Ballet

[Essyne]

I was in a ballet master class a couple of days ago, and was wondering how pianists decide what they're going to play at venues like that. Is it just improv.? Do pianists just hear the ballet master say "ok, grand plie!" and they just automatically know what to play (previous dance training, etc?)? If so, how do they know appropriate song lengths/etc.?

Truly a "miscellaneous" thought, but it intrigued me, as working w/ a live pianist is not something that I do every day @ my studio - - - But mannn was it nice! 

[ramseytheii]

I was in a ballet master class a couple of days ago, and was wondering how pianists decide what they're going to play at venues like that. Is it just improv.? Do pianists just hear the ballet master say "ok, grand plie!" and they just automatically know what to play (previous dance training, etc?)? If so, how do they know appropriate song lengths/etc.?

Truly a "miscellaneous" thought, but it intrigued me, as working w/ a live pianist is not something that I do every day @ my studio - - - But mannn was it nice! 

One of the miracles of Tchaikovsky's accessible and simple-sounding ballets, is that the ballet company would need, say, 32 bars in 3/4, then so many bars in another meter, then back to 3/4.  He composed original, entrancing, and wonderful music with very strict guidelines. 

I haven't every accompanied ballet, but from what I hear from my friends, the ballet-master will shout out, "64 bars in 3" or whatever.  This is for warm-ups of course.

Walter Ramsey

[ahinton]

As I've mentioned on here (somewhere) previously, I used to play for such classes years ago when a student and what I played included some improvisation and some existing music; Tchaikovsky certainly featured among the latter, though not necessarily always from his ballet scores - I seem to remember that pieces from The Seasons cycle came into it. I certainly had no previous (or subsequent) dance training and, as I mentioned before, I found the whole experience quite puzzling and could never perceive the relationship between what the students were doing and what I was doing. My recollections of the details are pretty hazy at this distance in time, however and it's a long while since I've played at all now, so it was almost part of another life, really.

Best,

Alistair

[Essyne]

it sounds like it would be stressful. . .

[ahinton]

it sounds like it would be stressful. . .

What does?

Best,

Alistair

[Essyne]

I certainly had no previous (or subsequent) dance training and, as I mentioned before, I found the whole experience quite puzzling and could never perceive the relationship between what the students were doing and what I was doing.

I thought that my first ballet class was stressful, but not being a dancer and accompanying a dance class would be even more so (well, I PERCEIVE that it would be stressful  )

[gerry]

It helps to be familiar with a wealth of music and be a good sight-reader. It needn't be stressful and could even be challenging and fun trying to match a music selection with the type of exercise being done. This is where it helps to be familiar with the ballet nomenclature. The only drawback is that you have few opportunities for interpretation (rubato, etc.) having to stay pretty much with the metronome. Overall, it can be a good gig as you get paid while building your technique - just be sure you are at the right stage in your development so that you aren't tensing and straining and doing damage but are relaxed and using the proper arm weight, etc. An hour or two of this type of playing can be demanding.

[ahinton]

It helps to be familiar with a wealth of music and be a good sight-reader. It needn't be stressful and could even be challenging and fun trying to match a music selection with the type of exercise being done. This is where it helps to be familiar with the ballet nomenclature. The only drawback is that you have few opportunities for interpretation (rubato, etc.) having to stay pretty much with the metronome. Overall, it can be a good gig as you get paid while building your technique - just be sure you are at the right stage in your development so that you aren't tensing and straining and doing damage but are relaxed and using the proper arm weight, etc. An hour or two of this type of playing can be demanding.

This (as best I can remember from my own experiences) is pretty much all true except for the last bit where the relaxed thing that you write about should countermand any risk of exhaustion as a resulot of doing this kind of thing for a prolonged period of time. I didn't do it to hone my piano technique (which was just as well since I had precious little of it to hone) but purely to get some cash and, although it was interesting in a detached kind of way, I didn't ever feel that I contributed anything useful to the proceedings (although I was rather flattered that the students seemed to think otherwise); the dancers seemed to feel that they wanted what I was doing and that it was helpful, whereas I just felt abit like a fish out of water...

Best,

Alistair

[gerry]

It should be added that, unless you land a gig at the Bolshoi, you shouldn't expect anything but the most basic of PSO's.

[pianowolfi]

It should be added that, unless you land a gig at the Bolshoi, you shouldn't expect anything but the most basic of PSO's.

What are PSO's?

(Btw I like your sig very much )

[elspeth]

There's a knack to accompanying for ballet. It really really helps if you can improvise confidently or play from fake books, because they don't want or need 'proper' music. All they need is pieces that fall into (usually) 8-bar phrases that you can hammer out the main beats for them. I work with ballet companies regularly and on one occasion I heard them working out to 'Skippy the Kangaroo' because it happened to be the first piece their pianist thought of in the requested time signature. Christmas carols, show tunes, operatic tunes, TV themes, pop songs.... Oddly enough a lot of classical music isn't terribly suitable because there are time changes and speed changes and so on all over the place, when what you want is regular phrases with a regular beat.

Knowing a bit about ballet helps of course - but you can often get to go watch the dancers doing class when they're in a theatre near you and you'll soon work out the basic exercises.

One company I've worked with does class with a drummer, not a pianist. You're there to keep them in time, not to be artistic. It can be a little dispiriting if you look at it like that! But if you're a good improviser and work with a good company it can be a lot of fun.

[Essyne]

I had a class where there was this guy playing keyboard, drums, harmonica, maracas, and the list goes on and on and on . . . . it was crazy, yet really really cool; although, it was a little distracting @ times.

Hehe, I know what you mean about the song rep. Lately, we've been stretching to "Can't Help Lovin' that Man of Mine" and "Someone to Watch Over Me."

[gerry]

Pianowolfi:

PSO = piano shaped object

RE: my sig is the motto inscription on Schumann's Fantasia Op.17 (Friedrich Schlegel) - thanks for noticing as it's been central to my philosophy of life since I first read it.

[pianowolfi]

Pianowolfi:

PSO = piano shaped object

LOL

RE: my sig is the motto inscription on Schumann's Fantasia Op.17 (Friedrich Schlegel) - thanks for noticing as it's been central to my philosophy of life since I first read it.

Cool, I feel the same since I first read it 20 something years ago 

I tried to accompany a ballet class at the theater a few years ago. I screwed it up completely. The dancers need always unities of 8 measures and I had trouble to keep this going. I guess my improvising style didn't fit well with that, since I always added a 9th measure or I skipped a measure etc, lol. Then one day I showed up with a pile of music and they looked at me like I came from Mars. I tried to find 8 measure pieces for any style. It just didn't work out so well