Development & Learning

Children (ages 3½-7)

Let your child’s musicality and imagination soar as we explore music through purposeful movement, singing, improvisation, active listening and other interactive activities.

Dalcroze Eurhythmics is a joyful, dynamic, process-oriented way to experience and learn music from the inside out.

This class is aimed at developing fine and gross motor control, coordination and balance attention, spatial awareness, vocal precision, and independent and cooperative learning. Students will develop a music and movement vocabulary as well as begin developing their music literacy skills.

Musical Goals:

• Locomotor movements such as walking, marching, trotting, tiptoe running, leaping, galloping, skipping, swaying, etc.
• Musical use of materials and instruments, such as balls, scarves, hoops, beanbags, drums, xylophones, claves, etc.
• Singing and beginning pitch accuracy
• Note values (Quarter Notes, Eighth Notes, Half Notes, Dotted Half Notes)
• How music is organized in time (2, 3, 4)
• Phrase and form
• Expression symbols such as Forte and Piano

Adults (15 years and older)

This class is ideal for musicians, dancers, actors, music therapists, —anyone who would like an introduction to Dalcroze Eurhythmics or to refresh their musical skills and knowledge.

The Dalcroze approach is an interactive and experience-based approach which uses the body to teach students music concepts such as rhythm, meter, phrase, and form and strengthen musical hearing, singing, literacy, creativity, expressivity, musical intuition, and more. Classes are playfully challenging, engaging and joyful, and develop a deeper understanding of musical concepts that help to form a whole musician. As a result, musical concepts become more tangible. This class will cover the three branches of the Dalcroze approach: eurhythmics, solfege, and improvisation.

The Dalcroze approach is founded on the artistic and pedagogical ideas of Swiss educator Èmile Jaques-Dalcroze and is internationally recognized as a proven approach to teaching students of all ages, from very young through professional musicians.