July Article

That was Then, This is Now

Jaques-Dalcroze said that we teach what we are. And what are we? Each of us is at least as much a product of our “nurture” as our “nature” -- that is, our genetic traits are mere seeds that are developed and shaped by experiences in upbringing, education, and culture.

Similarly, music education methods show the inner nature and broader culture of their originators. Moreover, the methods themselves have their own developmental growth as each teacher brings their own talents and experiences to them.

Can any method, created in one place and time, be perfectly suited to every other place and time? How does the Jaques-Dalcroze method, as Monsieur Jaques himself taught it, fit with contemporary America? What are the differences, where are the barriers, and if they’re overcome through adaptation, is the result still the “Dalcroze method?”

Let’s start by considering who and where Jaques-Dalcroze was when he began the experiments that led to his “Methode Jaques-Dalcroze,” comparing his and his students’ experience with our own through nine contrasts.

1. Teacher Backgrounds
Then and There: A composer and professor of harmony, piano improvisation came naturally to Jaques-Dalcroze; he had experience in the theatre, but was not a movement artist. Through his mother and perhaps his schools as well, he likely absorbed the influence of the Swiss educational innovators, including Pestalozzi.

Here and Now: In contrast to Jaques-Dalcroze’s training, many teachers in America are not skilled in composition, not at ease improvising at the piano, and their experience in theatre and movement varies widely. Teaching philosophies are now combined in the “ecclectic curriculum,” often losing focus on process (the “how and why”) and centering more on specific activities themselves (the “what”).

2. Solfege
Then and There: In Jaques-Dalcroze’s Geneva of the early 20^th century, rigorous solfege studies, using fixed-do, were the order of the day. (We can still see the superior skills of Europeans in this area now, although their memories of the training experience itself aren’t always happy ones.)

Here and Now: If they’ve even had solfege study, most American teachers are more likely to have learned a moveable do system. Many of us never studied solfege at all before coming to the Dalcroze method.

3. Pianos
Then and There: Pianos were a staple of middle-class homes, and playing and singing together at home was a normal activity. The phonograph was only beginning to bring new accessibility of music.

Here and Now: Pianos are no longer as common as they once were. Home activity is more likely to center around TV or isolated use of computers and video games, and music accessibility has gone from records to 8-tracks to cassettes to CDs to MP3s and I-Pods. Pianos are even scarce in dance studios these days!

4. Arts Culture
Then and There: A spirit of change was in the air. We need only look at the riotous 1912 premiere of the Rite of Spring in Paris to see the clash of new ideas against tradition. A Greek renaissance merged with a new interest in “physical culture,” and Isadora Duncan’s innovations in dance created a sensation throughout Europe. As I discussed in last month’s article, dancing to classical music in togas and bare feet became fashionably modern and “cultured.”

Here and Now: As funding and audiences become more limited, innovations in opera, dance, and composition find root in smaller venues. Since the conceptual work of the 1960s, we’ve seen a disparate “fusion” merging old and new, popular and esoteric, without the broad movements in the arts from Jaques-Dalcroze’s day. “Physical culture,” however, has revived itself from aerobics to Jazzercize to a revived interest in Pilates, yoga, and calesthenics, with music playing a secondary role at best.

5. Movement
Then and There: Jaques-Dalcroze felt a need for an “initiation into rhythm” – an introduction to a new realm of physicality. He devised positions and gestures to create a new movement vocabulary, and produced large-scale choreographed performances. The very idea of experiencing music in loose attire (no corsets!) and barefeet was radical.

Here and Now: American students today have never worn a corset! They’ve experienced a range of movement through MTV, social dancing, classes from ballet and modern to jazz, tap and hip-hop, gymnastics, cheerleading, and more. The physical repression of a century ago is practically gone.

6. Publications
Then and There: Developments in the printing industry made publication more prevalent by the end of the 19^th century, and Jaques-Dalcroze wisely took advantage of that. As early as 1904, he published children’s songs with choreography, and in 1906, his first “Methode” books were printed. He went on to publish many more compositions, two collections of articles, several “Methode” volumes, and a brief manual on teaching children with a corresponding book of music. While he advocated direct experience in the method before teaching it, he made the work accessible.

Here and Now: Publications abound, particularly from large companies like MacMillan and Silver Burdett. As classrooms are more likely to have CD players than pianos, many publications now include CD recordings. Jaques-Dalcroze’s Methode books have long ago gone out of print.

7. Cultural Homogeneity
Then and There: The Genevan culture was fairly homogenous, with a common vocabulary and culture among students. (And at Hellerau, a central idea of the community itself was commonality.)

Here and Now: Our students and their experiences are more diverse than those in classrooms of Jaques-Dalcroze’s world. Ours is far from a homogenous culture. The challenges of widely divergent ethnic backgrounds, languages, home environments, community resources, and economic conditions come into the classroom with the children.  In addition, we see differences in American teachers’ approaches to music education, often with completely different vocabularies. A student may learn various systems of syllables, numbers, graphic symbols, hand signals, classroom books, multi-media, all changing year to year as they or their teachers relocate.

