Jaques-Dalcroze explains his system of training the body to perfect rhythmic response to the mind, leading up to bodily expression of music.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze" by Émile Jaques-Dalcroze. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950), was a Swiss musician and music educator who developed eurhythmics, a method of learning and experiencing music through movement. The Dalcroze Method consists of three equally important elements: Eurhythmics, solfege, and improvisation. Together, according to Dalcroze, they comprise the musicianship training of a complete musician. In an ideal approach, elements from each subject blend together, resulting in teaching rooted in creativity and movement. Dalcroze began his career as a pedagogue at the Geneva Conservatory, where he taught harmony and solfege. It was in his solfege courses that he began testing many of his influential and revolutionary pedagogical ideas. By 1906, he had begun giving public presentations of his method. In 1910, with the help of German industrialist Wolf Dohrn, he founded a school at Hellerau, outside of Dresden, dedicated to the teaching of his method. In Hellerau were taught a lot of peoples, among them prince Serge Wolkonsky, Vera Alvang, Valeria Cratina, Jelle Trolstra, Jnga and Ragna Jacobi. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the school was abandoned. He wrote The Eurhythmics of Jaques- Dalcroze (1912) and Rhythm, Music and Education (1921) .

"Of the three elements of music -- rhythm, melody, and harmony -- rhythm has received the least attention from the theorists, yet it is indisputably the basic element without which there is no musical art." Such is the first sentence of this book on use of the body to express musical rhythm. Elsa Findlay is eminently qualified to write on this subject, having been a student of Emile-Jaques Dalcroze, the master himself, also from her own experience in a variety of teaching situations. These included schools of dance and theater, colleges and universities, and The Cleveland Institute of Music, one of the first to offer a BMus degree with a major in eurhythmics. Each chapter concentrates on a different phase of rhythm: tempo, dynamics, duration, metrical patterns, speech and rhythm patterns, phrase and form, pitch and melody, and creative expression. Activities for each phase are outlined in detail and illustrated by charming drawings and photos. Appendices furnish further suggestions for exercises, games, action songs, and suitable music.