Thanks, Michael Joviala and the Dalcroze Society of America, for the interview and article. It is always a joy to talk with you. I tell my students that it is important to "practice our words", that is, we should be able to talk about our music making and why artistry matters. This interview was good practice for me! It was a pleasure to talk about my work. Thanks for that.
Dr. Stephen Neely is an associate professor of Dalcroze Eurhythmics and Dalcroze License at Carnegie Mellon University School of Music, who also presents hands-on workshops in the US and around the globe focusing on the overlaps between music, design, body aesthetics, performance, and experience."
#ThisWasAFunOne
https://amt-lab.org/podcasts-interviews/2025/3/building-embodied-experience-in-design-and-the-arts-with-stephen-neely
Somedays, work is just a little too much fun. We are just back from Spring Break, and over the next two weeks, we will turn our attention to "big-body gesture" and "expressive range." I have now spent close to 60 hours with these first-year students, and lots of the basics are now in the body. We spent much of the first semester learning to listen and how to turn our attention to our own feeling body. We have earned our classmates' trust and survived some good artistic risks in front of each other.
We have covered basic lessons in time-space-energy, tempo, dynamics, articulation, beat/pulse (binary, ternary beat-units), divisions and multiples of beat-units (regular and irregular), rhythmic patterns based on binary and ternary beat-units, binary and ternary meters, complementary rhythm, augmentation, diminution, anacrusic and crusic phrases, canon, ties, syncopation, form, accents (metric, dynamic, agogic, tonic, timbre, harmonic). This semester, we will cover meters that combine binary and ternary beat units, hemiola, cross-rhythms (3:2, 3:5, 5:2), two-part rhythmic sight reading and dictation, and improvisation (singing and gesture) will continue to hold a major role in the training.
Of particular interest to Eurhythmics II is a turn away from the "building blocks" of music (beat, meter, rhythm, pitch, harmony, etc), and a turn toward interpretation. At Carnegie Mellon, we are working with main-stage performers and composers, and our allegiance is to MUSICIANSHIP above all else. We are training ARTISTS, which means we have to discover the music that exists between the notes on the page, more so than merely recognizing the printed notes on the page. It takes some patient work to get to this place, but the act of interpretation is synonymous with risk-taking, exploration, and improvisation. You can't both play it safe and share your deep beliefs at the same time. So today, we spent the whole class exploring "expressive range," the space where we look for interpretative options. We experimented with simple and safe motions, then pushed on those boundaries to awaken less-rehearsed, less comfortable, less common options, all in the service of greater expressive range.
It is such a privilege to work with these young artists. They are deeply invested, courageous, and kind. They are willing to be playful, which is the root of all creativity. I wish all of you a day of curiosity, exploration, and joy. May all of our days be full of such life.
One of the most exciting accomplishments of 2024 was made possible through a collaboration with my dear friend and Dalcroze wizard, Anthony Molinaro. We made a thing! The project is called Make It Music — Dalcroze Strategies for Every Classroom.
Anthony spent all of last school year doing graduate work at Carnegie Mellon, and we thought...while we were both there, seeing each other every day, we should look for some way to meet and share ideas. I have been BLOWN AWAY by his work with the kids for years. He has such a thumb on the philosophy behind the Dalcroze Eurhythmics routines. It is always a joy to talk to him about his classes and to compare notes.....and that is what we did! For most of the last year, we met every week to compare ideas about what excites us in our teaching practice. We each shared stories and ideas and talked about all parts of Dalcroze pedagogy, practice, history, and how we use all of that to craft lessons for our students.
We discussed quite a few ideas, but we kept coming back to two prevailing points—ideas critical to our Dalcroze practice.
The first is what we are calling "open-ended lesson planning." Under this discussion is the balance between advance lesson planning and in-the-moment ideation in co-creation with our students. The example of in-the-moment ideation was always on great display with my foremost Dalcroze mentor, Dr. Marta Sanchez. I once watched Marta teach 4 back to back classes, just riffing on the dotted-eighth-sixteenth rhythm. (Honestly! She showed up to class that day with that rhythm on a post-it note, stuck it to the piano, and just improvised her whole, AMAZING, day of teaching!)
There is certainly a huge need for the night-before planning that we all do to arrive at our classes prepared and organized. I have written out the lesson plans for every class I have ever taught. (I still have them all in a big file cabinet – 33 years' worth of single-page lesson plans 😱) But I never believe I have done the best Dalcroze work if my creativity stops there. The real magic is found when I can 'get into the zone' with my students. My goal is to spin a lesson that starts with some idea(s) from my lesson plan, and then see how those initial ideas open up possibilities and potentials in my students. When it is working the way it should, I end the day with more ideas than I started. My students and I have come to new understandings, new exercises, new orderings, new turns of phrase....new insight that was just not possible when planning by myself the night before. The Make it Music book takes some pages to try to describe the open-ended-lesson phenomenon and then builds a set of tools to help teachers who might be new to this mindset.
