Academic Departments: Dalcroze Eurhythmics
Programs Available
Master of Music Degree in Dalcroze Eurhythmics
Dalcroze Certificate
Dalcroze License
Dalcroze Eurhythmics at Longy
Dalcroze Eurhythmics is a unique and powerful way to cultivate musical awareness and understanding. It utilizes the physical response to music, redefining the coordination between ear, brain, and body to develop musicianship and musical imagination in a joyful and stimulating way. An "embodied" sense of rhythm, harmony, and melody leads to vital performance and teaching. Dalcroze is an ideal area of specialization for the musician who loves many aspects of music-making: teaching, performing, creating, dancing, acting. It utilizes all the arts in a workshop for musical learning. Applicable to all ages and learning levels, it is suitable for the classroom, private studio, special-needs class, music therapy session, or college theory class.
Ordinarily a two-year course of study, including two three-week summer sessions, the Longy Dalcroze program leads to three possible credentials: the Dalcroze Certificate, an internationally recognized qualification to teach children and beginning adults according to Dalcroze principles; the Dalcroze License, an internationally recognized qualification to teach adults at all levels according to Dalcroze principles; and the Master of Music Degree in Dalcroze Eurhythmics, the only program of its kind in the world. Dalcroze Certificate and Master of Music Degree students take the same Dalcroze coursework. License candidates must already hold the Dalcroze Certificate.
Dalcroze training has three interrelated branches of study: Eurhythmics, solfège, and improvisation. Eurhythmics develops the student's spontaneous physical response to music through movement. Playful and interactive in nature, Eurhythmics is a challenging workout for the ear. Solfège is the study of tonal and rhythmic relations. Through intensive, physicalized ear-training, frameworks of hearing are developed that lead to skills of music literacy: sightsinging, dictation, harmonization, and analysis. Improvisation endorses and nurtures the basic and universal impulse to express one's own musical ideas. In Dalcroze work, improvisation is studied as an art in itself and also as an indispensable tool for the Eurhythmics teacher. Improvised music (voice, percussion, piano) inspires and directs the movement activities of the Eurhythmics class.
To enter the Certificate or Master of Music program in Dalcroze, a bachelor's degree in music or music education is recommended, although competency may be proven through audition and testing. An intermediate level of piano proficiency is required. A love of movement is highly desirable, but no special training in movement is necessary.
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