Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #18: Page turns
I’m not a particularly tidy or obsessive person, except when it comes to scores that I have to play from. If it’s for a performance, I’ll want to know exactly…
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…
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…
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,…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #7: The dreaded 2/4 sissonne
A short but apposite entry today, because I’m off to record a whole bunch of examples of exactly what this post is about: music for that kind of sissonne exercise…