Dalcroze For Teenagers

Wow, you're finding your way to the stage. Oh, say Hi, I'm Stephen. And it's, uh,

been so swell to spend the weekend with everybody, uh,

and to be in the classes together. Um, we, uh, back in the fall, um,

I was asked to do a Dalcroze Lab on, um, working with teenagers.

I spent 23 years, and so I was at, um, a performing arts high school,

um, where, um, before I got there and still continuing there has, um,

nearly from the founding of the school,

which would've been in the early eighties,

there's been a curricular eurythmics class at that school. So it's one of,

so for many years I believed, and I don't, I haven't done that,

I haven't been asking around recently,

but for many of the years that I was doing it,

I believed it was the only curricular high school, public,

high school eurythmics class in the country.

And I could have been talking about that by all means,

correct me if you know of another one, but I never knew of another one.

It was built into the required curriculum, um, and happened every week,

usually twice a week with multiple classes. And so it was always, who did that?

Who did that? Do you know who built it in? Um, uh, um,

Gil de Benedetti was the name who still lives and lives in Pittsburgh. Um,

they were students of Marta Sanchez. So this is in Pittsburgh,

Marta Sanchez and Carnegie Mallon has a, a big, um,

Eurhythmic presence and continues to,

and when they were founding that high school,

some of the earliest music teachers, um,

one of the first music teachers in the school just happened to be a good student

of Marta. And so they were like, we should do this. And they just did it. Um,

and then, uh, Gil did it for a while. David Nab, who's also still in town,

he did it for a while. Um,

and then I came in in like 93 or something and did it, uh,

for, uh, for a long time. Um,

so what I don't wanna get into is classroom management.

If we wanna have that conversation, I'm glad to have that,

that opinion with that conversation with you. It's a whole nother game. It is.

Well, the Dalcroze methods, I think, um, solve a million problems. Um,

uh, the, I don't want this to turn into that. If I, if we turn this into that,

we won't do anything but talk about crappy high school who, you know,

can't see past the end of their nose and, and they're not always nice.

And so there's all sorts of things,

but when we think about what does it mean to work with teenagers, um,

and are there other things that we think about or things that in my experience

proved helpful, that's all I just wanted to get into.

We only have 50 minutes light sweet as we have with all of these.

It's gonna go by super fast. Um, and, uh, uh, and I,

I really want a little bit of time to talk just some principles,

like just some ideas of what I think about succeeds with, with, with the kids.

Um, which you'll see, of course,

are the same answers of what succeeds with any crowd. Um,

there is not a special teenage anything. Um,

the things that I saw Lauren doing with the little kids,

nearly all of those I could also,

and you could do also do with teenagers or with adults,

like really most of that lesson we could translate right over to working

with professional, you know,

certificate students or with any crowded adults or with my university students

or with whoever. Um, and it's the same thing.

Like most of the lessons that we've been in, um, uh, all weekend would,

would work with teenagers that just, there's always just this little like,

twist. There's like an angle or what are we paying attention to?

What are we gonna on the lookout for?

And that's really the only difference in my mind to working with little kids who

working with adults, working with everybody in between. Uh,

if you were my new group of teenagers who had not met and you walk into groom

really known,

so different than my university students who are just this much more privileged

than my average high schoolers ever were, um,

but they're kind of almost the same age.

You walk in a little bit skeptical and I don't really know who you are and I

don't quite know why I'm in this room. Um,

and so we right away are just trying to find some kind of community.

We're just trying to like,

help you understand I'm not about to punch you in the throat. Um,

a lot of the high schoolers that I work with were like, no,

you're gonna say one thing and you're gonna do the opposite. And you're gonna,

you're gonna like yell at me about something.

And we spend a lot of time in all of my settings just trying to build some

community. So we all say all good teaching goes from the known to the unknown.

And so we just look for something that's known,

hopefully like the least threatening thing I can think of for the moment.

So if I just say, you here, you are welcome. You did it,

you made it into the room. And here's our classroom. Don't fall off the stage.

Don't get on the stairs, don't hide behind the things. Go for a walk.

You go for a walk and then I pause you there. Cause if I let you go too long,

you're gonna start feel self conscious and you're gonna be like looking around

and trouble. So I'll pause you immediately say,

and then we walk. Look at did, you're still doing it. How successful you're,

can we pause there, we took to that person, shake their hand, tell me your name.

You very good. Would you please go for another walk at this time?

You're not allowed to follow anyone. No following. You can't follow anyone.

You're in charge of you. Nobody can tell you what to do.

You're in charge of you. You get the time here,

you're going and pause there and turn to that person and tell them name,

shake hand.

We

Go for one more little walk, just like the teens.

We go for one more little walk. This time you need to look where you're going,

not where you are. You may not look at the floor.

Your feet are fine right where they are. You don't have to stare at them.

