Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist #27: Playing “Siegfried” from Swan Lake Act 3
"Siegfried" from Act 3 of Swan Lake looks like simple music, but it's harder than it looks to make it sound musical.
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…
Happy 2015: A new year’s ramble about Black Swan and other ballet anomalies
As it’s the first day of a new year, I’ve decided to do something about one of the greatest annoyances in my list of ballet-pianist anxieties: the Black Swan female variation from Swan…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #25: 9/8
I was tempted to put the ballet-class equivalent of the Holy Family on the 25th of this advent calendar, to finish off the series with a heart-warming sentimental twist that starts “… in spite…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #24: Happy birthday
Special occasions make me nervous. Take birthdays, for example. It’s someone’s birthday, and so one of the dancers comes up before class and says “Can you play happy birthday for…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #23: Metre-less counts
An absence of metre is kind of cool. It’s like decorating a room white, having no books or furniture, and hanging Malevich’s White on White on the wall. You have no history, and you…