CoP and Music: Do we need a new soundtrack?

[gkelly]

What if the ISU publishes a list of "approved" musical pieces that can only be used that year? It can be a mix of the usual classical pieces, some jazz numbers, and popular songs from the last half-century. They pick and choose from there, and it would be first-come, first-serve, and they limit only two skaters or teams across all disciplines can use that for the year, so that there is less repetition. They can then bring in new music every year, and the "usual stuff" can take a season off at a time so we don't think "ugh not ANOTHER Swan Lake!"

Apart from possible objections, just to focus on the practical aspects...

How many total pieces of music would be in this pool? Precut, or would it be up to the skaters to cut the source material down to the correct length for their discipline (and short or long program)?

Would using completely different selections from the same ballet/opera/musical comedy/soundtrack/pop album count as using "the same music"?

Which skaters does this apply to? Only those who competed at a certain level of international event (ISU championships/Olympics/GP, or wider than that?) last year and so are considered likely to do so again and be televised this year?

All skaters who have ever entered a JGP or senior B event in the past or are planning to do so this year?

All skaters who have never competed internationally before in their wildest dreams have at least slim valid reason to believe that the longshot of getting sent to Junior Worlds might just come through?

 

[anyanka]

Re: pieces of music total. Honestly, no number in mind. It's what the ISU would deem acceptable. Assuming a maximum of two or three use a piece, then they calculate the maximum based on total number of slots in international competitions. The cuts and edits for the pieces is up to them.

Different selections can be used, perhaps they break up a piece so that if it's only Nutcracker, only two max use the Pas de Deux (like S/S last year). It's certainly a loophole so that longer symphonies and operas can be used many times if one simply chooses only certain sections. Same goes for pop albums, motion picture scores, Broadway musicals. And I'm sure that the ISU will recognize that only x number of tunes from scores and soundtracks are really usable, anyhow. For example, most people using "Evita" really only use "Don't Cry for Me Argentina", maybe one could use "You Must Love Me" for a SP and possibly "What's New Buenos Aires?" for a spirited free dance Argentine Tango on ice. Or if someone were to choose something from Beyonce's new album, not everything is "skateable" (I'm still holding out for V/T to do "Drunk in Love" together, though).

Great question gkelly!

 

[gkelly]

But that still doesn't answer the question of which/how many skaters would be required to choose from this pool.

Does it apply to juniors as well as seniors? Anyone who might get an international assignment but doesn't know for sure in the spring when they're picking music? If so, we're talking about hundreds of singles skaters, especially the ladies.

Wherever you draw the line, chances are there will be a few skaters every year who unexpectedly get international assignments that would make they subject to this rule. But if they weren't expecting it when they chose their music 6-10 months earlier, should they be penalized for using music that isn't in the pool at all for that year or that has already been claimed by the maximum number of skaters allowed?

What kind of penalties would there be anyway?

 

[anyanka]

But that still doesn't answer the question of which/how many skaters would be required to choose from this pool.

Does it apply to juniors as well as seniors? Anyone who might get an international assignment but doesn't know for sure in the spring when they're picking music? If so, we're talking about hundreds of singles skaters, especially the ladies.

Wherever you draw the line, chances are there will be a few skaters every year who unexpectedly get international assignments that would make they subject to this rule. But if they weren't expecting it when they chose their music 6-10 months earlier, should they be penalized for using music that isn't in the pool at all for that year or that has already been claimed by the maximum number of skaters allowed?

What kind of penalties would there be anyway?

Hmmmmm ... good question. And your post is full of great ones, so my apologies for missing them.

Perhaps they can monitor them so that they limit to two per discipline per season. The ISU can separate them between junior and senior, so if a senior dance team wants to do Swan Lake (my go-to example), then a junior lady shouldn't be barred if she feels she wants to interpet the piece.

And this would be for international only, since it's hard to monitor nationality. But then that raises another question: what happens if the qualifiers for say Europeans include 2/3 Russians using the same piece, already maximizing the number of selections?

As for penalties: it wouldn't be fair to penalize skaters for those artistic choices. That's a great point about getting assignments and encountering this.

Say, let's do some collaborative consulting for the ISU and suggest these to them? I'm game if you are.

 

[gkelly]

I'm thinking of someone who has a season like Polina Edmunds did last year. Of course she didn't use overused music anyway. But at the time she chose it, she probably expected that her big international would most likely be Junior Worlds, even if she was privately hoping for an Olympics/Worlds spot. So should she have chosen her music according to junior or senior limits?

I don't see a lot of value in requiring skaters to use music from a preselected pool. I think what you're really trying to achieve is to introduce more variety, but the effect might be to prevent new selections from being introduced. I don't think we want to prevent skaters from using something that isn't on the list and hasn't been used much if at all before.

Fans (and maybe judges) have often joked that certain overused music should be banned, at least temporarily. That might be a better approach, taking the joke seriously. Take the overused standards and put limits on them so that skaters would need to register for permission to use that selection this year. Some pieces might have limits of 0 -- no one is allowed to skate to it that year.

Anything else not on the limited list would be fair game.

And what if some exciting new music appropriate for skating (most likely a movie soundtrack) comes out or suddenly becomes populary shortly after the ISU sets lists of allowed music for that year?
On the one hand, we wouldn't want no one to be allowed to use such good music because it came out a little too late to make it onto the allowed list. (Of course, it could be on the list for the following year, but by then it would be old news)
On the other hand,

If the goal is to encourage skaters to take chances with less common music, maybe

1) The ISU could hire one or more music editors to make cuts of appropriate less-known music from a variety of genres in appropriate lengths for competitive programs and sell the recordings at reasonable cost to a limited number of skaters each.

2) They could develop a training video using risk-taking music arrangers and choreographers and pro skaters as demonstrators to show both skaters/coaches and judges how different types of music can be used effectively for skating choreography, reminding judges to reward those effective qualities and to reward originality.

Both those approaches would require significant investment on the part of the ISU. But the effect would be more about opening up possibilities rather than closing them off.