eurythmics

Method of musical training for young children. Eurythmics was developed by Swiss musician mile Jaques-Dalcroze in the early years of the 20th century. It called for movements of the arms and legs in specific ways in response to changing rhythms and pitches. The initial aim was to encourage a physical response to music in the young, in the hope that it would educate them musically. Very popular in the early 20th century, it has declined in recent decades.

eurythmics or eurhythmics (both: yʊrĭTH'mĭks), harmonious bodily movement, especially as expressed according to the system of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, who developed eurythmics (1903) at the Geneva Conservatory of Music in an effort to overcome the rhythmic difficulties of his students. His aim was to bring the body under control of the mind through a system of gymnastics correlated with music. First, an unconscious technique of bodily response to the rhythm of music is developed, with the student eventually able to improvise an interpretation, through gesture language, of an entire composition. The system has influenced not only musical instruction but also the ballet and even fields outside musical study. The first demonstrations of it were given in 1905, and the first Jaques-Dalcroze Institute in the United States was established ten years later.

Bibliography

See N. Slonimsky, Music since 1900 (4th ed. 1971), for a history of the Dalcroze method of eurythmics; see also E. Findlay, Rhythm and Movement: Applications of Dalcroze Eurhythmics (1971).