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Lesson Plan

Anatomy of a Lesson #7

Groupings of 12 Eighth Notes and Piano Improvisation

From Dalcroze Connections Vol. 10 No. 1

Published Fall 2025 | Added November 11, 2025

This lesson plan by Dr. Annabelle Joseph is based on the notes I took during my Dalcroze training at Carnegie Mellon University. I “rescued” my notebooks from that period and I found the following from 1999. At that time, students took notes quickly between lessons. The annotations I write now come from my memories and my teaching experience at the present. 

This is an introductory lesson to measures of 12 eighth notes and their common groupings. Once this is mastered, the next stage could be to work on a specific rhythmic pattern one measure in length and to practice with different groupings of the twelve eighth notes, thus changing the natural rhythmic “accents” of the pattern.

Elda Nelly Treviño Flores

Part I: Eurhythmics1

Introduction to groupings of 12 eighth notes
(Groupings of 2, 3, 4, 6 eighth notes which correspond to 6, 3, 4, 2 beats per measure)

  1. Warm- up
    1. Students listen to improvised music at the piano and figure out the pulse (6, 3, 4, 2 beats per measure of 12 eighth notes each)
      1. Move with the pulse
      2. Conduct the pulse while moving
  2. Subdivisions of 12-eighth-note measures
    1. Students run freely with eighth-note melody improvised by the teacher at the piano (no distinguishable groupings in the melody)2
    2. When listening to groupings of eighth notes, students stay in place and move, showing the grouping of eighth notes with their movement
      • If no grouping is heard, start running until a new grouping appears
    3. Teams: Make circles of even numbers of students, standing
      1. Pass an imaginary ball every 12 eighth notes they hear
      2. Teacher starts grouping the eighth notes as in the previous exercise while students pass the imaginary ball with the grouping3
      3. At “HOP” change directions
    4. Students take a pair of rhythm sticks
      • HIP–eighth notes in hands and grouping in feet, moving through space
      • HOP–eighth notes in feet and conducting with both arms4
    5. New teams of 5 people. Improvise movement, showing the groupings of eighth notes in this series: 6-3-2-4.
      1. Everybody in the team makes movements simultaneously, repeating the series a few times
      2. Each person does the series twice
        • At “HOP,” change directions
      3. Same thing, but doing the series once; each person “passes the series” to an unexpected other in the circle.5
  3. “Geppetto’s clock shop”
    1. Students make teams of five people
      • Students subdivide space with arms (sagittal plane) showing the groupings saying the grouping out loud
    2. Students line up in groups of five
      • Each person shows one grouping with their arms and adds sounds to the first eighth note of the grouping.
    3. At the end, we have many clocks sounding at the same time6

Part II: Piano Improvisation7

Creating a secondary melody based on the Appalachian folk song “Ev’ry Night When the Sun Goes In” in the C Mixolydian mode

  1. Learning “Ev’ry Night When the Sun Goes In”
    1. The teacher plays the song at the piano
      • The entire group starts singing the song with note names and conducting while teacher plays accompaniment at the piano until the group learns it8 
    2. Two students come to the piano
      1. Student 1 plays the melody
      2. Student 2 improvises a bass line
      3. Half of the group sings melody
      4. Half of the group sings bass line
      5. Repeat the same exercise with two different students
  2. Improvising variations of the melody9
    1.  New pair of students come to the piano
      1. Student 1 improvises a variation of the original melody
      2. Student 2 improvises a bass line
      3. Group sings original melody pianissimo
    2. New pair of students come to the piano
      1. Group sings original melody
      2. Student 1 improvises a variation in a second voice canon
      3. Student 2 improvises a NEW melody in a third voice canon
      4. Repeat the same exercise with different students
  3. Three-voice canon
    1. Divide group in 3 and sing a 3-voice canon a cappella10 
      1. Voice 1 sings the original melody
      2. Voices 2 and 3 improvise new melodies in canon 
      3. Change roles
      4. Move and conduct in space while singing
Ev’ry Night When the Sun Goes In
Traditional Appalachian

