music for ballet class

CD Review: “I’ll Be Seeing You” — David Howard And Steven Mitchell

November 12, 2012 by 4dancers

by Emily Kate Long

l’ll Be Seeing You – David Howard And Steven Mitchell

I was so excited to try this CD out! I regularly use three other of Steven Mitchell’s CDs (“Solo” and both of the David Howard Covent Garden classes) and love them. I was not disappointed this time. David Howard and Steven Mitchell have come together for a third collection of great music.

The CD includes length, time signature, and counts for each track. There are thirty tracks total, sixteen for barre and fourteen for center. The variety in speed and time signatures for all the degage and allegro tracks makes this a great CD to use for both lower and upper-level classes. The songs themselves range from pop tunes and standards to classical music, some of which is playfully jazzed up as only Mitchell can. The tempi are consistent, the beats are strong, and the preparations are easy to hear—especially great for my junior high-aged class. With all that, none of this music sounds plodding or academic.

This CD is one I’ll turn to again and again.

dancer doing arabesque — Emily Kate Long, Photo by Avory Pierce

Assistant Editor Emily Kate Long began her dance education in South Bend, Indiana, with Kimmary Williams and Jacob Rice, and graduated in 2007 from Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School’s Schenley Program. She has spent summers studying at Ballet Chicago, Pittsburgh Youth Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, Miami City Ballet, and Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive/Vail Valley Dance Intensive, where she served as Program Assistant. Ms Long attended Milwaukee Ballet School’s Summer Intensive on scholarship before being invited to join Milwaukee Ballet II in 2007.

Ms Long has been a member of Ballet Quad Cities since 2009. She has danced featured roles in Deanna Carter’s Ash to Glass and Dracula, participated in the company’s 2010 tour to New York City, and most recently performed principal roles in Courtney Lyon’s Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Cinderella. She is also on the faculty of Ballet Quad Cities School of Dance, where she teaches ballet, pointe, and repertoire classes.

Guest Review: Dancing Keys 2

July 4, 2012 by Ashley David

by Laura Donnelly

I recently received a copy of Gill Civil’s Dancing Keys 2 CD and highly recommend it to dance teachers looking for good recorded music for dance class. While the music is written primarily for the ballet class, I feel a number of the selections would also work well for modern dance classes.

The CD contains 37 tracks of original music composed for ballet class. The melodies are beautiful. I found them inspiring and could easily think up several good combinations for each track. The music is clear so that subdivisions in the beat are easy to hear. This gives me more flexibility in how to use the music for different combinations and class levels.

There is good variation from track to track. The pieces sound different from each other in both melody and texture. Civil uses a variety of different tempi which I find very helpful when planning classes.

In the album notes Civil lists a suggested dance exercise, the title of the piece, number of bars, tempo, and length of the track. For me, when working with CDs tempo, number of bars, and length of piece are crucial. I like to select longer tracks for continuous across the floor combinations or adagios and I like to choreograph my exercises so that they fit the musical phrasing of the selected track. This information provided allows me to do this easily.

I am delighted with Civil’s Dancing Keys 2 and will use it often in my classes. She has a good feel for the type and variety of music that makes an interesting and inspiring dance class. I’ll purchase her original Dancing Keys CD and eagerly await the release of Dancing Keys 3. For more information about Gill Civil and to purchase her CDs visit http://www.pianomusicforballet.com

Laura Donnelly, MFA, BA is a choreographer, teacher, and dancer who also writes and creates community based public art projects involving visual and word art. Beginning August 2012, Laura will be Assistant Professor of Dance at Kansas State University. Her research interests include pedagogy, oral tradition in dance, collaborative process, music for dance, and the Alexander Technique. Her research has been presented at the Congress on Research in Dance, the International Association of Dance Science and Medicine, the National Dance Education Association, the Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities, the 5th Annual International Conference on Civic Education, and the 2011 University of New Mexico Mentoring Conference. Laura’s essay Meditation in the Dance Studio is published in Teaching with Joy: Educational Practices for the Twenty-First Century, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Review: Dancing Keys 2 by Gill Civil

December 2, 2011 by 4dancers

I recently reviewed Gill Civil’s “Dancing Keys” CD for this site, and I was fortunate enough to be able to listen to the next album she compiled–“Dancing Keys 2”.

Civil’s work is truly unique in that the tracks don’t sound familiar–they sound fresh. Some ballet class music can have a “typical” feel to it that just doesn’t add anything to the barre or centre exercises. This is not in that category.

The music here taps into emotion and feeling–something I think the good ballet music composers understand as necessary for it to be something dancers will want to move to. Teachers too find this type of music inspiring, and it can add a measure of creativity to the class environment overall to have such beautiful music.

The CD has a simple barre (10 tracks) and centre music (port de bras, adage, pirouettes, allegro, etc.) and a number of bonus tracks as well. You can listen to samples on her website.

As always, I appreciate the amount of effort that goes into creating original music for ballet class. Civil does it well, and this CD is a great one to own if you teach ballet.

If you’d like to own it, or listen to her other CD, visit her website.

Review: Ballet Studio Inspirations, Volume Two

November 12, 2011 by 4dancers

Yet another lovely CD by Richard Maddock. By now, it should be no surprise.

Ballet Studio Inspirations, Volume Two is a terrific CD, appropriate for more advanced classes in my opinion. The music is stunning, but a more expert ear is required to find the music here–it is perfect for honing musicality as a dancer at a higher level—something I believe is very important. While not every track is challenging this way, I do think that younger, more inexperienced dancers may find some of the music difficult to follow.

The other reason I would recommend this CD for higher level classes is the fact that there are plenty of choices for the instructor. There are 45 original compositions for barre and centre here, with some designed specifically with pointe in mind–although they can be used for other exercises as well.

There are 12 tracks for the regular barre and six more for the pointe barre. The centre features music for port de bras, petit allegro, grand allegro and more. The pointe section of the centre has an additional eight tracks.

This CD would make a fine addition to any ballet teacher/studio’s collection. Hear samples and more at Maddock’s website–and if you need digital downloads, he offers those as well.

Review: Ballet Etudes By Robert Long

October 19, 2011 by 4dancers

This was my first exposure to a Robert Long CD and I really enjoyed it. Many fellow teachers have expressed the fact that they enjoy his music for ballet class, and I have to agree–it’s very good!

I always “test” CDs out on my adult ballet class. They are an eclectic group of students, and I received some nice comments on the music. The tracks were arranged well, and best of all, labeled well. As an instructor, I found the way he used the liner notes to be very helpful. They were broken down into categories that made sense for the way I teach: at the barre, centre practice, pirouettes, adage, petit allegro, batterie and grand allegro. It made it very easy to arrange my class, and it was a detail that was much appreciated.

The music itself is passionate and pretty, and there are plenty of tracks to choose from since the CD offers many selections. Since I have a fairly large class, some of the tracks in the centre were a bit short for my purposes, but I doubt that would be true for all teachers. There are 48 original selections in all for barre and centre practice. I listened to everything here and found each track to be well-suited to ballet class exercises.

It is obvious that Mr. Long has been involved with the dance community for a long time–his intuitive sense of planning the CD and its selections showcases this fact quite well. I’m looking forward to hearing more from him and using his music for class well into the future.

It’s worth noting that Mr. Long offers music on iTunes and Amazon as well, for those who prefer that format.

Visit Robert Long’s site for more information about him and his music.

Read more about this artist in the 4dancers “10 Questions With…” interview.

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