And as you pass somebody, maybe you smile at them. Maybe not. Maybe you wink,

maybe you grimace, but walk,

acknowledge somebody that you walk by and pause there. Tell.

So I just wanna point out to you. So I,

there's a lot of ways we can play these games, you know, and I never know,

which is quite the right way. So I could just go and comment, not at all.

And we can try to remember some things or I can try to just, uh,

comment a little. So as we get going, I'm not sure which is better. Um,

but I'll just tell you as I, as we're going through,

the only talking that I would be doing in the class after that point is to give

those couple cues. Do this. Um,

and I'm smiling and you'll note that I'm in the mix.

So I'm not standing on some podium over there looking down on everybody ready

to crack a whip. I'm in the space with you. I'm modeling what,

what counts as walking. And whether you noticed it or not, I,

my modeling on walking told you what was an acceptable walk.

If I had walked like this on the first one, you would've been like, crap.

I guess that's the thing. And you would've, even if you didn't want to,

you would've picked up on that and you would've had a flowery,

more flowery walk, um, uh, than you needed to. And instead,

what I wanted was like, hopefully nothing. Hopefully it seemed like,

I guess he just wants me to mill a about. And so I was in,

I'm making eye contact with people. I shook hands, I told people my name. Um,

and so we're all in it together. Um,

and so I'm trying really hard to decentralize myself and just let us all be

equal players, um, in the room.

And so hopefully if I'm doing my job well then the crowd shows up like just the

tiniest bit open, which is not a guarantee. Again, that's from management.

It's a whole conversation. The, um,

that we're starting to develop the tiniest amount of trust.

Look how many things you've already done and succeeded. You're a winner.

You're doing great. Your life, your life is working out today. Nobody,

nobody made fun of you. Nobody yelled at you, nobody belittled you,

nobody shunned you. When I said, um, uh, I said,

how did I word it? Pause,

shake hands with the person beside you or say hi to your neighbor is one of my

sort of big words that I like to use. Um, so it wasn't,

as was mentioned yesterday,

it wasn't go find the safest person in the room who you like,

what's elementary school with and who you're gonna go and hang out with. And,

and I caused chaos house with them. It was cause turn shape.

Cause you didn't have time in the looking for your safest person.

Everybody is safe. That's built into, uh, built into it. And lastly,

I'll just say we're keeping it moving.

If I wasn't stopping to tell you all this,

how many things have we already done and what should have been about 60 seconds,

maybe 90 seconds, right? So we've got that. So we've said, uh,

we're going forward. So maybe then I pause and I say, you're doing great.

And so what have we said so far? We're we're taking a little walk.

We're looking where we're going, not where we are.

We're catching some eye of the people that we're passing. Uh,

so I didn't have to like, have deep communication with anybody. You know,

we're not that close. I barely know the people in this room, but I see you,

you see me. I guess we're all okay. Um,

and there's been a little bit of I shook your hand,

which is already like really scary for even some people in this room.

I assume that it's scary to shake a hand with somebody. Covid completely aside,

just like to be close to somebody who, I don't know,

I assume that's a little bit intimidating for some people. And yet,

if I get it fast enough and we're all doing it, and I model it, odds are good.

I can get a ready to do it with me.

And once you've done it once and you survived,

you're gonna be so much more willing to do it the second time, which is again,

known to unknown.

So the known started with a simple walk and then a simple shake,

and then it all said hi. And all of a sudden I like,

I kind of know four people in this room. And it's, it's starting to broaden,

starting to expand out like what I'm, what I'm capable of,

what this room is all about. Uh, can we do the same thing?

Would you please go for another little walk? You stake out your path.

You don't stare at the floor. Catch an eye of somebody that you pass by and you,

now I'll set the tempo instead of you setting the tempo. And so any good,

and I'm sorry, I think I would've said this at the very, very beginning.

We're not doing anything fancy today. So there isn't like some big,

big like bow we're gonna put on this little lesson. Um,

instead we're gonna do what I think all the Ians in the room would recognize as

like nuts and bolts, basic, basic things.

But what I'm trying to do is to walk you through what I think of as teenage sort

of attentions. If you screw it up, you can screw it all.

And like even the most basic things can fail immediately if we're just not

keeping it going. And so that's what I just wanna walk you through.

So we do a little, um, temple, walk,

walk,

Pause there. And again, pacing is huge. Now,

if you take a look at the shape of the room,

majority of the room is in a counterclockwise circle.

And yet I told you not to follow anyone. So you can't be both,

you can't all be in a counter circle and not following anyone.

So with you this time, now remember, you're in charge of you, you're powerful.

You're like, you've done it, you've made it here.

You're doing all the good things. Stick out your path.

Don't let anybody push you around. You get to decide. I'm gonna walk here.

And then I've decided I'm not walking there.

