Playing for ballet class tips #5: Stock up on quadrilles
Apart from fiddle tune books (see tip #3), another great source of music for class is quadrilles. There are just hundreds of them out there for free on the net,…
Playing for ballet class tips #4: Forget about time signatures in ballet class
Time signatures in ballet class: don’t get precious about them There’s no polite way to say this—pianists, don’t get pissy about time signatures in ballet class. In other words, if…
Playing for ballet class tip #2: It’s all about the left hand, not the right
Nine times out of ten, the secret of being a good dance pianist is to concentrate on what your left hand is doing rather than your right. As pianists, we…
Playing for ballet class tips #1: Listen to yourself and the room
If you play for class a lot, it's easy to get into a habit of being so focused on what the dancers are doing, and what the teacher wants, that…
Advent calendar 2012: playing for ballet classes
It’s that time of year again when I try to blog for 25 days in a row for Advent, on something to do with dance and music. This year it’s…
Russian and Ukrainian folk song site
a-pesni is a huge and wonderful site of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Belarusian songs of every description – old folklore, war songs, variety, revolutionary songs, army songs, you name it.…