How does it work?

It is not enough to have a purely intellectual and aural understanding of musical concepts - the body has to know what they feel like.

Since the whole body is involved in playing and singing, any information that is not already in the body will not, indeed cannot, come through in our performance.

Through training the body (and not only the ear) we can deepen and broaden our power of musical expression and understanding so that we experience the music more deeply.

In Dalcroze a study and understanding the language of music is achieved by engaging our whole being - mind and body.

For example, we step and clap note values and rhythms, we travel with an object across the room to express the line of a phrase and we map out in space the form of a piece. We show the quality of a sound with a physical gesture and illustrate texture by interacting with others.

In doing so, many other faculties are developed such as pre-hearing and thinking skills (being able to hear in our heads before we play), coordination, concentration and memory. We develop musical flexibility and confidence and the ability to work as soloists or within an ensemble.

We learn to create our own music by watching someone move and playing for that movement. We express the energy of movement in our playing; where it is still, where it moves and travels and where it grows.

And we also learn through music to develop our own vocabulary of movement by expressing the feelings within it; its forces, its emotions and power.