Letter to the Editor

Editor’s Note

In the last issue of Dalcroze Connections, Michael Joviala edited a portion of Ruth Alperson’s Memoire, which she wrote in 1976 as a part of her work on her Diplôme. For the project she analyzed two lesson plans from the vast archive of cahiers, or lesson planning notebooks Emile Jaques-Dalcroze produced in his career. Our excerpt focused, in turn, on her discussion of the class he designed for November 26, 1943.

In preparing the article for publication, a question came up about two exercises that Ruth had chosen not to write about, exercises M. Jaques had included at the very end of the lesson plan. It is hard to make sense of Jaques-Dalcroze’s intriguing shorthand indications.

One of the exercises involves arranging the classroom’s benches in a circle and then having the students pair up and dance a waltz in the area these benches define. On cue the students are to step up onto the benches. The other plan seems to be for a study of increasing and decreasing metric values.

Curious to gain more insight into these cryptic notations, I sent them to former Director of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze and scholar on all things Dalcroze, Dr. Marie-Laure Bachmann, and asked her how we might interpret them. What follows is her generous reply, providing great insight into the master’s enigmatic lesson design sketches. Many thanks to Dr. Bachmann for her in-depth response to my query.

Bill Bauer

Letter to the Editor

Dear Bill,

Here below is what I understand of these exercises as Jaques-Dalcroze sketched them. (The point is that he was always researching; he was writing for himself, and this was a starting point towards the unexpected… No wonder if, when reading this nowadays, we may end up with more questions than answers. Stimulating, isn’t it?…!)

General title: Waltz in pairs in the center of a circle of benches (note that the benches for Eurhythmics classes are quite low ones ; not the kind you usually sit on!).

In fact, there are two separate exercises: in the first one, named a), people, by two (which here can mean holding hands and facing each other), dance waltz steps on the groups of three eighth notes (first measure, three first groups); on the fourth beat they take a jump onto the nearest bench (they have to quit the dancing position); second measure, (accented dotted half): they stand on the bench, then resume their dancing position during the time left; then (third measure) they dance two waltz steps on top of the bench, and on the last (accented) beat they take a jump down, landing on the next first beat (the accented dot without any specified duration–may be the end; may be the starting over again, or going on, who knows?).

Is this exercise (as written) a fixed succession of « 12/8 – 6/8 – 8/8 – stop », i.e. a precision and memory exercise? Or is it a reaction exercise (it could be…) with groups of three eighths ad libitum and the teacher accenting an anacrusic beat to impulse the change of level? I like this idea too… Are the little crosses on top of the dotted half note and on the quarter note designed to show the difference between metrical accent and rhythmical accent? Or just to show important moments to be precisely reached? What is the point of unequal beats and unequal measures in this exercise?… Did J-D really mean the quarter note as such or wouldn’t he have dotted it? (It is not rare to see errors in his often too fast notation). Alas we cannot ask him, though we know he experienced it (he noted « fait » in the margin, i.e. « done »); but we can take advantage of all these questions to find our own way…!

The second exercise, named 2° (and not (b) : wasn’t Jaques-Dalcroze in a kind of a hurry on that day?! Typical of him!)… has no more to do with waltz, but with a succession of unequally grouped values (eighth notes) : 4 – 4 – 6 – 3 – 3 – 4 – 4… . « Chaîne » is most often used in the sense of « canon ». It might have been what we call « un canon arrêté », i.e. one same group of notes is repeated several times; teacher starts; when he changes the grouping, or maybe when he says hop, students realize the one he just played while listening to the new one he is now playing, and be ready to change for it when teacher changes again, etc. Or, more probably, the succession (as written here) was to be memorized as a series and students took turns starting one after the other (i.e. “en canon”) after one group of notes or one measure.

As for the realization itself, I understand they have to make one step for each global value («valeur métrique» as noted here), once on the bench, once on the floor, alternately; at least they change from up to down and again on each first eighth note of each group, be it without or with stepping the following notes (as in the second part, which says alternately for each group « en bas », « sur le banc », and allows us to think that every note might possibly be stepped).

In fact, it does little matter which interpretation we choose, as long as we get the principle of both exercises, which is to train the ability to deal with one’s weight transfer, strength, balance, time and given space, so as to reach the right smoothness, momentum and accuracy of movement in any given rhythm or tempo…(Let’s remember that for this same reason Jaques-Dalcroze was fond of stairs!)

Whatever, I don’t think these exercises did aim at making things mentally difficult, since they were devised for the very end of the lesson, as you rightly suggest… And we are not even sure that Jaques-Dalcroze did use the second one that day! Plausibly, when preparing this lesson, he devised two exercises relating to changing of level by means of benches, and eventually chose just one to be realized… I often experienced the same thing, haven’t you?

Marie-Laure Bachmann