Dalcroze workshop w/ Monica Wilkinson: http://

www.monicawmusic.co.uk
All the activities I can remember, roughly in order (and therefore scaffolded)

1. Name game: *pat knees twice, clap hands twice* “pat, pat, clap, clap”. Go around the circle
saying your first name on the knee-patting part. “Pat, pat, clap, clap, Charlotte, clap, clap,
Susan, Clap clap, etc.”
2. Stood up; did physical warm-up
3. Walked around room. Feet move every time she plays a new note on the piano. Move in the
character played
4. Partner, bouncy ball. Bounce the ball on the downbeat as piano played. 2/4, 4/4, 3/4. Note that
the space in the bars is different. Have them come up with actions for when they’re not
throwing or catching the ball, ex. on 3 and 4 a four bar. Progression: the pattern of the music
changes part way through, for example 2 bars of two and then 2 bars of three, etc. Progression:
Partners come up with their own iterations with changing time signatures. Pulse stays the same
throughout. Share with group.
5. Interval physicalisation: walk in 4/4 time. Every time you hear an octave interval, throw and
catch the ball, in time. Thus, the four beats might look like this: “1, 8, *throw, catch*”
6. More advanced physicalisation: students come up with their own shapes to represent the
intervals. Start with clear ones, like minor seconds, perfect 5ths, P4ths, octaves. Practice
making the shape as they hear the various intervals.
7. Phrasing: Sit cross-legged on the ground (or not, whatev). Students move their hands in an arc
(rainbow-shape!) up and across their bodies for the length of the phrase. Try a passage with
antecedent—-consequent, looooong consequent so that they get different lengths of phrases.
8. Silk Scarves!! Walk when you hear the bass line. Move the scarf around, in character, when you
hear the treble line. Then, for phrasing: all stand in a group (not a circle!!) one scarf between
all. One person starts with it and moves it around for the first phrase, after which they hand it
off to the next person, who does the same. The hand-off should be in the spirit of the character,
and you can teach that the phrase doesn’t end with the beginning of the last note, but with the
very end of it.
9. More advanced harmonic thinking: have people stand in lines of three, shoulder to shoulder,
with one person’s worth of space between them. Play a triad on the piano (maybe start with just
a major one). Adjust one note of the triad at a time. The person in the middle is the middle note,
on one outside the bass, on other outside the upper note. As you move the notes of the triad
higher or lower, they step to either the left of the right as they hear it. Works well with eyes
closed.

General notes:

Dalcroze is a lot about making the implicit obvious more explicit so that we can use and talk about
it.

It’s about teaching musicianship—if students don’t have that *gut feeling*, this can help.
When structuring a lesson, think about the things the students will see in the piece they are about to
be working on. Make the elements into separate games and exercises to introduce them one by one.
Then at the end, ask them to identify the elements in the piece: “What do you hear?”

Editorial note from Charlotte: there is a danger here of overemphasising a “right way” to phrase
something, and an almost scientific understanding of precisely how much tension exists in each
interval. This made sense in Dalcroze’s day certainly; I wonder how to grapple with this in our post-
Second-Viennese-School world. Have to be careful with students—but this is probably good at the
beginning…??