8. Classroom Settings
Then and There: Open space with a piano is essentially all that’s required for the Jaques-Dalcroze method. No special equipment is involved.

Here and Now: Open space with a piano is not easy to come by in public schools. Many of today’s music teachers don’t even have rooms – instead, they push carts around. I used to hear teachers lament, “But I can’t play the piano like that!” That was surmountable. Now I hear, “But I don’t even have a piano!” That’s not surmountable.

9. Language
Then and There: Switzerland is a bilingual country on a multilingual continent. Many of Jaques-Dalcroze’s writings, choreographies and compositions haven’t been translated. Moreover, only the central school in Geneva provides the terminal credential, and it requires teaching in French.

Here and Now: As Americans are far less multilingual than Europeans, language presents us with a challenge in terms of accessibility. Geographical distance creates another layer of distance from the method.

The Method as a Result

Combining all of these elements of Jaques-Dalcroze’s time, place, and person, we see the roots of the his method: a strict European emphasis on solfege and harmony, new interest in the body and freedom of movement, a focus on the piano, a revival of Greek ideas (from the body-mind connection to the rhythmic modes to the ubiquitous togas), and the Swiss lineage of educational theory, including a child-centered curriculum, sequential development, and the importance of autonomous discovery. 

In contrast, combining the elements of our own culture creates a very different picture: diverse backgrounds and music vocabulary, openness toward the body and movement, more limited experience with and availability of the piano, ecclectic approaches to educational ideas, more access to technology, and less access to a method that to some extent remains, quite literally, “foreign.”

To what extent should we try to fit this square peg into a round hole? And how far is something adapted before it transforms into something else?

Certainly some of us are fortunate to have ideal working conditions and backgrounds for the method – we are pianists with pianos, large teaching spaces, and skills in solfege, movement, improvisation, and creative teaching. But for many teachers, obstacles make the method an impossible dream, and keep them from approaching it at all.

What would Jaques-Dalcroze do to reach children who are currently experiencing music classes that could benefit from improvement? Children are indeed the future of American music appreciation, audiences, and funding, as well as performance. If we can create a better educational experience for them, even if it’s not all we’d wish for, should we do it?

What would Jaques-Dalcroze have done if there were more classrooms with phonographs than pianos in his day? If it were easy for him to produce recordings for the classroom, would he have done so to increase accessibility and influence of his work, in the same way he published songs and choreographies? Who really knows?

What we do know is that Jaques-Dalcroze was a consummate teacher. His focus was on the experience of the student, but his task as a teacher was to produce superb advanced musicians. As they become teachers, an important overlap was established – the method is focused on a high level of musicianship on the part of the teacher. That is a strength of the method, and gives it its depth, but it also limits its reach. What he provided in publications, performances, demonstrations, and franchises helped them to teach and propagated the method at the time. But the approach to teacher training, like the rest of his work, grew out of his own particular skills (piano improvisation) and teaching situation (conservatory students in Europe).

For some musicians, Jaques-Dalcroze truly made teaching into a new art form, providing a great experience for the teacher. We create, we perform, we respond, we improvise, we analyze, we synthesize, we share our souls with our students through the piano! But it doesn't necessarily mean that all this creativity produces an ideal experience for students, particularly if it's poorly done from a pedagogical standpoint. If the teacher-training focuses exclusively on one's own skills and experience, the result won't necessarily lead to widespread and effective teaching of others.
 

Toward an Broader Approach

What if we maintained key tenets of the method, but for the sake of affecting more students, increased accessibility for teachers? Undoubtedly, such an approach would diverge from the traditional Dalcroze Method.

Essentials would have to include:

- Theory follows practice
- Practice of musical experience involves ear, mind and body
- Sequential learning moves step by step from the known to the unknown
- Students discover musical skills and concepts through creative participation
- Time, space, and energy combine for a physical experience of music
- Listening is the foundation of music education

First, what if the "how's" of putting these ideas into practice were more flexible in working with teachers' individual skills, rather than requiring people to fit into a model of Jaques-Dalcroze? What if piano improvisation, an invaluable pedagogical tool, became one of a set of options? From the point of view of a student, a good teacher using a piece of written music, and using it well, is perhaps better than a poor teacher improvising brilliantly but without sequence or purpose (or a teacher with poor piano improvisation skills, or simply no piano!). Some teachers may be more effective with a drum or other percussion instruments, as they allow for greater direct physical interaction with the students. Imagine a sequencer that allowed teachers to call quick reactions and change music appropriately with a push of a button; imagine the ways students can create music for each other; imagine the possibilities for new venues where there's no piano. And perhaps there actually is potential for careful use of recorded music in our classes. (One teacher told me that he recorded himself playing the music in my books so that he could be free to move with his classes rather than being confined to the piano!)

