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Abstract
This dissertation is a collection of keyboard pieces carefully chosen to teach students, from beginners through intermediates, and to encourage and help them to discover their personal style of expressiveness, as well as their technical skills. These skills are based on and adapted from the methodology support by Emile Jaques Dalcroze, which can be essentially divided into three areas: (1) Eurhythmics, (2) Solfège and (3) Improvisation.
I truly believe that expressiveness should be taught from the very beginning, as we know that music is a form of art and, in particular, art movement. What is movement? It is a time element; it takes place in space and it has an element of gravity. As movement therefore is related to time, space and energy, so does music require time and space as well. Naturally, our body movement is similarly related, requiring energy, time and space. Therefore, would it not be easier to understand all musical concepts through the movements of our bodies? The answer is “yes, through eurhythmics,” which has been practiced for nearly a century by many teachers exposed to Emile Jaques Dalcroze's methodology. In addition, being a good keyboard player requires more than just finger practice—discovering the ‘inner-ear’ through ‘solfège’ training is important as well. This allows the student to listen to his/her own mistakes and be able to detect them. Most importantly however, it gives the student the freedom to express and even to ‘improvise’ his/her individuality. Dalcroze believed that when all of these three disciplines were well taught, a well-developed musician would result.
I have selected the pieces in this dissertation with two purposes in mind: first, to introduce a musical concept, and second, to present the technical difficulties in a reasonable order. Thus, the order of the pieces will help the student to discover, develop and experience his/her musical expression, as well as to master the technical difficulties of the work in question.
I hope this dissertation will help the teachers as well as the students to make some new discoveries of their own musical styles and expression, and also help them to be able to improvise more freely.