Category Archives: Musicology

Posts about musicology—for the most part, this is the kind of musicology that includes dance

New metre and rhythm page

Posted on July 2, 2014 9:29 pm by Jonathan Still

After 11 years of having odd articles about rhythm and metre all over my old site at jsmusic.org.uk, I decided it was time to reduce it all down to a page of the books and articles on rhythm that I got most … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Musicology, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Personal, meter, metre, musicology, pedagogy, rhythm | Leave a comment

And now for something completely sextuple

Posted on June 28, 2014 1:59 pm by Jonathan Still

This variation by Mozart on “Ah, vous dirai-je maman”, K.265/300e has turned out to be a real life-saver in class for one of those ballet exercises where you need a 6/8 that gives you six quavers in a bar (click here to hear … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Musicology, Playing for ballet class | Tagged 18th century theory, 6/8, Danuta Mirka, Personal, compound meter, meter, metre, music pedagogy, music theory, rhythm, time signature | Leave a comment

The rarity of truly triple metre

Posted on April 9, 2014 6:39 pm by Jonathan Still

If you’ve been following this blog recently, you know that I’m a little obsessed with time signature and metre in the 18th & 19th centuries (see Compound errors and Counting Tchaikovsky). Today, it paid off in company class, when I … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Musicology, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Music, Personal, Tchaikovsky, ballet accompaniment, hypermeter, meter, metre, musicology, waltz | Leave a comment

Counting Tchaikovsky

Posted on April 7, 2014 4:40 pm by Jonathan Still

On the weekend, I was playing the tarantella-ish Prince’s solo from Sleeping Beauty. Then, as every time I play this music, I panicked half way through the introduction – how many duh-da-da’s have I played? How many should there be? Is … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Musicology, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Personal, Tchaikovsky, ballet music, meter, metre, musicology, time signature | Leave a comment

Compound errors

Posted on March 28, 2014 11:47 am by Jonathan Still

Someone asked me last night what made me want to do a PhD in music in ballet training. I explained that one of the reasons came out of trying to teach time signature to trainee ballet teachers. It’s not that … Continue reading →

Posted in Music, Musicology, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Personal, compound metre, metre, music research, music theory, musicology, time signature | 3 Comments

More on borrowings in the Nutcracker

Posted on May 18, 2012 4:22 pm by Jonathan Still

I think most people know that there are quite a few musical borrowings in the Nutcracker, and that Tchaikovsky got the theme for the Arabian from somewhere – a Georgian folk song or something like that. But it’s only thanks … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, Music, Musicology, Playing for ballet class | Tagged Georgian music, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Music, Tchaikovsky, ballet, borrowings, choreomusicology, musical surprises, nutcracker | Leave a comment