Guest Feature Movement . . .
a means to music learning H
uman predisposition to respond to music through
movements of the body is evident to anyone who has observed infants or toddlers engage with music. From the earliest years of life, infants demonstrate their awareness of music by turning their heads towards a musical toy; or they express sheer delight by moving their arms and legs upon hearing someone sing an upbeat song. As infants move into toddlerhood and childhood, they begin to move their bodies with greater precision and culturally recognized style (i.e., dance) to the music they hear or make (Campbell, 2010; Moog, 1976; Moorhead & Pond, 1978). This inherent need to experience music through movements of the body throughout life might be explained because of the links between the motor and auditory systems in the brain (Sacks, 2007). Music and movement are two deeply connected human phenomena.
There is further evidence of this
connection in some cultures, where there is no separation between the concepts of music and dance. “Dance is music and music is dance in African cultures. The two are inseparable and in many African languages, there is not a separate word for dance” (Welsh, 2010, p. 30). The Native American Blackfoot people use the word paskan to mean dance, music, and ceremony (Nettl, 2005). Clearly, movement is an integral part of the music experience, from birth to adulthood.
It should be no surprise then that
movement would play a role in music learning and teaching. Movement has been used as a way to help students internalize
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and/or reinforce their conceptual understanding of music. It has also been used as a way for students to express what they hear in music, what they know or have learned (Kerchner, 2014). Jacques- Dalcroze, who developed a teaching system of developing musicianship through movement (commonly known as Dalcroze or Eurythmics), believed that students needed to develop their musicality first through active sensory experiences (movements of the body) before moving into more cerebral types of musical training (reading notation) (Jaques-Dalcroze, 1921). Rudolf von Laban believed that movement helped to develop greater creativity and self-awareness in people; his ideas would be influential to many music educators and applied in practice (Laban & Ullmann, 1971). Many others have written about, researched, and used movement as a means to help students develop their musicianship. For a comprehensive treatment of the topic, see Abril (2011). The purpose of this article is to explain how movement can impact music learning and to suggest some ways to harness the power of movement in music teaching.
Beat and Rhythmic Competency Keeping a steady beat is essential to
anyone wanting to perform music, whether kindergarten students singing a song in class or middle school students playing the first exercise in a wind method book. How can movement training help students improve their ability to maintain a steady beat or perform more accurately? Movement training in general music
classrooms has been shown to have a positive effect on the ability to keep a steady beat. In one study (Rose, 1995), six different elementary classes were assigned to one of two instructional groups. The first group received music instruction through a Dalcroze approach, with a substantive amount of movement; the second group received music instruction primarily through verbal instructions. After 32 weeks of instruction, students who received the movement-based music lessons performed significantly better on a test of beat competence. It appears that the teaching method itself (i.e., Laban or Dalcroze) or type of movement experiences (i.e., locomotor or nonlocomotor) does not make much of a difference; any movement
Wyoming Windsong
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