Playing for ballet class tips #11: Play from memory
Playing for class without music on the stand is a totally different experience to working from a score. Only when you put the music away do you realise how much…
Playing for ballet class tips #10: Phrase clearly
I always used to think how amazing it is the way that dancers pick up exercises so quickly: a teacher rattles through a list of steps in ballet shorthand, says…
Playing for ballet class tips #9: for ‘waltz’ read ‘mazurka’ for pirouettes
Even though teachers often ask for a ‘waltz’ for pirouettes on a 3, sometimes (in fact, most times) what works much better is a mazurka. Not the character-type mazurka that…
Playing for ballet class tips #8: mix humour with lyricism
If I had one golden rule for playing for class, this would be it: you can get people to listen to anything if you set them up the right way.…
Playing for ballet class tips #7: Listen to orchestral recordings
These blog posts make me sound like I know what I’m talking about. But they’re actually a catalogue of the mistakes I’ve made, and what I learned from them. One…
Playing for ballet class tips #6: Focus on your outside fingers
One of the occupational hazards of playing for class too much is that you can end up playing in a way that only uses three fingers in each hand. After…