Somaesthetic Design Now Available: A Four-Year Project Comes to Completion

 

After four years of research, writing, collaboration, revision, and reflection, I am thrilled to share that Somaesthetic Design — the Experiencing Body and the Dynamics of Time is now officially published and available worldwide in both print and free open-access digital editions.

This book emerged from a central question that has guided much of my work across music, movement, design, and education: How might we create experiences that honor the intelligence of the lived body? Drawing from embodied arts practices, somaesthetics, human-computer interaction, music pedagogy, and design theory, Somaesthetic Design explores how attention, gesture, rhythm, empathy, and bodily awareness shape the ways we interact with technologies, environments, and one another.

The project has been deeply interdisciplinary from the beginning, shaped foremost by my collaboration with co-author Michael Arnold Mages, as well as conversations with artists, musicians, designers, educators, technologists, and students. Along the way, we have had the privilege of presenting and testing these ideas in classrooms, studios, conferences, workshops, wellness retreats, and collaborative creative spaces around the world.

The inspired book design was created by the amazing Melissa Neely. The design of a design book is no small deal, and we couldn't be prouder to show it to everyone. 

One of the things I am most excited about is that the book is published through Gold Open Access, meaning that anyone, anywhere, can download and read it freely. Making scholarly and creative work more accessible has always mattered deeply to me, and I am grateful to everyone who helped make that possible.

Print editions are also available for those who prefer a physical copy.

This project would not exist without the support of generous collaborators, colleagues, students, friends, and family who challenged the ideas, encouraged the work, and sustained me throughout the process. Thank you for helping bring this into the world.

I look forward to the conversations, collaborations, and new directions that may grow from here.

Here is the link!

https://www.transcript-publishing.com/978-3-8376-8128-4/somaesthetic-design/?number=978-3-8394-7565-2

Thanks Carneige Mellon School of Design for the wonderful article!

 Read the full article HERE

Teaching at the Houston Grand Opera

In early 2024, I was contacted by the management of the Houston Grand Opera's Butler Studio to discuss incorporating Dalcroze Eurhythmics into the regular coaching for the HGO Young Artists. 

The Houston Grand Opera holds a top-tier national and international reputation, with a long history of artistic innovation and acclaim. Its status is underscored by prestigious awards, major media attention, and a consistent track record of commissioning new and important operatic works. Part of the strategy for staying on top is to fund the Butler Studio, a training ground for the next generation of internationally renowned A-List singers. The Butler Artists are 22–28-year-old singers, each one amazing, with big futures and even bigger voices. As part of their full-time positions at HGO, they receive private lessons, acting lessons, diction coaches, and regular residencies from a Dalcroze Eurhythmics specialist!

I travel to Houston for three residencies a year, and just finished the first visit of my second season with them. The company, the singers, and collaborative pianists are all such a joy to work with. That said, this is some of the most challenging teaching of my year. The artists are all highly accomplished. They are already singing leading and supporting roles and doing recital work all over the country and internationally. Each time I visit, I am given just a few days to recover the momentum from our last visit, and then push them forward into deeper musicianship. Our time together is full of many common Eurhythmics exercises (clapping, stepping, partnering, swaying, canons, games, and improvisation), all of which is very directly focused on the roles they are currently learning, the lessons they are taking, and the performances they are mounting this season.

I have many opportunities to travel to meet new students. I also get quite a few chances to work with main-stage adult performers. However, it is particularly special to be in a regular routine of three residencies a year, where we can build relationships, work through specific goals for individual performers, and share in the focused training of such exceptional talents. They are working hard. I am stretching as a pedagogue and discovering new ideas each visit. Thanks to the Butler Artists and to the HGO Leadership for maintaining the best young artist program in the country. I am thrilled to be on the team. 

 

Teaching at Carnegie Hall NYC!

 

Such a great program! If you are looking for a wonderful and diverse group of music educators and some inspiration for your next school year, you should really consider spending a few days in NYC at Carnegie Hall and the Summer Music Educators Workshop. The faculty and participants are all wonderful. 

The programming is outstanding, the people are generous and kind, and the registration is very affordable! I am thrilled to join the core faculty for this summer's workshop and learn alongside these outstanding educators from 26 states and 7 countries, comprising a total of 160 people this year. 

As I continue to meet musicians, young and old, from around the world, it is incredible to me how few of them have ever been asked to think of their music as "in their body." The classes I taught this week shared some of the most basic ideas from the Dalcroze philosophy (the body is the first instrument; music is to make us feel; artistry begins with choices). You could see these outstanding teaching artists open up, laugh, and play as we pulled their personal, feeling, bodies into the music. It is always an honor to share these experiences with new groups. 

Yeah for music! Yeah for adults searching for new understandings and expanded practices! Yeah for joy and play and community. #thankfultohavebeenhere

[click here for pictures!]

Dalcroze Society of America interview published

 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.

Quick Reactions with a Dalcroze Teacher: Stephen Neely
By Michael Joviala | April 30, 2025

Building Embodied Experience in the Arts and Design with Stephen Neely

"In this episode of Tech in the Arts, Dr. Stephen Neely, associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Music, talks with the Sofia Akhmanaeva, AMT Lab’s Social Media and Marketing Manager. They discuss eurhythmics, a century-old practice focusing on the bodily engagement of music, and how these principles extend to modern interaction design. The conversation delves into the evolution of design practices and the need for a more holistic, user-centric approach in the digital age.

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

What does a Eurhythmics teacher do?!`

 

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.