Walking on Broken Glass
A few weeks ago, I traveled to Zagreb, Croatia for the Association for Music in International Schools (AMIS) Music Educators Conference. This was a gathering of music teachers from… you guessed it: International Schools. It’s similar to a conference in the U.S. such as TMEA, FMEA, or NAfME. I was fortunate enough to attend a “pre-conference” full day work shop on Dalcroze Eurythmics taught by David Frego and Marla Butke, two of the leading educators in Dalcroze Eurythmics and music education. They are authors of the book “Meaningful Movement: A Music Teacher’s Guide to Dalcroze Eurythmics.” I had already had some exposure to Eurythmics, but nothing like what this workshop exposed me to.
Dalcroze Eurhythmics is a unique approach to music learning that was developed by the Swiss composer and educator Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. It is a process for awakening, developing, and refining innate musicality through rhythmic movement, ear-training, and improvisation. The method emphasizes dance and kinesthetic rhythm games as a means of teaching various elements of music, including structure, rhythm, and musical expression 2
One of the many activities we did that day was syncopation practice using the song “Walking on Broken Glass” by Annie Lennox. This is a fun upbeat song that features a strong syncopated rhythm repeated many times throughout. There is a clear difference between the syncopated A section and the more straightforward B section. In our workshop, we explored patting the rhythms on our legs, then walking the rhythms. During the B section, we were encouraged to create our own movements to the straightforward steady beat feel.
After the workshop, I was inspired by, well, everything, but in particular this activity. My 4th graders are currently studying syncopation and what it looks and feels like in music. We are also getting into center rotations, something my colleague has been passionate about. During our co-planning meeting she said “Do you think we could find a syncopation play along video with four groups to practice rotations?” and that’s how the idea for this video came about. The video contains a recording of the song with four sections divided by shape and color. Teachers can assign a particular instrument or group to a color. The pulsating disco ball represents the primary sycnopated rhythm of the song. This rhythm written out would be too tedious and difficult for my students to learn to read. However, I still wanted them to read syncopated rhythms, so for the B section I wrote some rhythms for each group to read. As you’ll see, the disco ball moves around, indicating which group should play the primary rhythm. The fourth group has a simple quarter note pulse for the B section for students who have more difficulty with the synocpated rhythms. I tried it with my students, and they loved it!
Before getting into the video, we first followed a sequence similar to what I did in the workshop. For the A section, they clapped the rhythm in place, and for the B section they walked around the room on the steady beat. This helped reinforce the primary syncopated rhythm, so when we did the video, they were already familiar with it and could play it without assistance or reminders.
If you are a teacher and try it with your students, let me know how it went! Was it too difficult or too easy? If so, what methods did you use to support your students? Please email me at awreyna@gmail.com or comment on the video to share any insights.