Friday, January 24, 2025

We wrote a book!!!


The last year has been a whirlwind; there were highs and lows, some travel, lots of teaching, and even some playtime...

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 superstar in my life. 💕


Sunday, January 19, 2025

Thanks to the Virginia Symphony Orchestra Chorus

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!




Monday, October 14, 2024

What is your favorite music?!! or How do you participate in music?


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.

(1) There are the recordings I love — these are specific moments captured in time that never change. I want to listen to some of them over and over and seem to never tire of these specific recordings. (this is not a huge playlist)
(2) There are also musics (songs, shows, repertoire, composers, major and minor works) that I love differently, as opportunities for new discovery. These are not tied to any specific recordings, rather they are examples I would be thrilled to see live, knowing that each rendition will be different from the last. The interpretations of these performances will always come from a new moment in time, often from different performers, each one unique and full of potential. Sometimes they hit and other times they miss and that is part of the thrill. (this list is slightly larger than the recordings)
(3) And lastly there are many musics that I do and do not care to listen to recordings of, and many musics that I do and do not care to go see live, but would be thrilled to be a part of the performance of. Performing, the live, in the moment, crafting of music is for me an experience so unlike listening to recordings or attending live performance. The "making of music" opens an even wider net of music that I love and am thrilled to participate in. (this list is massive)
I have forever conflated these three points and will now try to remember to keep the lanes clear. When asked "what is your favorite music" I will be better able to describe my experience.

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Teaching Leadership Through Conducting

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. 



Click below for all of the joyous photos from the day. 

Thursday, April 6, 2023

The Reverse Plastique Animée

 Plastique Animée — What's it all about?!

Jaques-Dalcroze practices include a whole category of exercises under the title of Plastique Animée. These lessons ask the students to move and experiment and search and vet specific gestures in an attempt to pair bodied motion to musical motion. Through the process we come to learn about the music and build a very personal/visceral connection to a given selection of music. 

I wrote about the ways that I use the traditional exercise in my university courses in the 2023 Fall edition of the Dalcroze Society of America, Dalcroze Connections. Plastique Animée —The Dalcrozian Analytical Technique. Here I thought I'd describe a set of experiences that are inspired from plastique, but serve a complementary role. 


I spend many hours and many many smaller exercises building a group of 20 year olds up to a point where we can talk about Plastique Animée as a named category of Jaques-Dalcroze practice. In advance of that, we do all sorts of bodies-in-motion, expressive gesture, and movement vocabulary classes. The basic mechanics of "bodies move like this", and "here are some simple motions we might rehearse together" are obvious enough attentions for a good eurhythmics class and critical experiences for all students working toward a future Plastique Animée. In addition to those outward expressions of musical motion, I spend a significant amount of time asking my students to consider their own experience of inner gesture. How does music move on the inside of you? What skills of the interoceptive have you gained through our time together?

As a significant stop on the interoceptive skill journey, I often find time to lead my students through an experience I think of as the Reverse Plastique Animée

In a traditional Plastique Animée, a selection of music is chosen, and the student uses the motion of the music to inspire outward gesture, searching for the greatest congruence between the intention of the music and interpretation of the performer/student. In the Reverse Plastique Animée, we go about it in the other direction. We start with silent gesture, separate from any pre-composed works or ideas, and then see what music is generated from the pure motion. 

The basic class usually goes like this:

(keep in mind that we spend many hours getting to this work. I would not offer this class to a beginner group)

1. "You have 20 seconds to choose 4 'poses'." 

These can be anything. i.e. stand tall arms above; squat down and hug your knees; lean far forward on one leg; bury your head in your arms in a small ball on the floor.

2. "turn each of these poses into a gesture phrase of its own."

We have spent weeks working on the notion of "phrase" and on simple gesture. We have explored the difference between basic motion and directional, trajectory-filled gesture. We have built up a movement vocabulary that includes gesture high-middle-low, gesture that collapses the body vs gesture that expands the body, and gesture that leads from hands vs gesture that takes any part of the body as the initiator of the motion. 

3. "Find a way to link the four phrases together to make a 4-phrase gesture 'song'."

4. Step 4 is split between classwork and homework. We do some of this together over about 15 minutes and then the students are to spend significant time at home to continue the exercise.  

"now take a breath, rest your thoughts, and take some time to move through the silent gesture song. Over the next 10–20–30 repetitions your song will start to sing to you. Listen to the sounds and images that start to appear as you settle in to the motions. Take notes on what starts to bubble up. These notes might contain specific bits of melody or harmonies or rhythmic patterns...or you might hear more abstract sounds like leaves rustling or traffic or children laughing, or who knows?!. It is all valid. Repeat your phrases again and listen to the music that comes out of the gesture. You do not need to compose anything. Instead, just listen to your inner song and take notes."

5. The 4-phrase gesture song above is the first section of an ABA form. For homework, the students are required to repeat the steps with contrasting gestures to then make the B section, taking notes on the sounds and images that occur to them as they go through the process. After a few days of checking in with their ABA songs in silence, they are instructed to compile their notes and turn them into a piece for their major instrument. 

6. Roughly a week after the initial experience, the students all come back to class with their major instruments. They each take a turn first showing us their ABA gesture songs in silence. We watch, and listen to our own inner songs, trying to think, "how does this music sound?" They repeat the silent ABA gesture two times, then they get out their major instrument and play their songs two times — no gesture, just sound.