Second, what if we set aside some of the rigors of Jaques-Dalcroze’s solfege? (That "thud" you just heard was the sound of many people fainting!) To my knowledge, Jaques-Dalcroze didn't fully develop a solfege methodology for teaching young children. Given the melange of methods used in our country today, an approach connected to Eurhythmics that’s flexibly adaptable to other symbols and syllables -- while still instilling eartraining, reading/writing skills, musicianship in performance, and theoretical understanding – may be even more important in contemporary American public schools than adhering to the fixed do or teaching children the do-to-do scales, for example. And from a practical standpoint, today's teachers need other skills much more than some of the esoteric things we traditionally teach them.

One of those necessary skills is a working knowledge of movement. That's essential to understanding, creating and modeling in any approach that considers the body an instrument of teaching and learning. Jaques-Dalcroze himself did not develop and refine his own movement technique, but to some extent, he was able to develop it in others. I recall a choral teacher I once had whose speaking and singing voice was croaky as a frog, but she was able to elicit a rather good tone from her choirs because she understood vocal technique. If she could have demonstrated with her voice, it might have made the process more direct, more efficient and perhaps more successful. In the same way, movement skills serve us. So while I wouldn’t go so far as to say that everyone who teaches movement must be able to leap high in the air and tumble backwards on the floor, it certainly helps; and we should nonetheless know, preferably from experience, how it's done.

Indeed, knowledge of technique and anatomy, the ability to create, recognize and inspire new movements that embody music, and an eye for the subtleties of others’ movement are critically important – in my view, more important to affecting students than knowing every seventh chord’s resolutions in all inversions. Yet today, teacher training in the Dalcroze method tends to slight concrete movement skills in favor of esoteric knowledge of music theory and/or the teacher’s own inner experience or “feeling" in movement. There is a tendency to look at teachers’ own invisible personal experience (as students) to the detriment of their clear communication and efficacy in the classroom (as teachers). If teachers' own experience is the "chicken" that comes before the "egg" of teaching others, reality tells us that there comes a time to look beyond grooming one's own feathers and focus on the skills that nurture the next generation's nest.

The second skill deserving greater emphasis, in my view, is the ability to establish rapport with students. It means understanding and valuing people; it means treating teachers with the respect they deserve, helping performers to connect the experience with their musicianship, playing with children while leading them to new discoveries. It means establishing trust that you will not belittle them, that you will help them -- rather than dare them -- to succeed, that you are taking them somewhere they want to go, and that you know and value who they are. (With children, it’s also important to establish trust that you are more fascinating than anyone or anything else in the room!)

The bridge leading the student to become the teacher often seems strangely shrouded in mystery in this method, and contributes to difficulties in pinpointing what the method actually is. "It's dangerous to write down exercises," some say. "Jaques-Dalcroze wrote down exercises, and those are the method, period!" say others. "I can't explain it, you just have to experience it," is another explanation, which easily leads to, "If you can't divine it on your own, you need to submit to my tutelage indefinitely, until I pronounce you worthy."
 

MusiKinesis

These are my thoughts as I ponder steering MusiKinesis along new avenues to provide skills and tools for effective teaching here and now, in ways that accept who today's American teachers are, acknowledge what their teaching circumstances are, and bridge the transition between learning and teaching. I believe we need to move away from the goal of ivory-tower perfection, obscure ideas, and cloudy wisdom, and broaden our reach to impact the greatest number of students possible. Call me socialist, a heretic, a lost sheep or a fallen woman!

In fact, the “Six Lessons” series is primarily an original product created from my own interactions with children based on Jaques-Dalcroze’s philosophy, but not a description of his teaching or anyone else’s, save my own. The reason for that points to a hereditary trait in Jaques-Dalcroze's legacy: when I received my credentials, I had plenty of advanced skills and experience teaching college students, but no practical foundation or materials related to my teaching situation.

I've been blessed with great teachers and a creative mind, and thus have been able to invent ideas for my little students based on conceptual constructs of higher education, and to hone and refine my processes and materials through direct interactions with my students. My books are just a start toward building that bridge to make sound pedagogical ideas practical for our own place and time -- something I think the Dalcroze Method has grown to neglect.

I’ll continue that process with The Kinesthetic Keyboard: 50 Piano Pieces for Movement, providing written piano music for you to use in your teaching. Perhaps from there, I’ll create a CD in response to the requests I’ve heard, and revise the "Six Lessons" series, adding levels for upper grades. My teacher-training work may steer in a new direction, in order to shine some light on the transition between learning and teaching. 

Maybe where I’m heading is no longer the traditional “Dalcroze Method,” but it’s a response to today’s America, the needs of our children, and input from many teachers who’ve shared their experiences with me. Please continue to communicate your thoughts, needs, and wishes, and in turn I’ll move forward toward new ways of enriching your teaching --here and now.