Anatomy of a Lesson

We’ve republished a lesson plan created and used by an experienced Dalcroze teacher, making some annotations along the way to help deconstruct the activities and the ideas behind them. Annotations by Katie Couch.

here we have an aural reaction in which students react after the musical signal (because they don’t know when it’s coming). The signal should be randomized to keep the student’s attention sharp.

Elda Nelly Treviño Flores (Dalcroze License, PhD) is a professor at the Facultad de Música of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (uanl), professor and coordinator of Programas Dalcroze at Universidad Panamericana, and director of the independent studio Música Viva in México. She offers workshops and lectures throughout México and abroad. She has been piano soloist of the symphony orchestras of the uanl, and those of Matanzas and Santiago in Cuba in addition to being active as a collaborative pianist. From 2012–2016, Elda Nelly coordinated the Mexican Dalcroze Certification Program at the Conservtorio de las Rosas. She holds a PhD in psychology from the uanl (summa cum laude), a bachelor and master of music in piano literature and pedagogy from the University of Texas at Austin, and the Dalcroze certificate and license from Carnegie Mellon University. She is the representative of the International Federation of Rhythmics Teachers in México and is a member of the publications committee of the Dalcroze Society of America.

In this aural reaction, the signal is not changed as frequently or as randomly, giving the students a chance to truly associate with the trochée (as opposed to signaling it after they hear it).

This is an example of both improvisation, in that the students get to choose how they move, as well as association, as the students are matching their stretches to the music.

A folk dance is a fun way to end a lesson, as it involves the whole group working together in a light-hearted way.

Typically, a trochaic beat is moved as a skip, although how the students step is up to the teacher and their goals.

This type of pattern is known as a systemization, in which the trochaic rhythm is moved systematically through all of its possible placements in the measure. Then we have a dissociation, where the students step the heard rhythm patterns as their arms continue conducting the beats. These types of dissociations are difficult, since they require coordination and focus to perform with accuracy.