Hi everyone,
Here’s the information for my next concert! Woohoo! Click on the picture to be directed to the Facebook event.
Click to go to the Facebook Event Page
Current students can buy tickets when they come to lesson. Otherwise, you can pay for your tickets on paypal. Prices here are a few pence higher to cover Paypal’s admin charge.
See you at The Voicebox!
Many people seem to be curious about my Dalcroze Eurhythmics work. I enrolled on the Dalcroze Society’s certificate course in Sept 2010, have completed my practical exams and have just to finish my coursework and teaching practise, before I can call myself a ‘Dalcroze Practitioner’. Already, the training is informing the piano lessons I teach, and forms a major component of the musicianship and practical theory classes I teach at Derby Music Centre. I’ve also taught Dalcroze sessions at Birmingham Conservatoire, The Voicebox and at St. Clare’s Special School in Derby.
THE PROBLEM: it’s so difficult to define in words. So, those who haven’t seen it just can’t quite fathom what is it I do!
Is it a dance class? No! Movement to music is the largest aspect of Dalcroze, but it is not dance.
Is it some kind of hippy, interpretative dance thing? No. It’s actually quite technical as well as creative, and focuses on very specific aims.
Is it just a load of fun? Yes – it’s fun. But it’s not ‘just’ that! It’s actually meant to educate people and has been taught at the Royal Ballet school and at Music Conservatoires around the world, to ‘professional’ musicians, teachers, adult amateurs as well as to children and pre-school ages.
What are the aims of a Dalcroze teacher?
-Giving notes their full rhythm and life
- Being able to develop a sense of flow/ line (rather than thinking only vertically).
- The ability to sustain a continuous steady beat.
- Good tone quality. Sense of spring and rebound, release, weight.
- Dynamics. Using muscles to create energy or to restrain energy (eg. loud and quiet)
- Being able to respond quickly through looking, listening or feeling
- Being sensitised to working with other people
- Posture, good alignment, balance, body awareness. To feel secure. Alleviation of parasitic tension.
- To have a sense in our heads of what we’d like our performance or composition to sound/ feel like.
Woah – 20cm of snow forecast tomorrow! I thought it might be apt to upload this Wintery song I had lying around. It’s a poem I set to music as part of my (as yet unfinished) Dalcroze coursework. I wrote it for 3 voices and piano.
The lyrics are a poem by Charles Causley:
I wrote a new song recently and recorded a demo at home. Hope you like it – please share if you do!
I have seen the sky turn green
It’s so envious of the ground
Because on the ground he treads – left right left
And his footsteps down the corridor resound
Find a penny pick it up
We need a bit of luck
And now we’re dancing
Take my hand so much to say
Every word seems to find a way
To unpick our tapestry
To loosen your grip on me
And so thread by thread and word by word
What’s left of this hummingbird?
I have heard a hummingbird
Break a vow of silence to call his name
And although he heard he never said a word
That’s his way – an elaborate game
Find a penny pick it up
We need a bit of luck
And now we’re dancing
Take my hand so much to say
Every word seems to find a way
To unpick our tapestry
To loosen your grip on me
And so thread by thread and word by word
What’s left of this hummingbird?
I have seen the sky turn green
It’s so envious of the ground
I had a lovely email this week from the parent of an 11 year old boy I teach. It’s so wonderful to know that people enjoy my work!
‘My son, ___ has theory classes with you at Derby Music Centre on Saturday mornings. He thoroughly enjoys these sessions, and comes home full of excitement… He was amazed about how much he had learned in a short space of time, and he commented on how much he enjoyed the way you teach also.’
Maybe we should all take more time to express our appreciation when others make us happy. It’s so lovely to receive praise!
Saturday’s Musicianship and Theory classes at Derby Music Centre are going well. Some feedback:
“My daughter …. is really enjoying the classes and likes the fact that there is a practical element to it rather than just being out of a book. She also likes the all round musicianship and the fact that aural is brought into the classes too.”
From January, this is my provisional timetable for Saturday mornings:
8:30 -9:15 Grade 6 to 8 Aural
Using elements of Dalcroze and Kodály (solfa) and instrumental improvisation to help students work towards the listening components of their instrumental and vocal exams (Trinity and ABRSM covered).
