Adding Meaningful Movement to Canons Using Dalcroze Eurhythmics

This session will explore combining movement with singing songs in canon to increase independent singing and listening skills. Canons require a high level of musicianship to be executed accurately and expressively. Aural maturity, whereby students can hear music while producing music concurrently, can be taught effectively by adding kinesthetic activities to activate the entire body in the process of canonic singing. During this session participants will use a variety of physical means to increase brain activity, therefore assisting in the concentration, comprehension, and memorization of singing the canons. Specifically, students will work in small groups tapping their own part into another singer’s hand while tapping their own parts, feel the melodic rhythm of multiple parts with elastics, and walk through space to be able to hear all of the parts around them.

Dr. David Frego 

Penn State University
Retired

David Frego, PhD, is recently retired as the director of the Penn State School of Music and professor of music education. He was the inaugural president of the American Eurhythmics Society. Dr. Frego regularly presents workshops on Dalcroze Eurhythmics around the globe and has published books, book chapters, DVDs, and articles in music education journals and journals for arts medicine. With co-author Dr. Marla Butke, Dalcroze Eurhythmics in the Choral Classroom was released in 2021. Meaningful Movement: A Music Teacher’s Guide to Dalcroze Eurhythmics was published in 2016.

Dr. Marla Butke 

Otterbein University
Retired

Marla Butke, PhD, retired professor of music, is a master teaching artist and vice president of the American Eurhythmics Society. Dr. Butke has earned degrees from Miami University, Wright State University, and The Ohio State University. A sought-after clinician, she frequently presents Dalcroze workshops throughout the United States and internationally, having presented at international, national, state, and regional conferences including AES, OAKE, AMIS, and AOSA. Former academic positions include professor of music at Ashland University, and adjunct professor at Otterbein, Capital, and Xavier universities where she has taught general music methods, conducting, choral methods, and directed various choral ensembles. Dr. Butke has co-authored two books with Dr. David Frego, Meaningful Movement: A Music Teacher’s Guide to Dalcroze Eurhythmics published by Music is Elementary (2016) and Dalcroze Eurhythmics in the Choral Classroom published by Hal Leonard (2021).