Geneva

Instrumental improvisation for movement and teaching

This class aims to develop, in our students, the ability to translate, musically, all the qualities of movement - uplifting moments, floor points, breaths, dynamics, weight and phrasing - in musical styles suited to specific teaching situations.

This class is rolled out over the two years of the Master’s and requires continuous, personalized work. It is based around the two main axes, music and movement. It develops all of the student’s senses: muscular, tactile, visual and aural.

It seeks to accompany the natural movements of each individual - balancing, turning, jumping, moving around - in all the possible tempi and characters. It enriches their musical vocabulary, and offers a great variety of tonal, modal or atonal improvisation materials.  It offers the chance to perform instrumental exercises involving reaction, incitement and inhibition, dynamic and agogic nuances and nuances of articulation.

Through multiple role plays, the student learns to dissociate their eyes and hands, while singing, making comments or proposing ways to make exercises more complicated.

The class adapts its musical proposals to suit the particular needs of a Dalcrozian lesson with its multiple aspects, with the focus by turns more on theory, rhythm or creativity, each period requiring different music.

Special emphasis will be placed on the importance of the left hand, a real pillar of rhythm, and on melodic narrative, facilitating the development of the pupil’s aural memory and the pleasure they take in singing, by expressing themselves with their body and its sense of shape. 

Teachers

Pascale Rochat-Martinet

Professor of Experimental Workshop: Applied Pedagogy - Keyboard Harmony and Dalcroze Writing - Instrumental Improvisation - Improvisation for Movement and Teaching

Holder of the advanced diploma from the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, Pascale Rochat-Martinet furthered her education with choral conducting studies in Paris, classical singing at the Conservatory of Lausanne, and training for seniors at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze. She is also involved in the creative group "Aldente," which combines music, theater, and movement. Passionate about pedagogy, she has created numerous rhythmics-solfege courses at the Conservatory of Lausanne, leading her students to certification. Currently, she teaches piano improvisation, rhythmics, and solfege at the Haute école de musique de Genève (HEM) as well as at the Haute école de musique de Lausanne (HEMU). Her teaching is directed towards rhythmicians, future piano teachers, and concert performers. She is regularly invited to teach at international higher education institutions and universities. Always seeking to refresh and renew her teaching methods, she has undertaken jazz piano studies. Improvisation being her specialty, she also practices this discipline in various fields: organ improvisation, accompanying Gospel singers, and creating music for podcasts. Her artistic journey is rich, varied, and eclectic. Pascale Rochat-Martinet loves to share her joy of music with everyone, without distinction.

Pascale Rochat

Departments and associated courses