Now I'm walking here and I'm not walking there, I'm walking here. But give me,

and then I'm walking there. It's all up to you.

You're in control of you one more time.

And you,

you and I got this crowd of like musicians and without pros and adults

who are all like, trying really hard to be with me,

we can jump a couple steps ahead and quit. What's the grade level? Um,

high school. So this will be fine for ninth graders. First year always,

or every year? Oh, when I was teaching it at the high school,

we usually did three years. I got, I I got them for 9, 10, 11. Um,

at least one semester.

Every year was at least one semester at grades 9, 10, 11 some years.

I got two semesters in one of those years.

But mostly it was twice a week for us. Half a school year.

So 18 weeks, twice a week, three years in a row. That makes a difference.

What, what grade levels. Oh, it does,

but the basic pacing and the basic things I'm giving you,

this is like ninth graders or any of them.

If it was their first are sort of first time, first time together or we did it,

look at you. You did it. Turn to your neighbor. Tell 'em, good job. Good job.

And so again, no the unknown, when you turn to that stranger who's beside you,

who even now with this crowd,

you don't all know each other and you turn to them and you compliment them and

you look em in the eye and you tell 'em, good job.

We all feel a little bit better.

And I feel a little bit more permission to be a little bit awkward 10 minutes

from now if that's what's necessary.

And so we're trying just a little by little create that little of community.

Can we try it one more time? Please? How

Lovely. And then hopefully certainly all the,

the teachers in the room or everybody who's done this,

we recognize this doesn't, none of these RS straight line.

We don't need to do the first thing.

And I don't always do the first thing that I did,

which leads to that second thing, which leads to this third thing.

And now I go to the next one thing. We look at what our class is up to,

and then we think, what are we, what are the opportunities in the room?

So what either is anxious in the room that I'm gonna try to address and sort of

alleviate some of that? Um,

what is bored in the room that I need to challenge and push on,

give them something, um, more to think about. Um, what's the, what is the,

is the vibe too down or too up? Like,

we're always kind of moderating that to try to keep us sort of in a space where

we feel like we can get some good, some good work done. Um, in this,

if it's a building class,

if it's early on and we just did that little sort of back, first of all,

we could have a whole rant about how you knew that that was the downbeat.

Even my high school students who maybe haven't had any big formal theory

training. And so we maybe instead of calling it downbeat, maybe I say, um, oh,

would you all, um, would you,

would you walk the walking as you were with your hands on your lap? Like such?

And now I tell you all that walking

heavy,

Right?

And so of course in our, you know, I get to mess with you.

And so we say we were all together and then we weren't.

And so what happened there? And then we, I changed or something changed.

If we just take, if I take time to actually teach the class,

that'll be all that there is. So we'll just say, but something changed.

And then we think, well, what's words that we could use to describe it?

Did I change? Did you change? Did your feeling change? Um,

and then we get to say what is, what's, what are we doing here? Um,

the rule number one, um, is music is supposed to feel, um,

music's supposed to feel that's its job. That's what it does.

That's what it's all about.

It doesn't need to sound like anything it needs to feel. And the,

the Eurythmics teacher or the Sian,

this version of a dalian will argue hard that if it doesn't feel,

and it is in music, I don't care.

It could look like music if you kind of like pretend your music, it have,

have lots of notes on pages,

but it hasn't actually gotten into the body and it doesn't count as music for

you. And so what we were doing is we had a little groove going.

I shifted the field and then for a moment it didn't, it wasn't okay. Um,

and so you then go searching back for the field.

And I really believe that's all we're doing in this field.

Any of these classes is get you in the field, provoke the field,

chill a little bit out, come back and find it.

It's in that searching and finding where all sorts of deep musicianship is

starting to be starting to be understood. Um, the, uh, we were, uh,

we were clapping down. Let's, um, can you clap this room?

There's only like three of you in here. I know who you are.

There's only three of you in here who are kinda slapping your way through.

Can you take most of the sound out and can we make it more about the gesture and

less about the noise? A nice rule of thumb for any public school teaching,

but it applies everywhere of course, is that noise and music don't really mix.

And so I work super hard and I push all of my up and coming.

Teachers don't let noise get in the space. If there's noise in that room,

it's very likely gonna gonna knock out all chances of music in the room. Um,

and so unless your clapping is music let's it elicits the sense of music in you,

then it's probably noise and style. Um, so I would tell, I tell everybody,

take 90% of the sound out. A little bit of feedback is great.

And instead take that 90% and put it into the gesture. So I want more gesture,

less noise. Let's walk the beat first with me.

Pause,

Right? We see in the room again, the counterclockwise circle pops up. Um,

it's weird how it's usually counterclockwise, but it doesn't matter. Um,

what happens in this situation is not that you don't think you're following

anyone and maybe officially you're not, but you're in this motion that is.

