A year of ballet playing cards #36: A triple meter ballad by Tárrega
Download the free piano score of this Tárrega piece (pdf) Read more about my Year of Ballet Playing Cards A Tárrega ballad, the perfect plié music? When I say “perfect”…
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…
Organizing music for ballet class: problems and solutions
Organizing music for ballet class: where to put stuff, and where to find it again? I’ve had a blog post brewing for years on the topic of organizing music for…
Roast Chicken, Shostakovich, and Gogol Bordello
Both Shostakovich and Gogol Bordello have used a Russian song from the "Red Terror" period (1918-1921) in their respective works, "Moskva CheremushkI" and "Start Wearing Purple". The song is called…
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…