Throughout the exercise we are looking for congruence between the gesture and the sounded music. The students are reminded that we are not trying to "compose a little song and then choreograph a little dance." Instead, we are working hard to find sparks of the inner artist, space where we can hear the music that is already in us. The exercise is less about flexing our composer muscles than it is about listening to the inner song that was already there. Many of the compositions that are shared were surprises to the student movers. They report how the process permitted music that they would not normally have conceived. "The music is already in you."

I will write another day about the differences between inner hearing, or audiation, and inner feeling or interoceptive gesture — a serious component of deep musicianship. The Reverse Plastique Animée is intended to focus our attention on this inner feeling, and recognize the music found there. 

[some pictures from my Spring 2023 Eurhythmics II class. used with permission.]


Arilyn brought the harp to class — so great!


Preston in motion. 



Zach in motion. 


Will in motion. 




The new electronic music major at CMU has opened all sorts of doors and forced me to think differently about a number of my biases. It is amazing what our students are capable of. #humbled







Monday, February 20, 2023

Hanging with Jack Stevenson

Nothing like spending a weekend with one of the greats. 

If you have not had the opportunity to take a class with Jack, I highly recommend searching him out. Jack is definitely one of the most influential and beloved teachers of the Jaques-Dalcroze method working today. We had a blast tag-teaming at the CMU Winter Workshops this February. 

You can find Jack here: https://www.jdalcroze.com/

You'll see a few pictures from Anthony Molinaro's children's demo class at the bottom. He continues to be so inspiring. You can follow him here: https://substack.com/profile/86592998-anthony-molinaro

and join us for the next Winter and Summer Workshops here: https://www.cmu.edu/cfa/music/dalcroze/dalcroze-workshops/summer-dalcroze-workshop.html

Thanks JACK!















Mr. Mo in action. 🤩🤩🤩



Wednesday, October 14, 2020

Late Night Silent Disco Eurhythmics (or how I learned to teach with my eyes closed)

 


I love my job. Have I told any of you that lately? 

This last Friday evening we realised one of my latest dreams: to host an outdoor – silent disco – FM radio – late night in the dark – Eurhythmics class with 75+ students (and a few guests) – COVID socially distanced – and yet – musically connected – all while playing with glow sticks, light-up balls, and sparklers!!

It took a fair bit of planning + a special university permit (!) + the patience and good will of all involved and yielded a really fun time. 

We started the evening set-up around 7:30 PM just as dusk was really setting in. By 8:00 PM it was pretty dark and we ran some tests to see what we could actually see, and to test the technology for last minute tweaks. 

Students arrived at 8:30 and were given two thin bracelet sized glow sticks and two rubber bands. They were instructed to pocket the rubber bands and to experiment with the glow sticks throughout the opening exercises. Some students made them into bracelets, or halos, or necklaces. Others used them as conductor batons or frisbees. 

The lessons of the evening included classic conducting and stepping in varied meters, specific attention to the ensemble's collective 'shifts of weight', 'time-space-energy' games with ball tossing, a pre-plastique anime exercise where we improvised gesture phrases that became amazingly personal, and a fair bit of time playing in the 'straight 5'.

We started with glow sticks in all variations, then when we moved to the t-s-e ball games, we looped the glow sticks into bracelets and used the rubber bands to tie the sticks to tennis balls, and voilà(!) – we had light-up tennis balls that looked amazing in the night sky. 


I spent a fair bit of time the prior week, thinking about the evening, planning my activities, and considering how I might help the crowd get our collective groove-on all while working in very low light. It occured to me that the students would likely not be able to see me very well, and so I thought of lots of ways that I could use the FM technology to talk directly into everyone's ear and keep us together. What I underestimated was how hard it would be for me to see them! I was not really able to see anyone's faces most of the evening! It was like teaching into the abyss, but with just enough feedback to not be able to ignore anyone. If I were teaching in a truly dark cavern, then I would just go with what felt right to me. But to the extent that I could see anything, I attempted to adjust to my class to the participating students, but I was trying to adjust with only 10% of the normal feedback (no eyes, no expressions – only moving glow sticks, laughter, and outlines of bodies in motion). It was a challenging class for me to be sure. I absolutely underestimated that part of the formula.

All that said, I think we all had a grand time and built some lasting memories to boot. (The highlight of the evening was when I pulled out a blow-torch and 150 bamboo rod sparklers. The students were over the moon to play with the bright lights and make some great sparkler trails in the night sky.) Late Night Silent Disco Eurhythmics was a success and I will look for some special circumstances to improve on my attempts and share the glee with more students in the future. I'm just glad it is not my normal gig. 

Heartfelt thanks to all of my students who ended up taking two classes with me in the same day (the required morning class and the optional late night class). Thanks to my administration for your support in technology and permits. Thanks to all for your patience and encouragement allowing us all to PLAY and EXPERIMENT and try some zainy ideas with no guarantees of success. Thanks for the connections and the relationships and earnest work and generous spirits. I am thankful for you all. 

:)

Dr. N

"Hug your knee...Hug your other knee..Hug your neighbor's knee (no, not during COVID!)"




no ceilings to bump into in this classroom. toss the balls higher!






Crazy thing about Silent Disco Eurhythmics is that outsiders cannot hear the music!
Ya gotta be 'in the club' to hear it.
It is all being broadcast through the FM radio station into everyone's headphones.


"I can't really see anybody's face!?!!"


"Hop Hop Hop!"