And the thing about the about the counterclockwise circle is not that it's evil.

And if you, in your teaching, wherever you are,

you like the counterclockwise circle.

I am not in any way saying you're bad or wrong or that it's a terrible thing.

Lots of good teaching can happen in, in preplanned circles.

It solves a number of problems. Um, but it also in what,

for the couple things that it solves,

like where do I go and how do I not trip into each other?

And then ignores other things, other opportunities in the room,

which is this notion of leadership. Who's in control? Um, am I awake?

Am I present in my own performance? Um, and these are,

I think of high musicianship ideals that I want to build in from the

kindergartners up. I want you to feel like you're in control.

I want you to know where you are. I want you to feel like you're making choices.

We say in a lot of my teaching, artistry begins with choices.

Choices don't guarantee great artistry, but if you're not making choices,

you're definitely not in the art space. Mm-hmm. Like,

you're definitely not there. The only thing you do it is following.

You're not making art. Maybe somebody else is, but you're not. You are just,

you're just a chug who's doing what people made you do. Um,

and the high schoolers particularly really dig it if they can believe that

they're in control of something. Like if I can just help them really believe it,

which doesn't usually happen in one class,

but if I can get them into a mindset where like, no, seriously,

you really are in control. You get to choose. There's parameters,

but you get to choose,

which I really think is sort of the whole nature of the al cuisine

improvisation. Like, let's improvise. We are in the room, we're gonna walk,

improvise who I'm gonna look at and what I'm getting close to and what I'm

getting away from. Like find out. So when we get into the circle,

I usually will holler at her. Break the circle, break the circle.

One

Of the early things that we went over really fast at the beginning is you're

staking out your own path. You're siding where you're walking, I'm going here,

I'm going there. It's always directional. So I want to build that in again.

And this idea that I'm in control of me, I know what I'm looking at,

I'm making choices in the moment.

But one of the things I want you to be making choices of is where is your

directionality? So in that last little round there, um,

a lot of the directionality room's mostly gone. There's a whole lot.

There's a good bit of this.

Like, I'm sort of like bouncing, but I'm not actually getting anywhere. Um,

which is really frustrating for all of us. Um,

I don't want to teach a class where no one feels like they're getting anywhere.

I don't want to have that experience as just a human.

I wanna feel like I'm like, I know where I am, know where I'm going.

I got some plans, I feel empowered. Um, and so we're trying to keep it moving.

And it's a literal performance. The the,

the student in the class is literally trying to get somewhere.

And once you've arrived there, get on with it and make a new choice.

Like somebody who's awake and present, uh, awake and present in their class. Um,

let's, we can keep on going on that rant wanted, but let's,

let's just try to get to a couple other things. Um, turn to your neighbor.

Tell them good morning or good afternoon. Afternoon.

It's already nearly on the hour. We've got, when does this end? 25 or 20.

Who knows? 25. 25. Alright, but you,

um, but do you, uh, face, just face your neighbor face. Um,

point stand in front of somebody standing in front of you.

Face your neighbor fade and the trio's fine. Um, so here's a trio.

Here's a trio. Can I have you and you be a duo? Tell your neighbor.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Lovely.

Looking good. Um, would you, uh, can you go ahead and clap those?

Let's just continue with this little plan. 25 minutes. All right,

we'll stick it down for just a second. Would you please it down here of

are you

got something you plan Boring Things that nobody cares about,

Right?

We pause here. So in any pedagogy, kind of talk with me.

We are always looking for all the places we could freeze.

Frame the lesson and then say, what are the 20 things we could do from here?

And when we, when we study pedagogy together with, we,

we actually try to list out the 20 things.

Like we'll just take a break and we'll be like, okay,

it came to a thing that was a thing.

What are the 20 things we could do from here? Um, and uh, and,

and it shouldn't be that hard to thing of like, oh, I could do this.

I guess we could do that. I could do this. I could do that. Like we could,

we could change the plaque. We could prescribe the plaque. I could,

instead of being partners, I could turn my back to this partner,

get a new partner, then a new partner, then a new partner.

I could put myself into a trio. I put myself into a group of four.

I could put into a big circle. We could get on the floor. We could,

we could roll around joke, change, metering, change dynamics.

We can play with articulation, but we should be able to just like, bam, bam,

bam. Which is what makes it, first of all,

personally super rewarding to do any kind of teaching.

Cause I'm not stuck like I'm trying over here. I got, I got things I can do.

And it hopefully should feel really relevant to my students because it's a lot

like we're doing something in the moment.

And it's in reaction or in collaboration with them. It's not ignoring them.

It actually is. It's it's because of them that we would then make the next move,

right? And so it's because of that. So I'm looking at,

one of the things I'm thinking of, oh, I got like,

I got like half the room has just gotten back just doing this.

And so I can think, okay, well that's on me. That's not on them. Um,

like what else is they gonna do? This is this.

