Pliés 1 – Edelweiss
This is day 1 in my 2007 Advent Calendar. This year, I’m giving the story behind some of the music that I’ve collected for ballet classes. All the pieces are…
Advent calendar 2007
If you can call three years running a tradition, then I’d like to welcome you my traditional ‘Advent Calendar’. This started in 2005 as a little project to acknowledge the…
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…