Movement is the life blood of music. Whatever the meter, tonality, rhythm, melody, style, orchestration, or lyrics, music must flow. Many of us have been taught to attend to the beats, without regard for what happens between the beats. Music flows between and through the beats. Flow is necessary for momentum, vitality, style, line, and expression. Flow is the canvass upon which we place weight and organize time. Weight imposed within flow gives rise to “beat” and to meter. Responding to music with flowing movement is one of the most basic, yet most developed musical responses. Flowing movement transparently exposes musicality in both the novice and the professional performer.
Flowing movement in music might be compared to swimming. Precise technique with individual strokes is only as effective as the flow from one stroke to the next. The individual strokes, like beats, are meaningless without flow—the momentum that carries one through the water and through the music. The more your child engages in flowing movement with music, the more musical your little one will become. Use the whole body to model flowing movement—extend the arms in space, activate the hips, bend the knees, keep some part of the body moving through space throughout the musical experience. Let the music move you as much as you move the music.
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