The second set of ideas we kept visiting was the nature of artistry in the Eurhythmics class. Anthony and I both come from mainstage performance careers, each of us spending years as live performers before really doubling-down on classroom teaching as our #1 devotion. When I was singing in or directing main stage operas, it was easy to see myself as an artist. The open stage is defined by the creative, the interpretative, intimate work in ensemble with others. You have to take risks and own them on the live stage. You have to show-up, be fully present, and give yourself over to the practice. The "artist" title was easy to carry.
As a young teacher, it was not obvious to me what classroom work had in common with main stage artistry. Teaching can be a slog. Students are not always interested in finding the close ensemble or taking musical risks together. Bell schedules, academic calendars, grades (!), and the bureaucracy of many schools are all pressures that can distract us from the first reasons we are there and the profound work that we do.
But as I started to focus more on Dalcroze ideals and included more of the exercises; as I strove to honor the traditions and paid more attention to the "body is the first instrument" mantra, the teaching artist persona became more and more apparent. Our Dalcroze routines not only push the student to be present, embodied, creative and self-aware, but they ask the same of the teacher! Crafting my interactions with the classes, co-creating exercises, discovering new variations on the themes, taking risks, performing in ensemble, and moving together. It is not only 'like' mainstage performance; the opportunities for artistry are largely identical. The Make It Music book challenges every reader to take on the title of Teaching Artist and then continue to work in that framing.
The book comes with 4 decks of cards — a tool for creating new exercises and challenging our routines. You can read all about it at make-it-music.com. Please check it out and let me know what you think!!!
Thanks to Anthony for the ideas/writing collaboration. And thanks to Melissa Neely for making everything look SO AMAZING!! She is the real artist in my life. 💕
Not every day, you get to teach 100 outstanding adult musicians at once! Thanks to Maestro Robert Shoup and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus for your kindness and generosity. Being invited back to spend some hours together was such a joy. You are wonderful, and I am so excited for the remainder of your concert season.
We hoped for a longer residency, but the weatherman had other ideas. Even with a condensed schedule, we were still able to cover quite a bit of ground in preparation for John Adams' HARMONIUM. We explored music as inner feeling vs. outward sound, musical momentum, the shared gesture, deep ensemble, and the differences between technique, literacy, and musicianship. I am so fortunate to work with artists of such high caliber. It is a joy and a privilege. I am already looking forward to our next time together!
I was again asked by a student this week, "What is your favorite music?" I am always stumped by this question. I don't think I really have one kind of music that is my favorite. My spotify lists are eclectic! But the question made me recall a wonderful conversation with Anthony and Melody Molinaro, Aaron Butler, and Gregory Ristow this past summer, where we considered the differences between the musics we love.
There is not one way that I participate in music.
This July I was invited by the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business to lead a workshop with young executives from Mahindra & Mahindra, the multinational automobile manufacturing company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra.
In the workshop titled, Innovative Sounds of Leadership: Orchestra Experience, I discussed leadership through the lense of the performing ensemble. I taught the 33 executives basic conducting patterns and then split them into small chamber ensembles where they attempted to conduct each other. After some practice and coaching, each group nominated a group member to come to the stage to conduct me playing the piano. As each leader came to the stage, we discussed ensemble, communication, entrainment, and empathy. Then we took turns working with the CMU Tartan Tuba Band. These musicians were absolute pros, taking the wild directions from our young executives and working them into the performances.
The day was so much fun. We laughed and laughed all while talking about the differences between leading and commanding, between being beside vs being together and noting the level of intimacy, humility, and vulnerability necessary to earn trust. We talked about 'finding' your ensemble where they are and noted how you can only direct a group that is with you. We searched for variables of experience that were malleable — leadable — and then pushed on these variables to find their breaking points. We considered the role of risk, mistakes, blame, and then revisioned those frictions relative to innovation. I am sure we could have continued the workshop throughout the rest of the week if we had more time.
Thanks to the Tepper School of Business and to the Mahindra Accelerated Leadership program for trusting me with your up-and-coming executives. Thanks to the CMU Tartan Tuba Band, you were brilliant. And thanks to my dear friend Lance LaDuke for making these inroads and modeling the leadership, humility, joy, and care that we should carry with us into every boardroom and concert stage. I miss you friend.
