Methods and aids itz mmic educafionOccasionally one comes across specially gifted pupils, to whom
nothing can be taught: they know, and the most that can be done for
them is to help them to solve certain special problems. Eurhythmics is
not for them; they will find their own way because they have the living
spirit of rhythm in them. But with many others there is more than mere
clumsiness : they have no feeling for rhythm and it is reduced to a kind
of arithmetic of tempo-short, long; four quavers to a minim; six
crotchets to a dotted semibreve-and every type of music is forced into
the symphonic mould with an infinity of complications, such as triplets
in ‘is time. The result is a kind of abstract musical algebra which such
people contrive to work out by diligence and by counting their beats
but in which there is not the faintest shade of living rhythm and hence
no rhythmic balance. These are the people to whom one would like to
give two or three years of intensive eurhythmics which would teach
them what a body weighs, how long it takes to swing one’s leg
forward through its arc, the true difficulty of moving two limbs of the
same body to different rhythms, and in fact the difference between a
genuine living rhythm and a rhythm born of abstract speculation.
There can of course be no question of using the whole body to
express every variety of musical rhythm. Many rhythms are far too
swift for our legs and arms. But let there be no mistake about it: in the
final count all musical rhythms, right up to the fastest our perception
can distinguish must be produced by the physical movements of an
instrumentalist, be it no more than the tip of the flautist’s or trumpe-
ter’s tongue, or the fingers of the pianist. Similarly at the other end of
the scale no time value can be grasped intuitively by our minds if it is
too long to be represented by a gesture. The limits of our perception
of fast and slow correspond exactly to the limits of our powers of
gesture. From this proposition it is but a step to the argument that
musical rhythm is bound up with physical movements and that step I
do not hesitate to take.
What is rhythm in music is perceived by us in terms of gesture. We
may merely imagine the movement and do nothing outwardly, but it
is there in our minds. Just as we follow a melody by singing it in our
head, so we follow a rhythm by visualizing ourselves making the
appropriate gesture.
It follows that the starting point of study of musical rhythmics
should be gesture, beginning with the simplest and most clearly marked
form of rhythmic movement, marching. Marching is the right intro-
duction because it comprehends all the primary principles of rhythm-
tension, relaxation and the regular alternation of the two which creates