Music Composition DUMmIES

Introducing Effort Shapes ...........................................................................

A more precise and useful way to describe movement than just walking and

washing dishes is through the language of effort shapes (also called Laban

Movement Analysis or Eukinetics). An effort shapeis a style of movement that

incorporates particular uses of weight, time, control, and space. When we

use effort shapes to compose music, we’re trying to capture the emotion and

feel of those movements in the music itself.

Effort shapes have been used by choreographers since the 1930s, after chore-

ographer Rudolf von Laban published his treatise Kinetographie Laban in

1928, which detailed a system of dance notation that came to be called

Labanotation. Labonation is still used as one of the primary movement nota-

tion systems in dance.

During World War II, Laban fled from Germany to England. The British govern-

ment hired him to observe factory and farm workers, analyze their move-

ments, and devise more efficient procedures for them to follow to improve

productivity. Laban broke down human movements into eight effort shapes.

Used as a tool by dancers, athletes, and physical and occupational thera-

pists, it is one of the most widely used systems of human movement analysis.

His eight effort shapes are also used by acting teachers to help actors define

the behaviors of characterizations they wish to portray, and in the area of

behavioral analysis.

Effort, or what Laban sometimes described as dynamics, is a system for

understanding the more subtle characteristics about the way a movement

is done with respect to inner intention. The difference between punching

someone in anger and reaching for a glass is slight in terms of body

organization — both rely on extension of the arm. However, the attention

to the strength of the movement, the control of the movement, and the timing

of the movement are very different.

Effort has four subcategories, each of which has two opposite polarities:

Weight:Heavy and light

Time:Sustained and staccato

Flow:Bound and free-flowing

Space:Direct and indirect

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