What do you think of when you think of Dalcroze? My first thought is of students marching to a beat, and while that is part of it, there’s so much more to learn from this method!
Dalcroze is all about experience and feeling before intellectualising. Moving from big, whole body movements right down to the fine motor skills needed to play something at the piano. I’ve always been interested in these non-traditional methods, and I’m so excited that Paula was able to come on the podcast today to share how she combines Dalcroze group classes, and private piano instruction in her studio.
As well as explaining the concepts and ideas behind Dalcroze, Paula is also sharing some videos of her teaching in action. This is so valuable as Dalcroze is all about movement and activity, so talking can only get us so far!
If you normally listen to the podcast, you should definitely consider watching this one. It’s so inspiring to see Paula in action and I wouldn’t want you to miss out!
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- The foundation of the Dalcroze method
- How movement can help students understand rhythm, beat and metre
- The similarities between Kodaly, Orff and Dalcroze approaches
- How Paula’s incorporates group movement classes into her piano studio
- Movement activities Paula does with children as young as two years old
- How Paula uses movement in private piano lessons
- Creative ways to get students to feel tempo
- What training as a Dalcroze teacher involves
Items mentioned in this podcast:
- Dalcroze UK
- Dalcroze Australia
- Dalcroze USA
- Dalcroze Institute in Geneva
- Rhythm: One on One
- Book: Music, Moving & Learning in Early Childhood (click to buy internationally)
- Book: Music, Moving & Learning (for Australian residents – get discount postage)
What to contact Paula?
Paula has kindly shared her email with everyone. Click here to get in touch if you’ve got questions or would like to get a copy of her book. You can also right click on that link to “copy email address” to your favourite email software.
Thank you for Tuning In!
There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen mine.
Being a full-time teacher myself, I know how busy teachers are and how much time, effort and passion we put into our students. Sometimes, the last thing we want to do in our time off is listen to more piano teaching stuff! So, well done for using this time for self-improvement.
Whether you’re at the gym, on the bike or in the car, I know that you and your students will get lots out of what you learn in the long run. Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons.
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Do you use movement in your piano lessons?
Do you get kids up and moving to teach about metre and beat? Or even do a movement based group class? I’d love to hear about your experiences with these methods!
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Visit http://www.dalcroze.org.au for information about Dalcroze workshops and resources in Australia, or find Dalcroze Australia on Facebook. The next Dalcroze Australia Summer School is happening 9-16 January 2018 in Fremantle, Western Australia. We’d love to see you there!
I did some workshops with Paula years ago in Toowoomba and she she was amazing and it was a lot of fun! I loved the Dalcroze approach and used little bits of it from those workshops. Thanks for the videos – it is so informative to see the process in action. At last we have a Dalcroze course just started in Perth!
Thanks so much Tim, this has helped me so much,
Keep up the wonderful work!
Cheers Deanne – glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Great episode! I use Dalcroze a lot with my 6th grade piano lab students. An important take-away is SPACE. From a Laban/Music Learning Theory perspective, SPACE is a pre-requisite for TIME. Unless students have a sense of how much space is between each beat, there is no guarantee they will hit the beat at the right time. Getting students to move with continuous free-flowing movement in space is really helpful, and one of the cornerstones of MLT.
In addition, I use tennis balls in my classroom to work on beat competency. It’s a wonderful motivator for boys, especially. The added benefit is that it provides a visual representation of space as they see the ball approach the floor or their hands.
Keep up the great work!
What great thoughts and suggestions – thank you. Love the tennis ball idea and I’m learning more and more that the Music Learning Theory approach has some fantastic benefits. I’ll be sharing more about this in a future podcast 🙂
Awesome! Let me know if you’d like to connect about how I use MLT in my teaching. Cheers!
LOVED seeing Paula’s dynamic videos. Great podcast again, Tim!
Thanks Leila!