A Critical Examination of Robert Abramson’s (1986) “The Approach of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze” in Teaching Music in the Twentieth Century: The Need for Contestation and Discourse among Scholars in Order to Bring Eurhythmics into the Twenty First Century

Erica Olden

February 2007

What Abramson posits about improvisation sums up the role and relevance of Eurhythmics in music and music education, in context of the attitudes of music educators and scholars, including those in the Eurhythmics field, concerning research. For those less familiar with the field, we can find one meaning of Eurhythmics in Joseph’s (1983) writing: “Eurhythmics, a method of musical education developed by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950), a Swiss musician, composer and educator…is a process for awakening innate musicality and developing musicianship through experiencing, analyzing and creatively manipulating the structural and expressive/interpretive attributes of music” (p. 1), although years later, the same author, as is customary of a scholar, is still searching for better, more succinct descriptions of the method. My experience leads to the addition of Eurhythmics as seeking to engage students by way of a kinesthetic intelligence, thus allowing experiential learning through what those in the field call embodiment of music. Abramson (1986) says, “…teachers learn to balance the need for structure with the need for freedom of investigation, exploration, and expression” (p. 63). I argue that this method, if it is to remain a part of the scholarly field of music education, needs not only the exploration and contestation typical of intellectual discourse of scholars in the research community of every field, but it also must recognize and utilize appropriate theoretical perspectives and the methodologies associated with those. At the time of Abramson’s publication, 1986, educational scholars were amidst what is referred to as the “paradigm wars” (Gunzenhauser, Gerstl-Pepin, 2006). Those in the social sciences wishing to engage in research activities appropriate to the needs of their particular fields, perspectives, and contexts were struggling against narrow views of research, mostly aligned with the post-positivist, scientistic, empirically based research perspective. Since that time, much credibility has been given, especially in social sciences, to other theoretical perspectives and other epistemologies, which, depending on context, are able to provide for better understandings than empirical research. As Paul (2005) documents in Introduction to the Philosophies of Research and Criticism in Education and Social Sciences, much research conducted in the field of education enacts these differing perspectives (pp. 49-89).

In terms of Jaques-Dalcroze’s work, as in the work of all research, context must be a consideration. For example, Jaques-Dalcroze worked and struggled in war times, and also in what would be considered the Progressive Era in the United States. His work coincided with that of Dewey, also an experientialist and a pragmatist, although Jaques-Dalcroze’s method differed from Deweyian philosophy in that it was “based on the principle that theory should follow practice” (1921, p. 63). Studies in education were conducted with a more limited scope in terms of methodology than they are today; however, as time progresses to the late twentieth century, the time of Abramson’s research, we can see the emergence of constructionism, critical theory, arts based educational research, and even poststructuralism (Paul, 2005), which began to emerge as useful perspectives for educational researchers. My point here is that although much of Abramson’s research and views (here, over 20 years old) still contain relevancy for the field of Eurhythmics, there is much work to be done in, and many understandings to be gained from presently accepted educational research perspectives, in the hopes of continued contribution to the field of music education. As Gunzenhauser et al. (2006) tell us, “Across the various subfields in education, the need for a more expansive understanding of multiple theoretical perspectives is critical” (p. 322).

Abramson succinctly describes the molding experiences of Jaques-Dalcroze, including his frustrations with the state of music teaching at the Geneva Conservatory, and, following this, the ways in which his “life was spent inventing ways to help his students develop their abilities to feel, hear, invent; sense and imagine; connect, remember, read and write; perform and interpret music. He devoted himself to converting musical knowledge into musical understanding” (p. 28). I can only speculate as to what Abramson means by “musical knowledge,” as he does not elaborate, leaving the reader with a rather vague idea about some sort of transformative quality of music, perhaps. If these ideas are part of Abramson’s analysis, it seems they need qualification or warrant. If these are indeed Jaques-Dalcroze’s ideas, perhaps we need explore further the idea of musical knowledge, what its meanings can be, and how it relates to musical understanding.

