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I have used kinaesthetic awareness when working with conducting students by

having them move with their eyes closed. Moving in this way, they are forced to
use other senses than their eyes, sensing the position of their arms, the attitude of
their head and neck, and then comparing this sensation with the reality of their
positioning.
According to Farber and Parker, it was Dalcroze’s belief that bodily movement
was an experience felt by a sixth muscular sense (proprioception), consisting of
the relationship between the dynamics of movement and the position of the body
in space, between the duration of movement and its extent, and between the
preparation of a movement and its performance (Farber and Parker 1987:44).
Dalcroze teachers Julia Schnebly-Black and Stephen Moore explain that from a
Dalcroze standpoint: ‘Proprioception, our sixth sense, conveys information to the
brain about the body’s position. Without looking, we know whether our arm is
raised, our heel is off the floor, or our wrist is bent’ (Schnebly-Black and Moore
1997:28).
The essential purpose of movement through proprioception, according to the
Dalcroze philosophy, is to convey information back to the movers themselves,
which is very important for student conductors as they learn to integrate their
musical ideas with their gestures. Dalcroze himself wrote in Rhythm, Music and
Education with regard to proprioception:
Bodily movements are a muscular experience, and are appreciated by a sixth – the
‘muscular’ – sense. Which controls the multiple nuances of force and speed of those
movements in a manner appropriate to the emotions that inspire them, and which will
enable the human mechanism to refine those emotions, thus rendering dancing a
complete and essentially human art (Jaques-Dalcroze 2002:270).

As conducting is a physical form of communication, it makes sense to develop

conducting movements through physical learning as provided by Dalcroze
eurhythmics. Learning conducting through verbal or visual instruction is far less
efficient, as ultimately what is learned must be translated into physical form
anyway.

Although the proprioceptive sense was yet to be named at the time of Delsarte46,
he recognised the influence of the bodily-kinaesthetic domain on gesture.
Delsarte stated in his ‘Doctrine of Special Organs’ that the meaning of a gesture

46
As stated in the previous chapter, Sir Charles Sherrington’s observation and definition of
proprioception was made in 1906.