I dare you to sing this.. to the Copacabana melody!

The word is Tempo, Tempo Rubato,

with holding one note extra long and making up the time after,

It is a technique, for being sassy,

Robbing time from measure 4 to hold out measure 3 longer

Across music today, Whether work or play,

Whether dancing or playing music,

Who could ask for more?

Did you do it? Did you actually sing?!  I hope so! I had some good fun making it up!

So, in all seriousness, tempo rubato is totally awesome and...

First run of the course is done!

Surprises, thoughts and reflections..

Having completed The Official Music Training Course for Ballet Teachers (The OMTC) with my inaugural group of 'students', I'm extremely excited to say there was very little to tweak and SO MUCH positive feedback to enjoy!  I did find that I had a couple of surprises that I wanted to share with you.

Surprise #1

My list of 'students' wasn't what I expected it to be!

I expected to have a group of young, inexperienced beginner...

Time to talk..

Music for Plies

When I think about plies as a musician, my mind immediately goes to long and slow. When I was first learning to accompany for ballet, plies were a safe haven since they were the easiest to play for. Later on, as I became more confident in my ability and in my understanding of accents, rhythms, etc, it became something dull and often boring for me. Now, in my 'old' age of experience accompanying ballet, I love them.

I love the weight and elasticity of the movement. I love...

A Dragon and Mario and Princess Peach

Story by a 4 year old

Once upon a time there was a dragon and he was big and fast and breathed fire when he was angry and there was a princess named Princess Peach that lived in a castle who had a super power where she could become invisible and one day the dragon found her castle and wanted to eat her but just when he was ready to eat her, she disappeared and he was very angry and breathed fire and burned the water around the castle and then Mario came and ate...

Boldness be my friend. - William Shakespeare

For those of you who bravely and boldly go into the realm of creating your own exercises, firstly, I raise my glass to your bravado!

You should know, based on my minimal research, that not nearly every teacher does this. In fact, I would estimate that less than 50% regularly teach unset exercises; that's so unfortunate for their students and for them! To be fair though, it is a ton of work when you're first getting started with creating exercises.

There are a...

People are interesting.. Being a teacher is interesting.. Teaching is interesting..

Do you know why?

Because everyone learns differently!

In the 5 Love Languages (I LOVE THIS BOOK!), the reader learns about how people feel and give love in 1 or more ways. If one lover loves someone in a way that makes no sense to the receiver, they feel no love. They are loved desperately but it's unclear to the receiver because it is not communicated in their 'language'.

Teaching should be done with the same amount of...

Popular Music has Failed Us!

Popular music, though fun (I'll the first to admit that I LOVE some of the older music like "Knock 3 Times", "Lean on Me", etc.), has dumbed down our musical brains!

It's true. We've been conditioned in the popular music genre to count to 3 or 4. Done! (Let's not even mention the incredibly boring chord progressions!)

Occasionally we run into some interesting time signatures and those songs become hits because the rhythm and feel of them is so strikingly different that people...

Let's Talk Music for Grand Battement

So here's the thing, I LOVE grand battement! It's probably my most favourite movement of class. I love the energy of it. I love the power of it. I love the clear musical accent of it!

My love of GB probably stems back to my 'childhood' (doesn't everything?!) of being a ballet accompanist. There are so many subtleties in the movements of ballet that I needed to learn, the clarity and directness of GB was such a breath of fresh air for me as a beginner ballet...

Rhythms are all around us.. have you noticed? I mentioned in my last blog post about how certain tempos that I walk or do stuff in, trigger a song in my head! It's fun. I'm passing the habit of bursting into song to my children so now, as I'm typing away here, my family is in the next room, playing lego, and each person is humming and singing their own tune. lol. Love it!

Today I want to talked about the rhythms that we can demonstrate in our speech!

When children are unhappy,

and they want you to...

I have a confession to make, I have a song in my head. Almost always! Do you?

That song that you've got stuck in your head..

This concept, or annoyance in some cases, is called an 'Earworm'. It's not a parasite, but it is the name of an phenomenon where a song or piece of music gets stuck in your head for the day before it wanders away. Earworms can be contagious, as we all know!  Interestingly, "..women, musicians and people who are neurotic, tired or stressed are most prone to earworm...