James Jordan’s The Ensemble Movement Warm-Up explores how to organize and sequence movement activities in a choral setting to increase artistry and help raise the performance level of any ensemble, regardless of age. Building on the ideas of Rudolf von Laban and Edwin E. Gordon’s Music Learning Theory, James Jordan creates an exciting new rhythm/movement pedagogy.
This volume:
Introduces simple movements—stepping and clapping—to help the ensemble explore kinesthetic feeling connected to harmonic rhythm, not meter
Teaches fundamental principles of artistic phrasing
Revolutionizes ensemble teaching to focus on how sound moves forward, and not on rhythm notation
Demonstrates how to teach Laban Efforts in Combination through life experiences
Teaches the important distinction between rhythm and tempo, and harmonic rhythm
Builds legato and sense of line
Introduces the new concept of “projection” to teach and conceptualize phrase shape