They're nightmares gotten this far. You know,

of course they don't have the vocabulary.

And so maybe we take the next hour and we just play with clapping vocabulary or

the different ways they could interact with each other. You know,

we could just like totally go that direction. Um, or,

or I think they're not actually listening.

Like they got into a rut and you heard me messing with tempo, right?

And so I'm like broadening and pulling it in. Every time I make that move,

that's a click back to me. And so under classroom management, that's a hop.

And so, because nobody likes to be out, we love harmony.

We love together togetherness. We love togetherness. Um,

and so if I'm doing my job well, I've got you on the edge of that together.

And then I'm pushing you a little bit, push you a little bit,

push you a little bit, push you a little bit.

And that's what's constantly making you click back into me, click back into me,

click back into me. Which is what we need for all our classes.

But for the teenagers who are really quite tempted to be somewhere other than

the, I need to keep finding that. Click back in. Um, and it'll,

and it takes weeks and months to get them to the point where I can just treat

them like me, university students, you know, where I can just be like,

I don't really need to work so hard to keep you here.

You've got it on your tongue. I don't assume that with, with my,

with my high schoolers.

I assume that they're like this close to like burning the place down.

And so like, I have to keep bringing, bring, bring, bringing in. Um,

you've got your, you've got your partner. Can you please clap that down?

But again, but this time I'd like you to just, can you add a little, um,

a little sway, just a little left, right?

We're just gonna like rock on your heel. How about this one?

Wink

Your neighbor Wink. Turn your back to your neighbor.

Sway in front of your new neighbor, that next person.

So you catch it, it's a game, but it's also a way of making you listen again.

You catch it. And of course we can do, I can also say in three, go

Four.

Now let's think about known to unknown. I said,

all the teaching be known to be unknown thees that are prevalent in this room

right now are not known by your average high school crowd. Yay.

I saw like 12 of you do this

right? And we just have to assume that's not,

that's not gonna be what the average kids that I ever worked with.

They're not gonna bring that to the room. Um, the sway,

I actually teach a lot with this word sway a lot. It's like,

it's become one of these things that, that I, it's just in,

in most lessons that I teach, at some point we are doing a sway.

The sway came from the high schoolers. And this is critical.

This is like a really important thing we should all be looking for in all our

teaching. I don't care who your people are, what do they bring?

What do they already know how to do? What are they comfortable with?

What are they like, what is non-confrontational? Um, that's the note.

And it took me years to hang in with these kids. Um, uh,

the school that I taught at as an inner city school, um, really mixed,

quite diverse. But a major core of the students that I, that I worked with, um,

were a lower economic class and grew up in the gospel church. Not all of them,

not everybody who, not every African American kid grew up in that church.

Not every African American kid came from a position of less privilege or more

privilege. But there was just a,

it was always like nearly half of my students seemed as though they grew up in

one of those churches. Um, and I, I mean they, we had a gospel choir over there.

It was great. And, and I wanted to sing in that choir and you know,

it was just a thing. And then it took me quite some years to notice that,

that in that gospel choir and that setting, they, they did this

so super subtle, like you couldn't look cooler. Um,

and it took me a long time as a guy who not grow up in that church,

took me a long time to like calm it down and calm it down.

Cuz you can't overdo it. If you overdo it. It's not there. It's super subtle.

Really, really small. So as a Dalcrozian who's kind of been taught to like,

remake things large cause they're more, they're more visceral.

And so they're more deeply felt.

That actually wasn't helpful when I was trying to get to these kids. Um,

what I needed to do was freaking calm down,

humble myself a bit and believe that they have something to offer. Um,

and really we would also say all good teaching begins with the belief that

the students have something to contribute. Um, it's not like I know everything.

You know nothing and you're welcome being in my room. Um,

instead what I want to recognize is that actually they got a lot going on and in

particularly in some of those traditions, way more than I can offer. And so, um,

so I was like, oh wait, you do that. Like you know how to do that. In fact,

I just want you to do this whole concert and you never screwed it up once You

could do that. And so just with me, if you'll just,

you're gonna put your feet nearly together,

like not wider than hip hip and you're just gonna put your weight on one

side, slouch it, teenies slouch, not, not deep, just a little.

And then it's, it's to the side and then together and then don't go wide.

It's just hip width and then kind of it together. And you can kind of,

I dunno if you can see my feet,

but it's here and then this one kind of points that way and then it's parallel

and then spend, and then it's a little bit out. But even less go less.

So it's here and then I don't care. And then here I don't care.

It's gotta, it's gotta have that kinda little attitude about it. Like it,

I don't think that that's actually what they believe,

but to me that's how I was reading. It's like, like I, like I could do this,

do this all day, you know? And so can you just gimme the littlest bit?

Let's be in a slower two here,

1, 2, 1 2.

