Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #13: Music for stretching
Imagine – if you’re a dancer – that the curtain’s gone down on Act I, the house lights have gone up, and the audience are heading for the bar. You…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #12: Wrong notes
“You should play more wrong notes, then people wouldn’t notice so much.” That was the kind, but impractical advice given to me by a good friend in a company many years…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #11: Getting the phrasing wrong
As I’ve already mentioned in posts about the difficulties of playing slow threes (like mazurkas and polonaises), where you can end up accidentally thinking in six-count units instead of eight-bar…
Confessions of an anxious pianist day #10: The Polonaise
About once a year, I buy a Fry’s Turkish Delight bar, a slab of faintly fragrant sugary pink jelly covered in chocolate. It has no nutritional value, no crunch, no layers,…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #9: Oh no! What was that?!
You sit at the piano, and watch the teacher address the class, rattling off directions, her hands a blur as she marks movements with her hands at 8x fast forward speed…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #8: The dreaded slow mazurka pirouette
The moment I see a teacher marking a pirouette that has a massive, sweeping balancé in it, I know there’s trouble ahead. Like the dreaded 2/4 sissonne of yesterday’s post, the slow…