Book Chapter
Easy Exercises in Breathing
Published 1939 | Added September 29, 2026
Ten simple breathing exercises from Jaques-Dalcroze’s “Music Movement and Ear-Training: Games and Exercises” (1939).
The same exercise lying on the back with movement of the legs, bending them always in relation with the breathing.
- The Teacher plays whatever note he likes which the pupil must sing.
- The same, but singing while running {ex: https://dalcrozeusa.org/app/uploads/2026/09/music-mov-and-ear-training_ch2_ex2b.png} the children whistle or miouw like a kitten.
- Or to run without taking a breath {ex: https://dalcrozeusa.org/app/uploads/2026/09/music-mov-and-ear-training_ch2_ex2c.png} the children whistle or miouw like a kitten.
To run while singing
The same with a longer expiration.
The children run eight quavers while breathing in, then they sing the note played on the piano while making one of the twenty gestures.
The Red Indians walk continuously on the prairie and stop from time to time to scent the wind. The same flat on the face.
The cat makes little jumps then stop and yawns.
The glassmaker breathes into the moulten glass to give it the shape of a bottle, then he sighs with satisfaction.
The Horse gallops.
In the same way, in turn, the wolf howls, the lion roars, the turtle dove cooes, the ewe bleats, the cow lows, etc…
The train leaves.
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Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze was a Swiss composer, educator, and developed Dalcroze eurhythmics.
While teaching music at the Geneva Conservatory, he observed that his students lacked essential musical skills. They could not actually hear the music and harmonies they were writing. When they performed, their playing showed little sense of rhythmic life.
He began to devise ear training games to develop better inner hearing. These games honed the students’ perceptions and resulted in more sensitive music-making: timing, articulation, tone quality, and phrase shape. Dalcroze noticed his students would exhibit subtle, spontaneous movements—swaying, tapping a foot, a slight swinging of the arms—as they sang. The body was conscious of the life and movement of the music.
Jaques-Dalcroze began to explore these natural, instinctive gestures. He invited students to walk and swing their arms, or to conduct while they sang or listened to him improvise at the piano. He called this study of music through movement “eurhythmics,” from the Greek roots “eu” and “rythmos” meaning “good flow.”
Jaques-Dalcroze continued to experiment with eurhythmics, giving demonstrations of his “Rhythmic Gymnastics” throughout Switzerland and Western Europe. In 1911, he founded a school in Hellerau, Germany, where he refined his pedagogical methods and mounted innovative theatrical productions informed by these newly developed aesthetic principles.
These “festivals” drew audiences that included many of the leading thinkers of the day, including Rudolf von Laban, Darius Milhaud, Serge Rachmaninoff, Rainer Maria Rilke, and many others. By the time he left Germany in 1914, his work had created an international sensation.
In 1915, he founded the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva, Switzerland where he continued to develop fresh applications of his approach until his death in 1950. The school continues to train new instructors who have, in turn, established training schools internationally.
Today, people from around the world study this remarkable method of music education and experience.
About the Author(s)
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze
Émile Jaques-Dalcroze was a Swiss composer, educator, and developed Dalcroze eurhythmics.
While teaching music at the Geneva Conservatory, he observed that his students lacked essential musical skills. They could not actually hear the music and harmonies they were writing. When they performed, their playing showed little…
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