Rhythmic  (English Version)

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Rhythmic was developed during the early part of the 20th century by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, a Swiss musician and teacher. His unique pedagogical approach, based on hearing and feeling as primary sources for learning, before the introduction of theory or abstraction, shows a keen perception of how people learn. He stressed the importance of sensory experience, the value of pleasure and challenge in developing attentiveness and concentration, and the innate potential for creativity.

Rhythmic consists on putting in relationship the natural movements of the body, the rhythms of the music, and the capacity of imagination and reflection. The proposed exercises are therefore, ways to discover and to understand the music through the experience of the whole organism; the education of the sensibility and of the power of quick representation that goes simultaneously to the auditory and motor abilities.

This educational gait that associates the game and the rule, the liberty and the rigor, the improvisation and the creative thought is unique in its versatility and can be applied to all subject areas. The vast variety of former and current students includes dancers, actors, teachers, composers, musicians, choreographers and professionals in the field of education.

 The goal of the Rhythmic approach to learning (music and in general) engages and involves all of the student's faculties.

• The physical: developing coordination, flexibility, balance, independence of body parts (dissociation), quick and appropriate responses to what is heard and seen.
• The mental: developing concentration, memory, what is known as left brain/right brain crossover (involving a global brain function), inductive reasoning (pattern finding), discriminatory (analytical) listening and seeing and observing.
• The emotional: developing expressivity, nuance, communicative and social skills (sensitivity to others-cooperation within the group.)

The rhythmic classes need a sufficiently wide place to allow a free displacement of a group of approximately 12 people. The piano as an instrument indispensable and some different instruments of percussion are always desirable. Students should have tambourines and a tennis ball or similar, and dressed with a comfortable gear and some appropriate shoes that allow the free movement and displacement. Black board and a sound system are eventually needed.

Each class of rhythmic will go around a specific topic, which will be worked and studied from different points of views. Duration of classes could be from 45 minutes to two hours, depending on the group. Planning of a class depends mostly of the personal characteristics of each group, however, in general we can have the following structure: 

A warm up stage, to capture the attention of the class and to loose.

A second stage, where the material is presented, usually starting from the simplest or well known.

A third stage, where we try to develop the elements that have been presented before. It is possible then, to synthesize through an improvisation of the group or a brief choreography.

And in a conclusive way, we can have a game, singing a song or an improvisation that implies an effort of totally different type.

Rhythmic applies to people of all age: to professionals, it offers a new look on the exercise of their personal expertise; to the amateur children or adult, it procures the means to reach in a living way the conscience of themselves, to the mastery of their movements and to the pleasure of the artistic discovery.

All these movements require different forms and grade of tension and relaxation, as well as balance. The combination of these movements originates different dissociation grades and coordination. The obtaining of results depends, insofar as possible, in the attentive listening of the music and, in general, it does not lean on imitation or mechanical repetition of the exercises.