Again, Abramson asks too much a leap of faith from his readers, when on p. 32, he compares the use of the body in performing rhythms to the Newtonian laws of motion. He says, “This was a new application of the laws of mechanics of motion discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. The innovation was in using Newton’s (1833) laws to train the human body to perform rhythms accurately and comfortably by using correct proportions of time, space, and energy in a gravity field.” I agree that the work of Newton, which occurred approximately 200 years before that of Jaques-Dalcroze (the laws were originally published in 1687), can be used to explain movements of the human body through space; however, to say that learning to use the body to express sound, rhythm, and music, as, for example, dancers had done for hundreds of years prior, albeit for differing means, was a new application of the laws of motion simply cannot be found true. The intent of or the theory behind the movements, the specific coordination of those, and the application to the understanding of music was certainly innovative, but the claim that the movements of the human body in relation to gravity, even the way the body performs rhythm, was a new application of Newton’s laws is unfounded. Further, Newton’s laws were meant to describe existing phenomena, not to prescribe onto the human body ways in which to move (Newton, 1687/1833).

Not once in his piece does Abramson denote a research perspective that is not scientifically based, yet he often describes phenomena that seem to me difficult if not impossible to be understood through a scientific lens, like: “abilities to feel,” “interpret,” “musical understanding” (p. 28), “develop musical awareness” (p. 29), “What is the source of music? Where does music begin?” “Human emotions are translated into musical motion,” “Where do we sense emotions?” “How do we feel emotions?” (p. 31), “expression of nuances,” “personal expressiveness” (p. 35), “stylized…unstylized movements” (p. 37), “(moods) are useful tools,” “mood can be exaggerated in size and tempo” (p. 65), to name some. In his conclusion, he points to research being conducted in cognitive psychology in order to address Jaques-Dalcroze’s “guesses, notions, and experiments” (p. 68). While I am excited about the interest cognitive researchers display in the field of music, I somehow wonder about the possibility of differing perspectives, those which may prove useful, insightful, and significant in their own unique ways, being overshadowed. The work presented here by Abramson, and I credit his interest in the idea of research, especially in Eurhythmics, which as a field has not seen overwhelming amounts of research activity, must be read through a lens familiar with his time.  Also, I should mention that much of his work in this textbook is highly credible, and makes clear the sometimes extremely complicated philosophies and practices of Jaques-Dalcroze.  However, a vibrant intellectual community flourishes only with discourse and contestation of ideas, and it is through this ideal of intellectualism that I hope to contribute to and advance the field of music education and Eurhythmics. 

Moving forward, music educators must seek out new research possibilities. We must seek, learn, and use the perspectives which can best fit our epistemological and ontological beliefs, as well as help us gain clearer understandings of the world of music. We as scholars must be open to utilizing accepted research methodologies, and not only rely on those deemed acceptable by the public at large. There may be many things we can discover about music and music education through the framework of cognitive psychology, but if we rely on this perspective exclusively, we possibly omit understandings that can be uniquely obtained through perspectives like interpretivism, arts based educational research, ethics, critical theory, and more. In order to move the teaching of music into the twenty first century, we need to honor the freedom of investigation, exploration, and expression of which Abramson speaks. Or, as Joseph (1983) timelessly tells us at the beginning of her dissertation, “Perhaps the time has come to take a new look at Dalcroze Eurhythmics” (p. 1).

References

Abramson, R. (1986). The approach of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. In (editors?) Teaching

music in the twentieth century (pp. 27-69). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Gunzenhauser, M., & Gerstl-Pepin, C. (2006). Engaging graduate education: A pedagogy

for epistemological and theoretical diversity. The Review of Higher Education,

29, 319-346.

Jaques-Dalcroze, E. (1921). ????? – Get info from Dr. J.

Joseph, A. S. (1983). A Dalcroze eurhythmics approach to music learning in

kindergarten through rhythmic movement, ear-training and improvisation. Ann

Arbor, MI: University Microfilms International.

Newton, I. (1833). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard.

Paul, James L. (2005). Nine perspectives of research. In (editors?) Introduction to the

philosophies of research and criticism in education and social sciences (pp. 49-89). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Educational Inc.