And so I just realized, oh wait,

half of my students do that effortlessly and nearly perfectly no effort.

And then the other is they got some work to do. They got, you know,

they got some other work to do, but we got that. And then we can think,

well what are the 20 things we could do from there? If I can get you to do that.

Not confrontational, you do it. Well you're with it now what can you do it?

And then we would think, well I dunno, I could do it in front of my neighbor,

I could do it behind my neighbor. We could do it all in a big circle.

We could add arm something. We could sing over it. We could add,

get clap patterns. We could, you know,

what are the things we could start to make fun of it and all of a sudden start

it super subtle and very cool.

And then now what if we did make it a little bit bigger?

And what if we did make it bigger and what if we did, you know?

And they would come with me on that cause I'm making fun of myself and they see

me as the goof, not me making fun of them. Um,

but we all of a sudden have a thing that we were doing together. We were, um,

that step together choir thing then became sort of the

genesis of a whole bunch of sort of different versions of sway,

which sometimes I'll do the step together and sometimes it's just heal and heal.

And again, it's just low in the ground. It's, and it's known more than this.

And I wouldn't,

I mean it's not classically Dalcrozian and yet it's super Dalcrozian cause

it's the body and it's feeling and it's time moving and,

and it's collaborative and, and just because it's subtle,

would you back to your last partner, we were clapping down. Let's,

and let's drop the arms. No clap.

Would you just put your weight on one side mirror your neighbor,

other side mirror your

Neighbor

Mirror in the trio, we all go right and we all go

Left.

Yeah. And all I want you to see,

and the way I really sort of try to reinforce what has now become the,

the way Stephen Neely teaches sway in his classes and uses it has nothing to do

with the shoulders. So I'm not asking you to do this. Um,

actually this actually can become quite dangerous.

And people all of a sudden have got some kind of like weird motion lightning

that has no, no foundation to it. And it can,

it's amazing how quickly it can lose the beat when it's all up here and light.

Um, instead, um,

sometimes I say sway and then some people wanna make this their sway.

And I say no, it's actually, it's,

it's actually more like a really boring walk in place.

It's just healing the floor, healing the floor, healing the floor,

healing the floor heel in the floor and probably less.

Just get your heel on the floor down, it's low, it's grounded, it's heavy,

it's down there.

And so can you just mirror your neighbor and put your heel on the floor, um,

as you see. And then time, we do a group bigger than two, then it's, I,

when we say mirror go, right,

everybody sways to their right and then everybody sways to their left.

So if it's more than two, it's mego. If it's two,

then we're likely to mirror each other, um, and

See your

Neighbor. Can

You mirror your neighbor? Unless

we, this is more advanced. I'm just asking you

for extended gesture. So this is not class one.

And then we did 20 things. So you gotta conduct, are you gonna clap?

Are you going to engage? Um, how about this one? So the,

the sway, it comes in my class really quite early. Could be day one.

It's possible that we ended up swaying something on that first day. Um,

and then, uh, you know, and it's just a through line in a lot of my teaching,

but the point of showing it to you is that it came from them.

I been inventive certainly. I just realized, oh wait, you do that,

you're happy to do that. Um, uh, another uh,

nice one that is not normally quite day one, but it doesn't take long to get to,

we call it London Bridge in my classes. So, you know, the kids in London Bridge,

We take,

we take this London bridge and you put it in shoulder height and put one foot in

front of the other, like we're gonna wrestle it, right?

And then the gesture is just this down, up, down, up.

And the goal is to lean in on me. So see, gimme a little bit of pressure.

There you go. There's resistance. Exactly that. Yep. And so,

and not everybody does it instincts like jack's all and me, like you said,

resistance, which is exactly what I'm looking for.

So I'd like it if we could kind of lean on each other, meet in the middle,

but it shouldn't be sweaty. Like I'm not like actually wrestling.

I just feel your literal support. And I feel it. Unended is what we're after.

So in some students have a real instinct for it, like in this room,

some of you will have an immediate instinct for what I'm trying to get at.

And not everybody will.

There's a whole bunch of people who this is their emotion or this one, you know,

again, people do this, this, and,

and it's not the one I'm after. It's a, with just my right arm,

it's a swoop down and up and a swoop down up.

And my other arms do the same thing, just opposite down and up, down.

And it's got a little hip thing with your neighbor, you, London, Bridget,

in the trio. Anything more than two,

it's to the side and to the side. Yeah. Practice.

Tell your neighbor, um, in that gesture, where is it heavy?

What's the heavy part of that gesture?

Tell your neighbor what's the heavy part of

two

In four?

And there you are. And so if you were doing well,

which of course this room really is, we weren't going

as though nothing, nothing, nothing hits. Instead there's a journey to go on.

And it has moments that are heavier and moments that are lighter.