Commentary by Elda Nelly Treviño Flores

  1. The theme of part one of the lesson is different groupings of 12 eighth notes in a measure. The teacher plays improvised music at the piano, unexpectedly changing between groupings of 2, 3, 4, and 6 eighth notes. Students walk the eighth notes while conducting according to the heard groupings, thereby changing meter. ↩︎
  2. This exercise is a variation of the previous one. Students step the eighth notes (at a faster tempo than the previous exercise) when no grouping is heard. Once they hear a grouping or subdivision in 2, 3, 4, or 6, they  stop running and show, using free movements, the beats of groups of eighth notes. ↩︎
  3. One of the hallmarks of Dalcroze pedagogy is to combine individual and group work. This exercise is more challenging than the previous ones; for the exercise to work, the inner pulse of the team must be the same, and the movements to pass the ball must be gentle and flow among all the participants. Moreover, the quick-reaction response is very important to maintain the quality of the direction change. ↩︎
  4. This exercise goes back to individual work with the addition of arm movements. Both hands and feet show the eighth notes alternating with one another. When hands have the eighth notes, the feet will perform the grouping, and vice versa. (This is a dissociation.) The rhythm sticks facilitate listening clearly to the rhythmic figures. ↩︎
  5. One common strategy in Dalcroze pedagogy is the creation of a series of specific patterns, both rhythmic and/or melodic, to develop automatization and memory skills. In this exercise, the series is done twice by each member of the group. Then the series is done only once, and each person decides who does it next. The passing of the series must be done with eye contact between the person who does it and the person who receives it. Eye contact prepares the passing of the series and helps to maintain the flow of the exercise. ↩︎
  6. The purpose of this exercise is to create a polyrhythm in space with arm movements showing the different groupings of eighth notes within a measure of 12 eighth notes. Once the arm movements are worked through, voice sounds are added to those to create an auditory polyrhythm as well. Different poses or group configurations may be created by the teams to show the eighth-note groupings. ↩︎
  7. Part 2 of this lesson is designed to develop improvisation skills and is based on a given well-known melody. It also gets the Mixolydian mode in the ear. The lesson is designed for early intermediate students. ↩︎
  8. Another skill to learn in this lesson is to quickly memorize a melody and think of its harmony as well. One of the most challenging aspects of piano improvisation is to create a good bass line. Since most of the work through the lesson is done in pairs of students, the challenge is easier to manage. ↩︎
  9. This exercise develops the ability to listen to three different voices simultaneously. Since the song is already known, as the lesson progresses, it becomes more comfortable to improvise variations. The original instructions do not specify the use of certain rhythmic patterns only; however, with this restriction, the challenge level increases. ↩︎
  10. Even though the lesson is for piano improvisation, not voice, it is important to emphasize singing in tune. If a person imagines and sings a good melody in tune, then they will be able to improvise at the piano. Inner hearing is essential for developing improvisation skills both with the voice and at any instrument.
    To make this exercise more physical, one or two students could improvise a line with movements. ↩︎
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About the Author(s)

Author

Annabelle Joseph

Dr. Annabelle Joseph (1932–2024), Dalcroze Diplôme Supérieur, Professor of Music, taught eurhythmics at both graduate and undergraduate levels from 1989–2016 and was the director emeritus of the Marta Sanchez Dalcroze Training Center at Carnegie Mellon. As a Fellow in the Studio for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon, she …
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Editor

Elda Nelly Treviño

Dr. Treviño is a pianist and Dalcroze Eurhythmics (DE) practitioner and researcher. She is a professor and coordinator of Programas Dalcroze at the Universidad Panamericana in México City. Alongside she is a professor at the Facultad de Música of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL) in Monterrey, and director of he…
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