Dalcroze Eurhythmics: Music and Motion (MFN2215.01)

Chris Rose

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 know and express yourself? Can music help you understand someone else?

Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950) saw all music as a metaphor for the body experiencing itself. We don’t just hear music: we feel it. When a musician interprets a musical score, and plays the right notes at the right time, is it enough to move you? In Eurhythmics, (greek for ‘good flow’) we play with embodiment as the source of dynamic, felt experience, designing games of movement and music to challenge the depth and breadth of our awareness. What makes a rhythm groove? What makes a phrase beautiful? One Dalcroze student, Meredith Monk, summed it up this way: “All musical truth resides in the body.”


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: 14
Course Frequency: Once a year

Categories: 2000 , All courses , Fully In-Person , Fundamentals , New Courses , Two Credit , Updates
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