I hear this statement all the time: “Leading is more difficult than following.” Sometimes apologetically, sometimes with the qualifier, “but just in the beginning and intermediate stages,” but always with the bottom line that leading intrinsically requires more skill, more thought, and more attention than following. This might be okay if it were true, but […] Read more…
“Learning better movement is more like sculpture than painting. You improve your art by taking things away, not adding them.” – Todd Hargrove, A Guide to Better Movement As teachers we understand the importance of relaxing. We know that relaxation – both overall relaxation and the relaxation of specific muscles – allows students to learn better, […] Read more…
The soft soles of gray boots refuse to rest flat on the hardwood floor. They stomp to the sharp marcato of the piano even as her hand draws the violin’s bow long and slow across the strings. They push onto tiptoe for the high notes, then lower and tilt forward as she bends her knees […] Read more…
One of the first classes I signed up for in college was Music Appreciation, and my professor was truly a gifted teacher. Every week he would bring his large collection of instruments to class and use them to demonstrate musical concepts that would have been abstract and disembodied otherwise. Words like timbre and tempo, major and minor, chord and cadence, […] Read more…
Recently, while assisting another teacher in a beginning tango class, the students I was working with were trying close embrace for the first time. The teacher prompted them to find a comfortable hug, then gradually introduced variations to make the embrace work for tango. Both of the students I was working with started with a very comfortable […] Read more…