Overview:

Music education, like all academic subjects, has a teaching philosophy founded on a set of principles designed present the discipline with a unified body of pedagogy. The music methods or teaching approaches of Carl Orff, Jaques-Émile Dalcroze, Zoltán Kodály and Edwin Gordon have been researched and practiced for music educators for many decades. Each encourages active participate by the students and are systematic in design.

Objectives:

Students will be able to:

Describe four of the most widely recognized music education approaches,
Delineate the rationale underlying each approach,
Identify and describe principles of each methodology,
Identify methods or steps for implementing each of the approaches, and
Identify teaching elements that are unique to each approach.

How is the Dalcroze Approach Taught?

The basic principles of the Dalcroze approach are as follows:

Instruction begins at an early age: pre-school or kindergarten.
Complete musicianship involves not only the accurate performance of the musical score, but also a sensitive expression of all the interpretive elements of music—dynamics, phrasing, and shading.
The study of rhythm precedes all instrumental study.
Musical elements should be introduced in numerous successive and concurrent experiences that lead to genuine understanding and skill. The sequence of instruction is of greatest importance.
Sensory and intellectual experiences are combined. The skills and understandings of the musician are built on active involvement in musical experience.
The element of rhythm is the first and most important of the student's early experiences in music.
The source of musical rhythm is the natural locomotor rhythms of the human body. The musician must become aware of and must develop the expressive possibilities of the body.
The larger muscle groups of the body are used in eurhythmics, as opposed to small muscle groups used in clapping rhythms with hands or tapping with feet.
The students develop good listening habits because they must relate what they hear to what they do.

Many instructional techniques from the Dalcroze approach, in particular from the eurhythmics component, are used in teaching music to children in the United States. Few teachers, however, have Dalcroze certification. The training for certification in the method is challenging, and the certification test calls for mastery of piano improvisation that demonstrates a variety of rhythmic qualities for movement, in various keys, performed in musically expressive ways. Preparation for certification is intensive and extensive. There are three levels: certificate, license, and diploma (the latter available only at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva, Switzerland).

Dalcroze training inspires, develops, and refines all the capacities that students use when they engage in music – the senses of seeing, hearing, and touching as well as the ability to feel and act on feelings. The kinesthetic sense, the feedback mechanism of the nervous system that conveys information between the mind and the body, coordinates these capacities. The education of the kinesthetic sense in the learning of music is at the heart of the Dalcroze approach.

Click here for more information on the Dalcroze approach.