DIGITAL AUDIO LIBRARY

 

It’s through the body – and movement – that human beings best feel, understand, integrate and appropriate what they learn.

  What is the digital Audio Library?

This digital audio material for music pedagogy is made up of piano improvisations centered on various elements that make up musical language. It has been designed to encourage the learning of music and the overall development of children and adults by associating body movement with music. It features a diversity of musical and educational content, and a variety of means of explanation (audio tracks, written guides, videos and live encounters).

The Audio Library is a tool for democratization,
accessible to as broad a public as possible.

  • The “music and movement” Audio Library includes 10 volumes of 10 to 12 musical exercises each, grouped by theme and based on the Dalcroze pedagogy.
  • The musical pieces offer a range of possibilities, from the simplest to the most complex, depending on the level of the pupils. From age 4 to adulthood.
  • The accompanying teaching suggestions are adapted to the level of the pupils and the size of the space available for body movement.
  • Each volume is accompanied by a teaching guide containing descriptions and explanations of the exercises.
  • Each guide also includes improvisation exercises for student improvisers.
  • The guides were produced in collaboration with Lisa Parker, Cheng-Feng Lin and Mary Brice – all highly qualified Dalcroze teachers – and written by Mary Brice and Françoise Lombard.

WHO IS THE AUDIO LIBRARY FOR?

  • Music teachers of all levels for group lessons (musical awakening – beginnings – training)
  • General teachers (elementary school)
  • Music education students
  • Dalcroze students practicing improvisation
  • Musicians interested in the Dalcroze approach and professional training
  • Dalcroze teachers 

Musical pieces offering a wide range of possibilities

VOLUME 1: pulsation & locomotion

This volume includes ten musical pieces mostly focused on the theme of locomotion. Through walking, running, skipping, slow walking, dance steps etc., the pulsation, which is the basis of music, is incarnated in the body. The pulsation (beat), in the body, results in steps. From pulsation to measure, and then to phrasing, VOLUME I brings together these musical notions intimately linked to each other, which give life and meaning to the musical discourse.

VOLUME 2: beat, subdivision and multiple

Volume 2 is based on the notion of pulsation and develops the concept of division and multiplication of the basic pulsation. This naturally leads us to different speeds, in precise relation to each other. These relationships necessarily imply relations between the notions of time, space and energy, central subject of the Dalcroze pedagogy.

VOLUME 3: basic rhythms

Volume 3 presents simple rhythms, created from the different note values introduced in the previous two volumes. These include mainly short-short-long and long-short-short combinations. The purpose of these musical tracks is to introduce a variety of activities that allow students to assimilate musical rhythms while developing their motor skills and coordination.

VOLUME 4: contrasts

The subject of contrasts is one way in which young children can begin to put words on what they hear. It is an excellent didactic tool for making conscious what is often intuitive listening. While some of the contrasts in this volume are suitable for the youngest listeners, others are aimed at more experienced children and even adults.

VOLUME 5: natural movements

This volume addresses natural movements in the most simple of ways : the music offered invites you to move freely, without any particular reflection process. The concept of complicity between the music and the student’s movement is the base of Dalcroze Eurhythmics. This means that what the body is doing is exactly coherent with the music the student hears. This complicity actually nourishes both the movement and the musical sense.

VOLUME 6: phrasing

Phrasing is the art of conducting a musical discourse. Like the phrasing of spoken language which conveys thought, musical phrasing has an inflection, a movement, an articulation, a breath, a dynamic and a direction that expresses an intention.
Body movement and the use of space allow us to feel the phrasing, to become aware of it and to express it clearly and globally. The experience of phrasing, once inscribed in the body, leads to an intimate understanding of the music.

 

VOLUME 7: simple meter

This volume presents simple time measures with 2, 3 and 4 beats. Their common point is the division of the beats, but they are very different from each other. Through a variety of exercises involving the whole body, one discovers the back-and-forth sensation of the two-beat meter, the circular movement of the three-beat meter, the duration and therefore the greater use of space induced by the four-beat meter.

VOLUME 8: compound meter

Volume 8 is dedicated to compound division. Like volume 7, it deals with the different meters, this time from 2 to 5 beats, and in increasing order. It focuses on the feeling of the overall duration of the meter and the beats, as well as their division into three. One becomes familiar with the rhythmic cells of both ternary trochee and iamb (long-short, short-long), one plays with rhythms and creates them.

VOLUME 9: unequal beats

After the simple and compound meters which deal with the division of a regular pulse by two or three, here are the unequal beat meters. Now, instead of dividing a pulsation, regular note values are added into groups of 2, 3 or 4. In this volume the note values are eighth notes. Music in unequal beats reveals the richness of many cultures and gives you an irresistible desire to dance!

VOLUME 10: “one more step”

The last volume of the collection gathers various learning elements intended for a more advanced level.
Some tracks address topics covered in previous volumes (change of meters, canon, unequal measures, rhythmic and melodic dictation), at a more complex level; others introduce the notion of polymeter, that is, the superposition of two different metric values within the same time frame, for example two beats of ternary value (6/8) with three beats of binary value (3/4). The proposed polymeters are 2><3, 3><4, 5><2, 5><3.

 

Materials specially designed for teaching music including body movement.

120 exercises for music teachers from preschool to highschool.

40 improvisation exercises for keyboard instruments.

  How do I use it?

01

Listen to each track several times, make it your own by memorizing the sequence, so that you can guide your students appropriately.

02

Read the explanations in the guide, imagine the pedagogical sequence, or design your own developments.

03

Experiment for yourself, then in the classroom.

04

Adapt, modify and add your own ideas.

WILL THE TEACHING GUIDES BE ALL I NEED?

By subscribing, you benefit from : 

  • monthly videos for an in-depth understanding of the meaning of the exercises.
  • live interaction on the private FB page, once a month with members and Françoise Lombard.

Need advanced coaching?

Set up your own group and register in just a few clicks for
Françoise Lombard’s advanced online or in-person training.

“Listening to Françoise’s improvisation in this Audio Library has been inspiring. Often I find myself standing up and I begin to move while listening. I listen as a Dalcrozian, recognizing its rich pedagogical potential. I also listen just for enjoyment as I immerse myself in the imaginative music. For Dalcroze students in training, it may serve as examples when they learn to improvise in the teaching context. For classroom music teachers, the recording becomes an indispensable aid for nourishing the students’ ears and their movement experience. Thank you, Françoise, for sharing your creation with us.” 

Cheng-Feng Lin

Co-Director of Studies, Dalcroze Canada, piano teacher

Adresse

5761 Northmount Ave, Montreal, QC H3S 2H4 Canada

Subscribe to the newsletter

S'inscrire - Subscribe

* indicates required

Intuit Mailchimp