Confessions of an anxious pianist day #10: The Polonaise
About once a year, I buy a Fry’s Turkish Delight bar, a slab of faintly fragrant sugary pink jelly covered in chocolate. It has no nutritional value, no crunch, no…
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…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #4: Classical music
The other side of my anxiety about not playing pop tunes for class (see yesterday’s post) is anxiety about playing stuff that’s too classical. When I say “classical,” I mean…
Confessions of an anxious ballet pianist day #3: Pop songs
I’ve got to be very careful how I put this, for fear of being taken the wrong way (see, I’m even anxious about that). So let’s get one thing out…