In the practice of teaching and research, Dalcroze discovered that the human body is the best musical instrument. To receive music training, the first instrument to be trained is the human body, which is the source and foundation of all art.
He first asked himself several questions to answer: (1) Where is the source of music? human emotions. Human emotions are processed and created by artists before they are translated into music. Therefore, the source of music is here, and music education should start here. (2) Where do humans feel emotions? body parts. For example, when a person is irritated, his eyes will be red, his limbs will tremble, his eyebrows will stand sideways, his teeth will lock, his tone will be strong, his mood will be high, his heart rate will increase, his blood pressure will rise, and his body will stand upright. Therefore, music training should first train the human body. Simply learning music without combining physical movements is incomplete. (3) How does the human body feel its emotions? Emotions are reflected in the movement of muscles that contract and relax. When you are nervous, your muscles contract; when you are happy, your muscles relax. Therefore, we must first cultivate the body's relaxation and naturalness, so that the body's muscles can easily and quickly execute the brain's instructions. (4) How to express inner feelings in the external world? Free emotional release. Throw away all restraints, move naturally and freely, even listen to music with bare feet and wearing robes, and freely release inner feelings through body movements. Therefore, music training must be combined with human body rhythm, and the inner music feeling can be induced by means of rhythm. (5) How does the human body turn emotions into music? A range of movement patterns. Specifically include: human movement, sound movement, creative behavior, performance behavior, tactile behavior, auditory behavior and visual behavior.
Starting from here, he found a comprehensive presentation method of body rhythm that integrates body, music and emotion. His basic point of view is that all basic elements of music originate from the natural state of the human body. Therefore, effective ways of music teaching must find answers from the natural state of the human body. Practice has proved that only music education that is close to the human body and the natural state of human existence is successful education.
Music is an art of hearing. There is no doubt that music teaching should be based on the cultivation of listening and auditory abilities. The problem is that listening itself has a huge space and different levels. Listening has completely different meanings and degrees from hearing, listening, and understanding. Although previous music teaching focused on the form of listening, it ignored the essence of listening; it focused on the content of listening, but ignored the means and methods of listening; it focused on the superficial process of listening, but ignored the feedback and evaluation after listening. At this point, Dalcroze has found a very valuable answer for us.
He believes that the most basic and important element in music is rhythm, and the part of music that has the closest relationship with the human body is also rhythm. Every living being has an innate rhythmic instinct, and the feeling of rhythm is entirely dependent on movement. Therefore, music education should transform the emotional experience of music into specific movements, rhythms and sounds through a learning form that combines children's favorite music with sports, and integrate elements such as the intensity, speed, and contrasting changes in timbre of sounds in musical performance. Integrate with the energy, space, and time of children's movements, cultivating their ability to connect and experience musical emotions. His educational philosophy is to awaken people's natural instincts, promote the harmony of body and mind through rhythm training, enhance the flexibility, sensitivity and expressiveness of various parts of the body, make feelings more delicate and sensitive, stimulate imagination and creativity, and promote all aspects of life. progress.