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…
And ANOTHER French song in the Nutcracker
Remember yesterday I said that the middle (6/8) section of Mère Gigogne in The Nutcracker just ‘had to be’ a French song? Well, I’ve found it, thanks to a post…
Yet another French song in The Nutcracker
I don’t know how I could have left this out of my ‘borrowings in the Nutcracker’ posts. The opening tune of Mère Gigogne is the French nursery rhyme Giroflé girofla.…
Yet another source for the Nutcracker party scene tune
It’s become something of a hobby, finding sources for the tunes in Tchaikovsky’s score for The Nutcracker. I thought I’d had all the surprises there were to be had when…
Playing for ballet class tips #22: With harmony too, less is more
If you’re improvising or harmonising a melody, there’s a lot to be said for just sticking to simple harmonies, and avoiding chromaticism or excessive modulation for the sake of it.…