And as we develop attention to that,

we are very much in the space of what you'll hear me say over and over,

deep musicianship. This is not just,

I'm not just doing a choreography as though there's nothing else going on.

I'm aware of the resistance of what is heavy, what is light?

How do I get from one moment to the next moment?

It's impossible to just sing two notes or to just play a note and then,

and then magically play the next note.

You can only do the two things by having there being something that's bridging

them. It can be sound bridging or it can be silent bridging.

But there's motion in there if they're part of the same piece.

If they're part of the same ideas, then there's something connecting them. Um,

and so here I get to feel, oh yeah, one, if that's,

if you're thinking about that. And then, I don't know,

something's still happening, still happening, still happening.

And how do I get back to there? But only that I reverse the space.

I can't be and then be nowhere and then be,

I'm trying to like find that resistance, that sort of visceral connecting.

And if I do it with you, with my neighbor,

then I like how much more is going on in this place?

And if you lean into me and push against me as I push against you,

like there's a whole lot going on in this like very simple,

very simple little, little bit of gesture. And then we think,

what are the 20 versions of that? What are the other things that we could do,

you know, and what we're doing. And I, ugh,

stinking every class, right? It's just like every,

every class we could go for about another four hours, right about now.

Cause it's not just one of the 20 things from this,

from this little London bridge exercise.

But what are now the 20 things that makes me think of and teenage, uh,

demonstration. Um, if I only have nine minutes left,

turn your neighbor and tell them they did a great job.

And then have a quick,

have a quick seat. And again, what we're talking about, I mean,

I think these lessons or these words apply in basically every class,

but we are, the thing that makes a teenage,

I guess is just that we're paying attention to the teenagers. Like,

where are they?

I'm not gonna assume that they are like my 20 year olds or like they're you or

they're like a crowd of seven year olds. Like they're this, that crowd.

And so what, what are they willing to do? What is comfortable for them?

What pacing is gonna meet their need?

How much can I push on them enough to make them feel like they're invested? Um,

but not so much,

but that feels defeatist and not so little that it feels boring and stupid. Um,

you know, like we have to find that there's a, there's a pacing in there,

which there isn't a great way to describe it other than we're all,

we're all showing up and trying to teach better the next day. Um,

it's not like I can say, well, that first walk, you,

you have exactly two and a half seconds before you have to stop them. Um,

it doesn't, it's not like that. Um,

each crowd of teenagers is different than the one before.

If you're in the same district, in the same building,

you have kind of an average of what that district seems to kind of offer you.

But even still,

you have some really amazing years and some really rough years and some,

you know, like you just don't know.

And then you go to another town or you work with another group.

What blows my mind?

There's a couple of you here who were at interlock in this summer or maybe who

went through a program like that. I,

for many years I was teaching in the high school during the school year.

And then I would go and we had a sort of interlocking type program that

continues at NYU University called Pre-college.

It's just a six week program for like the kids who are most interested.

And so they show up,

like all the goofballs are left at home and they get to go to some new city and

they just get to be a music major for the summer. You know,

get to really test it out. And they're the same kids. It's the same kid.

In fact, in many cases I brought kids from the high school and have them in,

and as soon as they're in that new environment, it's like a whole nother thing.

Like they're all of a sudden more patient, they're more willing,

they're willing to take risks, they're like excited to be there.

They're not like screwing around and doing stuff,

or you put them in that other culture and maybe it's like awful, you know?

And so it's, it's the same kids. They're all capable of amazing work.

And so it's not, but it's not on them. They're little. They're,

I don't care how tall and muscular they are, they are little,

they're little little kids who,

who can't see the future and they don't know what they're capable of. Um,

and so it takes us be like, no, seriously,

you totally can do this and so much more. And it's me,

me pushing and pushing and pushing to be like,

I know where you can get and I'm not gonna give up until we get there. The, um,

I'll quickly read you some words and then you can scan that QR code before you

leave if you want. Thank you. You can scan that QR code,

but these words are written down there and so you don't have to take notes in no

great order.

Basic advice for good tj,

and these are not all the things that anyone could say.

They're not necessarily the best things to just things we model large.

When I'm new crowd, new people, I mean, I would've done it with you also,

but with the teenagers, I'm in the mix. I'm modeling everything I'm talking,

asking them to do.

And I'm usually doing it bigger even than I'm hoping they'll do it or need them

to do it. I'm like, I'm bigger than life.

Let me also just say some of what I'm telling you is the Stephen Neely style of

just being me. So these are ways I've survived,

which may not at all be the way you would survive. Um, you're not me.

I can't be you.

So someone else out there super subtle and somehow the kids eat it up and they

love it and that's it. I was, I've never been successful at that.

So I model quite large. Um, and I'm in it, I'm in it.

