Recent Blog Posts

This is the inaugural edition of “Quick Reactions with a Dalcroze Teacher”, a new regular feature of the DSA blog. Each month I’ll interview a different Dalcroze teacher. For the premier, I interviewed myself!  Q: Give your “Dalcroze Origin Story” in 50 words or less.  A: My girlfriend (now wife!) ...

We learned this morning that Annabelle Joseph, our friend and colleague of many years, passed away last evening (11/19/24).  Annabelle was an alumnus of Carnegie Tech (Piano Performance, 1953) and taught Eurhythmics and Solfège in the Carnegie Mellon University School of Music from 1989–2016 (27 years). She was the Director ...

This article first appeared in The Orff Echo, Volume XVIII, No. 4, Summer 1986. ©1986 American Orff-Schulwerk Association, Mayfield Heights, OH. Used by permission. Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, composer, pianist, and professor of harmony at the Conservatory of Geneva, developed his method of music education over an extended period from about 1900 to the 1920s. ...

Introduction Émile Jaques-Dalcroze used the term espèce (French for “species”) to describe all varieties of pitch sets, including dichords, trichords, and heptachords (among others), which outline and define all qualities of seventh chords. To understand the espèces requires a thorough understanding of the do-to-do scales, pitch sets (dyads, trichords, etc.), ...

Welcome to an exciting new year with Dalcroze USA! Earlier this year, we joined together at our 2024 National Conference in Oberlin, OH, and are embracing the momentum it generated. This fall, as we welcome new members and newly inspired volunteers, I look forward to fresh ideas that will expand ...

One summer afternoon, I sat on my porch watching some neighborhood children playing. Their mission was to find roly-polies under a rock, and they had to find a way to move the rock to do so. One pretended he was Superman and tried to lift it. Another tried to push ...