10 – 10:45 Level 1 Theory and Musicianship
Using elements of Dalcroze, instrumental improvisation and Kodály (solfa) to help students work through ABRSM Grade 1-2 theory, whilst also building practical skills in recognising how these written elements sound.
10:45 – 11:30 Level 2 Theory and Musicianship
Using elements of Dalcroze, instrumental improvisation and Kodály (solfa) to help students work through ABRSM Grade 2-3 theory, whilst also building practical skills in recognising how these written elements sound.
12:15 – 1 Intermediate Theory and Musicianship (further details to be confirmed)
Using elements of Dalcroze, instrumental improvisation and Kodály (solfa) to help students work through ABRSM theory, whilst also building practical skills in recognising how these written elements sound.
Just under two weeks til my Solfa exam! Today I’m working steadily through a few tasks: I’ve now received a ‘pack of stuff’ which I have a fortnight to prepare for the exam. On Saturday I created the skeleton of a song based on a poem from a selection I was sent. First I sang the words and found a good rhythm to match the poem, then I found which chords to play. Next, I’ll write down the whole thing, including a proper piano part (rather than just chords).
Today, I’m practising conducting a song for three voices (or groups of voices). For my exam, I’ll have to conduct a group of people singing this. I figured my first job is to learn the piece, so I’ve multi-tracked myself singing each of the three parts so I can hear them all together. Now, my job is to listen back, pretending my choir is in front of me and work out which parts come in and where. I’m working on the conducting first because this is the thing I have least experience in and am a teeny bit worried about.
If I have time before work today, I’ll start work on the ‘sing and play’: I’ve chosen 1 from the 3 pieces sent and have to play a piano part whilst singing and independent line over the top. That shouldn’t be too tricky really – I’m quite used to singing and playing at the same time. But, I would imagine that they are some deliberately tricky bits in there, given that it’s an exam!
The last thing I’ll be working on today are my ten folk songs, two verses of each to be learnt from memory. I’ve learnt eight of them but just need to keep going over the lyrics to make sure they’re embedded. I tend to do this work in the car whilst driving – the car is a great place to sing!
When the exam is over, I’ll upload some of the songs I’ve been working on but I imagine it’d be a breach of exam conditions to do so now!
I’m coming to the end of my Dalcroze certificate course. I’ve attended 14 of 16 weekends in London since September 2010 and now my exams are looming. First up, Aural Examination on Sunday 1st April in Manchester.
The Aural Examination is largely based on sol-fa, which is a method where we sing songs and technical exercises using the syllables ‘doh re mi fa soh la ti’. (We jokingly call these syllables ‘vegetables‘, after a joke told by a teacher a very long time ago.) By doing this, we develop our skills and knowledge about pitch, intervals, scales, harmony and tonality so we learn to recognise all sorts of musical details by ear. For example, those trained in solfa can listen to a chord sequence or a tune and know exactly what it is – they can sing it back perfectly and play it back perfectly. It teaches people to fine-tune – so they are better able to play non-fretted string instruments, or to tune their guitars for example. Not only that, but they can improvise their own melodies, and deliberately shift key, change metre etc. It’s basically a tool to learn how to listen better and more actively.
Today I’m starting a daily practise schedule for singing. Here’s what I’m doing:
- Vocal warm up
- Scales, arpeggios and melodic sequences in solfa eg ‘doh mi soh mi doh, re fa lah fa re’, etc just to make sure I’m practising my ‘vegetables’
- Continuing a tune from a given opening, changing key and then returning to the original key – this is all done spontaneously, by ear. I get marked on making up a good tune, being able to modulate and being able to return to my original key.
- Improvising a melody to a given rhythm: I get given a written down rhythm and I have to sing a tune to it, using solfa. I get marks for creating a good melody and for correct use of solfa names.
- Sight-singing in solfa.
- I also have to learn 2 verses each of 10 folk songs from memory.
The exam itself contains lots of other bits and bobs but the above list is what I’m going to try to do daily from now on. Generally it’s all quite fun to do, although the sight-reading kills me because I don’t really have much of a working memory! The hardest bit for me is motivating myself to do it every day. So, that’s why I’ve decided to blog about it – it motivates me to think others are following in what I’m doing!
