Dalcroze Eurhythmics is a music class where we practice sensing the body through sound. What do you know that your sentient, feeling body did not first experience? How does music help you express yourself? Can music help you get to know someone else?
The feeling body is the single constant throughout all of our experiences, but can be easily forgotten amidst the notes and rhythms of music learning. Swiss pianist and composer Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) wanted to change that. Hoping to make music learning less abstract, he created Eurhythmics, not just to instill a connection between sound and gesture, but to return his music students to the body as the seat of musical experience.
This Fall, we’ll ask how the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961)–that we come to know the world subjectively through the living body-subject–can help us give language to music’s vital presence in our lives. In Dalcroze, as Dr. Marja-Leena Juntunen explains, “the main goals are to encourage musical expression and creativity, to lead students to trust their own ideas and creations, and to help them discover their body as an expressive musical instrument.” Join us!
Learning Outcomes:
In this course, the students will:
-Experience and identify the grammar of western rhythm.
-Create gestures that express their experience of those rhythms.
-Analyze and imitate the rhythm and structure of their favorite music.
-Improvise and compose for their voice or instrument.
-Discover and deepen relationships between sound and musical gesture.
-Work closely with their classmates to witness a diversity of experiences.
Delivery Method: Fully in-person
Course Level: 2000-level
Credits: 2
W 10:00AM - 11:50AM (Full-term)
Maximum Enrollment: 12
Course Frequency: One time only
Categories: 2000 , All courses , Fully In-Person , Fundamentals , Two Credit
Tags: awareness , barefoot , beat , conducting , creativity , embodiment , experience , harmony , instrument , interdisciplinary , listening , Merleau-Ponty , meter , movement , Music fundamentals , philosophy , proprioception , rhythm , self-knowing