Playing for ballet class tips #3: Get yourself a fiddle book
Searching for petit allegro music “There are two parts of the class where you need more music,” the late Anatoli Grigoriev said to me after I’d played for him a…
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…
100 tips for working with ballet pianists #32: Check your pianist is ready
Glance over to your pianist just before you say ‘and…’ to check that they are ready to play, especially if they are reading from printed music. On the other hand,…
100 tips for working with ballet pianists #31: Be accurate about the tempo you want
If you’re marking an exercise for dancers, it can be tempting to ‘mark’ the tempo to the pianist as well – but this is an impossibility: giving a tempo is…
100 tips for working with ballet pianists #30 Use counts, not bars
When you’re marking an exercise for a pianist, speak in terms of counts rather than bars, particularly with introductions (e.g. say ‘x counts in’, rather than ‘x bars in’). Unless…
100 tips for working with ballet pianists #29: Allow the music to speak
When you first start teaching (whatever your subject), it’s tempting to think that nobody’s learning unless you’re talking. The truth is, an awful lot of the most significant and deep…