocal, and instrumental improvisation. As a teacher, I would use this method in my
classroom and explore different opportunities for students using Dalcroze.

Important Questions
1. What was different about walking to the strong beats this time?
1. What did you notice about the pattern- can anyone show me the pattern?
2. Which one of the beats is different than the others and how?
2. How did moving and internalizing the beat help us better perform our song?
1. Were we moving all together?
2. Did we look the same while moving?
3. What can we do different with our movement to better represent the songs meaning
(celebration)
1. Think about when you moved why you moved and how you moved

Translation
Neesh-kah Bahn-yah tohp-lah voh-dah
Zah-neesh lee-yay zjee-vah zjoh-dah*
Em-kah Rrah-vlah, Em-kah-may rra-vlah
Ahn-doh nee shee nah-may kah-vlah

Background
 Location: Capital District, Suburban School
 8th Grade Choir
 30-35 students
 Half the students live in the suburbs while the other half live closer to the city and a small
portion comes from a rural part of town
 The students are culturally diverse with backgrounds ranging from many cultures
 Many of the students enjoy pop music while some enjoy musical theater as well as rap

 The students are familiar with standard notation, and reading SB and SAB music, they are
also familiar with using movement in choir and exploring different ways to learn and
perform music. They have learned music by ear and have explored with improvisation
  This thus far the students have been working on and improving their skills with 4/4 and 3/4
time. They have explored music in major and minor keys. They have been working to
improve their sigh reading skills as students write their own examples for the students to
sight read. Their warm ups always include some type of movement. They have explored
music in different languages from varying styles and different cultures.

Dalcroze Lesson
 The students will be working on expanding their metric knowledge to 9/8
 Students have been working on this piece and know the notes, language, and rhythm. They
have a general understanding of historical context but have yet to really connect
 Students are struggling with the introduction of a new meter being 9/8 they are well versed
in 4/4 and 3/4 and have experienced some 6/8
 The goal of this lesson is to get the students to better internalize how meters like 9/8 and
feel and how movement help us achieve that goal

List of Activates
 What is the song about? Where is it from?
o Niska Banja is a city on Serbia
o Serbian Folk Song
o About a celebration
 Sing through first two sections in parts
o Fix any note issues/ pronunciation issues
 Play 4 beat pattern on Piano while students walk
 Play 9/8 pattern while students walk with a partner and strike a pose
 Discuss differences and similarities
 Explain 9/8- have them stomp and clap 3 eight subdivisions (or teacher if too hard)
 Speak text and move
 Sing and move
 How does this better our performance
 Add arm movement or clapping to move the phrase
 What can we do with our movement to express the meaning, a celebration
o TPS with partner and all move around the room again
 Students reflect when they moved how they moved and why they moved

Bibliography
Farber, A., & Tomsen, K. (Eds.). (n.d.). What is Dalcroze? Retrieved March 10, 2018,
from https://dalcrozeusa.org/about-us/history

Seitz, J. A. (2005). Dalcroze, the body, movement and musicality . Thousand Oaks , CA:
Sage Publication . Retrieved March 9, 2018.