Hello
I thought I’d write something to document how amazing was the weekend I have just had: last night I returned from a weekend in Croydon: weekend number 11 of 16 of my 2-year Dalcroze Eurhythmics certificate course.
This weekend we did a lot of work about unequal beats – learning how to recognise, step, clap and move freely in 5/8, 7/8, 8/8, showing the beat groupings in our bodies: we did a lot of quick reaction games – responding to what we heard on piano by tapping and stepping different combinations of rhythms. I suppose at this point, to anyone who hasn’t done Dalcroze, my description must seem quite vague! But I suppose Dalcroze is such an experiential process that even a great description (such as this one by Kris) wouldn’t convey what was actually done and what it feels like.
For those of you still curious, I’ll provide an example of a game we did in our Rhythmics class to help us perceive two lines of music at once: we got into pairs, one person had two small hand drums. The teacher played a piece of music with two very separate bass and treble parts. The person with the drums had to move the drums every time there was a bass note, and the other person had to hit the drums every time there was a treble note. After a while we started to notice a pattern in the music and were able to pre-empt the changes, moving fluidly and tapping rhythmically. Imagine, ‘move move tap tap move tap‘… I suppose to an outsider it might’ve looked quite dance-like, although we weren’t trying to dance at all!
In improvisation we played a game where the teacher, Karin Greenhead played an accompaniment on one piano. She decided on a particular key and time signature. Then each of us in turn played melodies on another piano, responding to what Karin played. Karin changed keys (without warning us) and we had to continue to melodize fluently without panicking or falling to pieces! There was a fair bit of laughter during the class. It was fun, but quite challenging too: by doing this, we’re learning (notice present tense) to recognise particular modulations and to develop a deeper more intuitive understanding of keys and chords. Being daringly (and perhaps blindly or even stupidly!) ambitious with my piano playing, I ended up trying out chromatic modulations… which I have to say, I can’t do at the moment! But it’s given me lots of ideas to practise.
I’ve decided to try keeping an improvisation video diary online. I admit shamelessly that I am a performer and communicator – I thrive on dialogue with other people and it really is useful and inspiring to hear any suggestions others might have to help me improve, or to know that others enjoy or are inspired by what I play. So, I figured making videos would be a good way of motivating myself and documenting my progress. As I’ve touched on before, I don’t think people should wait til they’ve mastered something before they share it with others – the whole journey itself is something for any learner to be proud of. Perfectionism is not always a bad thing but it certainly can hold people back. In the interest of innovation, creativity and making breakthroughs I think it is more important to aim towards being expressive and spontaneous, to keep one’s attention in the present, rather than strive towards an ultimate goal of being perfect. Let’s face is, perfection is just not natural. (Here I could go on about examples of art, music and nature we may consider beautiful and how imperfections are essential for that…but, forgive me for trying not to spend my ENTIRE morning composing this post!)
So, my video diary is not there for others to make judgements on my general piano-playing: most of the pieces will be improvisations as opposed to rehearsed, finished performances (I already have videos online for that purpose). I am still learning how to do all this, so my intention is not to be fantastic or entertaining! If you like what you see or have any ideas about it, do let me know.
Here’s the link to the playlist for November’s videos (I’m optimistically thinking I should have a separate playlist for each month. ha..)
That’s all for now!
Hello!
It’s just dawned on me that I ought to put a link to my music, which is available to purchse via bandcamp. The following set of songs is just a collection of pieces I’ve written over the years, most of which I recorded and produced myself. One day, perhaps I’ll record the lot professionally and ask other musicians to play for me but for now I’m busy with other things, so I hope you enjoy my original versions of my original songs. I’ve made them available to listen to here for free but if you would like to download the songs, I’d be grateful for your £7.50 as a mark of respect for my hard work if nothing else! People seem very used to listening to or watching music online for free which is fine for those who make money from touring and t-shirt sales (!) but I don’t! Anyway, here you go. Hope you like it!
And while we’re at it, a couple of my performances from this Summer’s concert:
