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 #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 #6: Playing the Black Swan variation music
The music that is harder to find than a black swan Let’s start with a few facts. Although this solo, and the Black Swan pas de deux that it comes…
Black Friday – Christmas Carols for Class, Free Download (all 26 tracks)
For last year’s Advent Calendar, I did 26 sketches of Christmas Carols for class. I’d love to make the album properly one day, but in the meantime, if you would…
That Czerny tarantella from Etudes – found but unidentified
Posters in an Italian piano forum have been playing the same game as me – trying to identify the Czerny studies used in Riisager’s ballet Etudes. In my post on…
Counting Tchaikovsky
On the weekend, I was playing the tarantella-ish Prince’s solo from Sleeping Beauty. Then, as every time I play this music, I panicked half way through the introduction – how…