Rhythm: One on One, Dalcroze Activities in the Private Music Lesson

American Music Teacher, April-May, 2005 by Sylvia Coats

Rhythm: One on One, Dalcroze Activities in the Private Music Lesson, by Julia Schnebly-Black and Stephen Moore. Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. (16320 Roscoe Blvd., Ste. 100, RO. Box 10003, Van Nuys, CA 91410), 2004. 148 pp. $19.95.

Rhythm: One on One is a treasure trove of movement games that will solve virtually any problem a student might encounter when studying an instrument. It will be a welcome addition to your library if you believe, as I do, that moving to music at each lesson is most important for developing a student's musicianship.

The authors, experts in Dalcroze Eurhythmics and co-authors of The Rhythm Inside, acquaint teachers in this book with Dalcroze techniques and demonstrate how to apply movement activities with individual students in studios with limited space.

The authors emphasize that we play instruments with our whole bodies and after music is experienced away from the piano--its essence, flow and impulse--then technique will follow because of awareness of the musical goal.

Chapter Two demonstrates ways props, such as drums, sticks, triangles, balls, a trampoline, hoops, bells and scarves, can be used to intensify rhythmic feeling. My favorite is the wooden grand staff made of dowels and uprights that students physically grasp to learn note names.

Chapter Three is the centerpiece of the book, with twenty-three games to develop attention, concentration and memory by working with the concepts of tempo, dynamics, phrase and meter. Exercises are for the advanced student as well as the beginning student. The teacher improvises at the piano during the games, but suggestions are given for compositions that could be played.

Two chapters are devoted to applications in the studio. Lesson samples are given for teaching technique, music reading, ear training and memorization. Several compositions are explored, such as Bach's Invention No. 8, Debussy's First Arabesque and a Chopin Etude.

I was inspired to try eurhythmics with my students and was delighted when progress was immediate; one student showed long and short phrases by demonstrating them with her arm in the air, and another played the fall board to practice fast and wide-ranged shifts. The results were magical and reminded me how much time can be saved if students move to the music, rather than telling them how to play.

Although the authors warn teachers not to use the games as a formula and to be more experimental, a game each week could become so rewarding that eurhythmics may appear throughout the lesson. The authors promise "progress begins the first time you walk through the music with your feet, instead of your fingers." "This constant invoking of physical feeling lifts routine study into a state of musical delight." Reviewed by Sylvia Coats, NCTM, Wichita, Kansas.