Without a spontaneous forward movement of sound by singers, inspired by breath, musical expression becomes stilted, fake, dishonest, and does little to touch us deeply in ways we cannot explain. — From the Introduction 

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 

The Ensemble Movement Warm-Up is the culmination of 40 years of experimentation, thought, and study using the wealth of ideas provided by Laban and is a major contribution to the choral art.