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By Michael Remson, author of Music Education for Dancers Online Course
In the twenty years that I’ve taught music to intermediate to advanced dance students, I’ve been consistently surprised by how little my students know about music. Even if they played an instrument growing up — as many do — they can’t explain (or maybe have forgotten) musical concepts that would be taught in any music appreciation class. In the programs I’ve worked with, we’ve discussed developing an aligned music curriculum that would include musical learning from an early age so that there wouldn’t be so much “catch up” by the time advanced dance students reach my classes (or better put, so that we could delve deeper into musical concepts). How to proceed? As a starting point, let’s look at two concepts that could be helpful and age-appropriate for, say, beginning dancers between ages four and seven?
Instruments: Every time a new piece of music is introduced in the class (or even anytime music is played), the teacher can tell students what instruments are featured on the recording. This takes the teacher 3-5 seconds and is a consistent reminder for young students that there is a whole world of musical instruments out there and that they have different sounds. As students get more familiar with how different instruments sound, the teacher could take a little more time, play the example and ask the students, “what instrument (or instruments) does this sound like?” Teachers might also encourage young students (and parents) to find videos on YouTube of instruments they haven’t encountered before. Teachers could even begin to craft exercises or combinations that have physical qualities that reflect the different types of sounds an instrument can make (think of the difference in sound between a plucked violin versus a bowed one). As these activities become more ingrained, it should also encourage teachers to seek out a broader variety of instrumental repertoire rather than just featuring solo piano excerpts in classes.
Dynamics: If a given musical example has a noticeable change in volume at any point (e.g., gradually louder or softer, suddenly louder or softer), this is an ideal time for the teacher to reinforce that changes in volume are, in fact, a normal part of musical expression and to reinforce the musical terminology (e.g., “crescendo”, “piano”, “forte”) that describe those changes. This won’t happen as often with music for technique classes but as preparation for staged performances begins and the music becomes more nuanced or expressive (think “Nutcracker”), these are ideal times to point out these changes and discuss how dynamics shifts might shape student performances. Do loud, boisterous musical passages call for a certain type of physicality? Do shimmering, transparent, quiet moments call for a different type of presence? How might one interpret a crescendo on stage? Starting these conversations at a younger age can start dance students on a journey of asking good questions when it comes to the music they dance to (and shouldn’t we be encouraging them to ask good questions?)
In my next post, we’ll start to tackle the tricky topic of pulse and meter.
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