Dancing masters, music and memory
I’m thoroughly enjoying Eric McKee’s book Decorum of the minuet, delirium of the waltz: a study of dance-music relations in 3/4 time. There are books that you grow up with…
The rarity of truly triple metre
If you’ve been following this blog recently, you know that I’m a little obsessed with time signature and metre in the 18th & 19th centuries (see Compound errors and Counting…
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…
The worst ballet class music in the world #1
A long time ago, my friend and colleague Susie Cooper and I had a lot of fun trying to think of the worst possible music for certain exercises in a…
Compound errors
Someone asked me last night what made me want to do a PhD in music in ballet training. I explained that one of the reasons came out of trying to…
Multi-tasking and supertasking
As you’ll know if you read my blog, I’ve got a thing about multi-tasking – I think it’s a dangerous myth, and I’ll post anything I find to keep debunking…