I find the awkward kid,

I'm pairing with that person or the person who's cutting up,

I'm getting in the middle of that group and now all of a sudden, you know,

you and me we're buddies for. And it's just 30 seconds till I, you know,

I'm moving around. I'm a, I'm a moving target. Um,

I'm not too stuck in any one place and I'm doing whatever I want them to do.

I would do, um, I say here, Dal Pro's class are special, weird,

unique. It's our superpower. This is not like anything else on anybody's day.

And that's pretty much true all the time. I don't care who your people are.

If you're gonna take a eurythmic classes,

this is not like anything else anywhere. Um, and,

and we wanna sort of like lean into that. Be consistent.

The, I can't tell you how many this would,

this is like the whole gist of the classroom management speech.

If we ever want to go there, I can't tell you how many, uh,

high school teachers I've seen just be massive here because they can't just

freaking be predictable every time they show up.

It's a completely different attitude and different personality,

different set of expectations, different new rules, constant, all the rules,

all the things. I'm like,

my one rule at the high school is do not interrupt the rehearsal. That's it.

I got one rehearsal, I got one rule. Do not interrupt the rehearsal.

We're working, we're working, moving forward. That's it.

And then everything else falls into place and we can just like get that go.

You're talking, it's interrupted by rehearsal. Cut it out. We're working.

Like that was always the thing. And they, they,

it takes a while for them to trust that I really am who I claim to be,

but as soon as they can believe it, no, that's actually who he is. He's,

every single time I'm gonna ask the same things and all kinds of things.

Calm down. Everybody starts to trust. They don't have to like me anymore.

They just have to depend on or feel that I'm in the hip.

And as soon as they can, like he's dependable, I get it.

They know what to expect of them. All kinds of things calm down.

And all of a sudden we're much more likely to get something done under that.

Have a routine. Doesn't have to be the exact same everything,

but how do we get into the room? How do we start a lesson?

How do we end a lesson? Those are important things. Um, really important.

All the ages. How do we start, how do we end? What's the basic arc?

And then you can mess with it as soon as they believe it's dependent. Um,

but the, you know, then it's exciting to mess with the, you know,

mess with the routine. But if they don't feel they have a routine,

then nothing is, uh, is trustworthy. Um, I'm loose.

I'm out here, but not in control of me. I don't know what's gonna happen.

And everybody gets freaked out about that. That's fight or flight stuff.

Be authentic. You are enough. You truly are. You are good enough.

You belong in the space that you're in. You have to be,

you can't be any of the people you've watched teach this weekend.

You have to find the version of you that you can just consistently be and try to

offer that. Honestly, if you haven't bought a book, um, flow by Chick, accept.

If you've not had a chance to read that,

it's required reading for any of my teachers.

Everybody needs to be aware of this now. Old research. Um,

and absolutely as valid as ever what we're looking for if the class goes really

well and you know, the experience, it like just went by like that.

It's like I don't even know what happened, like what happened at the time,

how time flies. Like I totally lost sense of self. I lost sense of time.

I was just in it like me and Anthony, man, we were all like,

all of a sudden it was over. That's the flow state. And there are sort of, um,

uh, predictable thresholds or uh,

qualities that help add to that flow state. The amount of time short.

So I'll just tell you the one big, one of the big ones, um,

is that the material has to be right sized. If I make it too hard,

then it's, everybody feels like a loser. It becomes te fetus and this sucks.

I'm outta here. If I make it too easy, then everybody is like,

this is so stupid. I just like kids' glass. I don't even what we're doing,

like do this in my sleep. And again,

they just completely dismiss my goal with all of my classes.

When I was teaching little kids.

I teach the high schoolers and definitely what I do with my university students

is I try to get them to have a bit of comfort where like, you're all winners.

You did known unknown. Let's do the known even if it's just for 30 seconds.

We did a known, you all experienced success. You did.

It doesn't have to be fancy. You all walked and said hi to your neighbor.

I survived. Great. And then I'm gonna push on it. Um,

and make it just a little spit out of reach,

not way outta reach where you couldn't have a chance of being able to do it.

And we of course could make anything too hard.

We're trying to get it just hard enough where you think, man,

if I just focused a little harder, I could probably do that.

That's how I was with the swing though. In the last class I was like, man,

I could figure this out. I know I could figure this out. It's just like,

but I have to focus and, and, and getting that right sized is critical. And so,

and I don't know who your teenagers are. Um, I wouldn't,

no one knew neither until you meet them.

And that's what we're doing in all these opening things.

We're just trying to figure out who are people, where are they,

what do they know? What are they able to do? What are they willing to do?

What is easy? What is not confrontational? What will build trust?

And now what's the littlest bit past that that I can push on that would get them

to go like, oh,

I better focus so that I can stay in and then all of a sudden are known to

unknown. And then that's how we're sort of ramping toward,

there's more words and obviously we could all teach for hours and hour.

So thanks for thinking about teenagers.