Emile Jaques-Dalcroze 1865-1950
Was a Swiss music educator, pianist, and composer. He pursued his
musical career in Paris under Delibes and Fauré, in Vienna under Bruckner
and Fuchs, and at the Conservatory of Geneva, where he received a first
prize for music, painting, and poetry. He was the founder and originator of a
revolutionary approach to music education during the early twentieth
century. His pedagogical ideas were strongly influenced by J. Rousseau and
H. Pestalozzi. Dalcroze's method became very famous, and represents the
foundation for modern approaches in music education.
Concept and method
Some facts on the philosophy and its development:
The foundation of this new idea was based upon Dalcroze's own teaching
experiences with students at the Geneva Conservatory, Switzerland, where
he was a professor for solfège and harmony.
He observed critically, that a unilateral intellectual approach to learning a
musical instrument did not enhance the student's rhythmic/musical
education. For years he searched for a new method because he was
appalled at the dryness of traditional teaching methods.
He planned a concept to refine and train musical hearing, especially inner
hearing, that develops tonal and harmonic senses. Dalcroze was convinced
that musical elements, especially rhythm and dynamics, but also melody,
pitch, phrasing, and harmony were subjects that could be experienced through movement and gesture.
He came upon a "sixth sense" that he called the "muscular sense," today
called the "kinesthetic" or "sense of motion." which enables us to perceive
feelings of well- being. The body internally reacts to the perception by the
other five senses. The kinesthetic sense tells the body how to cope,
prepare, and set the stage for motion. It regulates the relationship
between the dynamics and energy of movement, and controls the body's
position in space. In other words it determines the preparation, execution,
duration, and experience of movement. The "muscular sense" is the
connection and communication path between the mind and body.
The intertwining of mental and physical training was the ultimate principle
underlying Dalcroze's pedagogy. Harmonization, unification, and integration
of the mind and body, and respecting the student as an entity, while
allowing for self-awareness and self-expression. Learning was becoming an
experience in which the student played an active role in the overall process
of finding the solution.
In 1903 Dalcroze presented his method of music education that he had
developed during the preceding twenty years. He called it Eurhythmics
(Greek, Eu=good, rhythm=flow or river), an educative principle using the
basic elements of music and movement. Dalcroze created an impressively
extensive program with thousands of exercises and activities emphasizing
rhythmic movement (rhythmics), ear and pitch training (solfège), and
improvisation. Lessons were typically held in a group setting, nurturing a
creative and socially interactive atmosphere.
His first school was established in the garden city Hellerau near Dresden
in Germany. This city was dedicated to a social cultural project promoting fine
arts programs to inspire and edify its citizens. With the uprising of World
War I, Dalcroze's work was disrupted. Years later he founded a second
school in Geneva, Switzerland, called the "Institut Jaques-Dalcroze" which
still exists.
His method became very famous throughout Europe in spite of opponents
who attempted to ridicule his work. The famous dancers Mary Wigman
and Martha Graham were just a few of his students besides other followers
and supporters, such as Bernhard Shaw, Rudolf von Laban, Sergey
Rachmaninoff, Ignacy Paderewski, and Max Reinhardt.
The objectives of Eurhythmics were not only to be applied to music classes
but to education in general, to theater, and to therapy. The refinement and
education of what Dalcroze called the "muscular sense" was the key issue
of his concept. At the time not much was known about this sense, and he
often regretted that he could not provide profound evidence to support his
case.
Later, in the mid-twentieth century, researchers confirmed the existence of
the "kinesthetic sense" (Kines=motion, thesia=awareness). In childhood,
kinesthesia is the sense through which a person literally experiences
learning with the body. That is why by nature children move around
constantly and perceive through motion. It is their way of exploring the
world, while their perception establishes mental "maps" that they will use
the rest of their lives. This fact gives important evidence of the profound
impact Dalcroze's concept of movement can have in a child's education.
His contribution to the area of music education inspired many successors,
and they continued to develop eurhythmics according to modern
pedagogical, psychological and philosophical standards. Schools for Dalcroze
teacher training were established in many countries around the world, and
besides Switzerland and Germany, also in Scotland, Ireland, England, Russia,
Sweden, Austria, New Zealand, Australia, the USA, and Japan.
Over the years, the basic idea of Dalcroze's method grew with its
descendants to where it now crosses the borders of education, and
encounters other areas such as creative movement, dance therapy,
methods of physical- and mental therapies, modern dance, opera, theater,
and pantomime.
Links and Comments
Some of the comments found in the following related sites:
The Dalcroze Society of America comments on Dalcroze Eurhythmics:
"Dalcroze training stimulates, develops, and refines all the capacities we
use when we engage in music: our senses of hearing, sight and touch; our
faculties of knowing and reasoning, our ability to feel and to act on our
feelings. Coordinating these capacities is the kinesthetic sense, the
feedback mechanism of the nervous system, which conveys information
between the mind and the body. The education of this sense to the
purposes of the music is at the heart of the Dalcroze work.
This approach, so radical in its inception one hundred years ago, has
found its moment in the current explosion of interest and research in music
education. The newest discoveries and theories of learning point exactly to
the teaching innovations that Dalcroze proposed at the beginning of this
century."
www.dalcrozeusa.org
"Dalcroze Eurhythmics is a unique approach to music education. It is based
on the premise that the human body is the source of all musical ideas..."
"…It allows us to gain a practical physical experience of music before we
theorize and perform."
www.dalcroze.org.au
"Dalcroze stressed the importance of sensory experience, the value of
pleasure and challenge in developing attentiveness, concentration, and the
innate potential for creativity."
www.dalcroze.com
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