Make It Music @ Interlochen
Using the Cards with Gifted Young Musicians
When we subtitled our book “Dalcroze Strategies for EVERY Classroom” we wanted to make an invitation for teachers from all communities to incorporate these methods. I’ve posted many videos of the cards in action in my PUBLIC SCHOOL classroom, which is a very typical situation. But how do the cards work with a group of HIGHLY GIFTED musicians, who have had a bit of training? Are they too simplistic? Not at all! In this post I’ll share how I’m using the cards with the campers at the prestigious Interlochen Summer Arts Camp! But first…
Housekeeping:
I’m excited to announce an ONLINE COURSE available in the fall. This one is in conjunction with South East Asia Academy Online, and will be hosted by the Singapore based company. The course, however, will be available globally, so feel free to sign up! The class will meet in the morning (Eastern Time Zone) but will be available asynchronously. It will be all about SOLFÈGE and how movement can improve aural skills!
Make It Music is now available on AMAZON! Will you take a second and leave us a review? It’s SO helpful to have positive reviews and will help others find this resource!
From the Archive:
The First Three Classes
Good folks! If you’re like me, you’re getting prepared for another school year of teaching music and movement. These first classes are crucial for establishing good habits and procedures that will pay dividends later in the year. This post will guide you, step-by-step, to a successful launch of your school year and prepare your students for the BEST exp…
By the time we get to the end of the three-week intermediate camp session at Interlochen, the kids have had 15 eurhythmics classes. Some of them have been with me for multiple summers. We can really get into some interesting topics! I elected, with my last two class sessions, to delve into the MAKE IT MUSIC cards. I explained to the students what the cards were about, which I felt appropriate for this age group and experience level. You might elect to NOT clue the students into the cards and just use them as a teacher tool, but in this case I thought it was a good idea and presented several teachable moments.
The first card I pulled was the “Push Off” card, which I had never used in this setting. We practiced the motion, careful to keep some of my more rambunctious students from playing rough, we learned how to get the right momentum from pushing off our partner and to travel back to another push.
The second card was the “Experiment with different tempos” card. I elected to include a clap on the midpoint between each push to help anchor us in time. Then as I changed tempos on the piano the students were forced to adjust their path and their momentum, pushing off more lightly and traveling less in between for faster beats.
Our challenge card read “is your activity aware of dynamics?” Well… at this point it hadn’t been… so I started to include dynamics! The students had to decide how to balance the distance of the tempo with the intensity of the dynamics. It was really a satisfying puzzle!
Once we discussed the activity and reflected on it, I separated the class into small groups and handed cards to each group. The students had to create their own activity using the cards, which I honestly wasn’t sure how they would do. Turns out they loved the challenge and came up with amazing ideas! Check it out below!
