More on the joys of live music
Barely a week after feeling unusually compelled to write something on the joys of live music after hearing the choir at St Martin-in-the-Fields, I found myself in a similar position…
Inventing Tradition: The Chestnut Tree Dance
Dancing your country back The Chestnut Tree Dance is a bizarre bit of British dance history. It seems worth remembering for a moment in the current atmosphere where some English…
Ballet pianists and sacred cows: a correction
What a difference a sub-clause makes In a recent article on the work of ballet pianists I was quoted as saying that live music for ballet training is a lot…
Confessions of an anxious pianist #26: Same or different music on the other side?
Although the “anxious ballet pianist” series is officially over, I’m adding one more post now, because I realised today that after thirty years of playing for class, I still often…
Musicology, ballet teaching and time signature
A proud day for me, my first proper article published in Empirical Musicology Review. “How Down is a Downbeat? Feeling Meter and Gravity in Music and Dance?” came out of…
Ballet classes and dance calling
I’ve had two conversations with people who play for ceilidhs which have made me think that there’s much more in common between dance calling and teaching a ballet class than…