Musical Selection

Whatever the music, let me see what the skater can do with it.

Rule-of-thumb music selection seems to be to use one of Ogre Mage's list of most of the warhoreses. It's playing it safe because someone used it and it won medals. For competitive skating one is concentrating on winning a medal, and that would be the safe way to go. To use a non-warhorse would be taking a risk. I would say Kwan in her hey day would use different types of music and do quite well with them in presentation at least.

Others use the same music year after year and finally, it pays off. Sasha's Dark Eyes and R&J are good examples. Brian Joubert had to learn the hard way that he is a winner with Matrix and he must think what can he do in the future if he wants to skate to something else.

Dancers especially in Broadway type musicals must learn complicated choreography. Tough, tough, tough! But with many rehearsals the steps fall into place and they are no longer counting the beats but using muscle memory and smiling gleefully at the audience. It takes time and a lot of hard work.

Classical Ballet dancers can do the warhorses in their sleep. But they do need to work on new choreography. there are at least two ballets I've seen that are quite eyefilling and the music is by Cage. (but then I can appreciate ballet beyond the 19th century.)

Now in competitive skating we have the two prong music selection. The easy familiar music or the risky never used music. It's like "To Quad or Not To Quad"
I just happen to like the risk takers. I'm with Plushenko on this.

Joe

theoreticalgirl said:

I've been writing furiously the last few weeks and wanted to share this little nugget of info regarding Arakawa's LP music...

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A few well deserved encomiums for that spectacular post, Theatergirl!

About Arakawa and Turandot, I wonder if it is not the music that gives the impression of "emotionally sterile modernism" so much as the fact that Shizuka herself projects a certain reserve in her interactions with the (Western) audience. I always felt that was more cultural than anything else.

But it might just be Shizuka. Shen and Zhou's Turendot at 2003 Worlds was certainly emotionally stirring -- at least in the superficial sense that there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

Bolero is another early twentieth century work whose purpose was blatantly to represent the sterility of the machine age. That relentless pounding of the same theme over and over, colored only superficially with changes in instrumentation, was Ravel's protest against the machine. I think that is why it doesn't really work for skating music. All we can say about Michelle Kwan's attempt was that she did the best she could with it, while Alexander Abt's version never got off the ground.

But then there is Torville and Dean...

As to your question about whether skaters themselves do much research into their music, I am not a skater, but I would be very surprised if they went beyond, oh I like this! For one thing, it is my impression that skaters (in common with, say, baseball players) do not really know much about music. Sometimes a song "speaks to them" (like Michelle's Fields of Gold), but I would imagine that's about it.

Choreographers and their music specialists, on the other hand, do have an interest in music and perhaps even bring a scholar's ear to their task. The William Alwyn harp concerto Lyra Angelica, for instance, is inspired by the poetry of the 17th century mystic poet Giles Fletcher: "How can such joy as this want words to speak?"

Michelle spoke her joy, especially in the 1998 nationals performance.

(This was an abrupt departure from Lori Nichol's earlier work with Michelle, where Michelle played a character, such as Salome or Mumtaz Mahal)

Please do post your paper! I can't wait to see it.

Mathman

Sorry for the delay, but here's the paper I presented at the 2006 Experience Music Project Pop Conference in Seattle, WA:

http://herjazz.org/maria/emp2006

If you click on the images, it will bring you to video footage of the performances. YouTube is a godsend, I must say!

It doesn't have the list of works cited or footnotes, but it'll do for now. Please leave comments on the page!

I have about 50 pages of notes for this, which had to be cut down into a 20-minute presentation. I kept it to 3 case studies for brevity's sake, but also so that it would be interesting to a roomful of cultural/music critics unfamiliar with the inner workings of the sport. From my perspective, my paper was well-received, which was a relief. Now that the conference is over, I can get back to the business of expanding it into a piece for an academic publication.

Mathman said:

Bolero is another early twentieth century work whose purpose was blatantly to represent the sterility of the machine age. That relentless pounding of the same theme over and over, colored only superficially with changes in instrumentation, was Ravel's protest against the machine. I think that is why it doesn't really work for skating music. All we can say about Michelle Kwan's attempt was that she did the best she could with it, while Alexander Abt's version never got off the ground.

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Thanks for the kind words, Mathman! Just so you know, there's been quite a fair bit of academic research regarding Boléro as a narrative of sex. (I don't have access to one of the d/b's that has some meaty abstracts talking about this, but trust me on this one.) Sex as a machine, sex machine... hmmm, sounds a lot like James Brown!

What's the difference between sexual and sensuous? If they are different then maybe we are not using the correct one. Just don't know and too lazy to look it up.

Joe

Sexual: Of or relating to sex (All my definitions essentially boil down to this).

Sensuous: Of or relating to the senses, suggesting pictures or images of sense, producing an agreeable effect on the senses.

IcyBallerina said:

Sexual: Of or relating to sex (All my definitions essentially boil down to this).

Sensuous: Of or relating to the senses, suggesting pictures or images of sense, producing an agreeable effect on the senses.

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Thank you Icy Ballerina. With that I believe we are developing some kind of emotional sense of what the skaters brings to the audience. It could be sexual but it doesn't have to be. Just nodding at the skater and feeling the sense of enjoyment is what I want.

Joe

Joesitz said:

What's the difference between sexual and sensuous? If they are different then maybe we are not using the correct one. Just don't know and too lazy to look it up.

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What's your point?

From the Oxford English Dictionary, which is as official as it gets:

Sensual, adj.

of or arousing gratification of the senses and physical, especially sexual, pleasure: the production of the ballet is sensual and passionate.

- DERIVATIVES sensualism noun sensualist noun sensualize ( also sensualise ) verb sensually adverb .

- ORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense ‘sensory’): from late Latin sensualis, from sensus (see sense).

(USAGE The words sensual and sensuous are frequently used interchangeably to mean ‘gratifying the senses’, especially in a sexual sense. Strictly speaking, this goes against a traditional distinction, by which sensuous is a more neutral term, meaning ‘relating to the senses rather than the intellect’, as in swimming is a beautiful, sensuous experience, while sensual relates to gratification of the senses, especially sexually, as in a sensual massage. In fact the word sensuous is thought to have been invented by Milton (1641) in a deliberate attempt to avoid the sexual overtones of sensual. In practice, the connotations are such that it is difficult to use sensuous in this sense. While traditionalists struggle to maintain a distinction, the evidence from the Oxford English Corpus and elsewhere suggests that the ‘neutral’ use of sensuous is rare in modern English. If a neutral use is intended it is advisable to use alternative wording.)

Sexual, adj.

1. relating to the instincts, physiological processes, and activities connected with physical attraction or intimate physical contact between individuals: she had felt the thrill of a sexual attraction.

2. relating to the two sexes or to gender: sensitivity about sexual stereotypes.

• of or characteristic of one sex or the other: the hormones which control the secondary sexual characteristics.

3. (Biology) (of reproduction) involving the fusion of gametes.

• being of one sex or the other; capable of sexual reproduction.

- DERIVATIVES sexually adverb .

- ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from late Latin sexualis, from Latin sexus ‘sex’.

Question: Did Skaters before 1970 use "warhorses"? I know Donald Jackson skated rather spectacularly to "Carmen" at the 1962 Worlds and the Protopopovs used "Moonlight Sonata" years before G and G did, but was it as common as it has been since?

I do know first-hand that there were a good many techno-versions used during the 1980s. Some of them sound very funny now, but I accepted them at the time!

theoreticalgirl said:

...Sex as a machine, sex machine... hmmm, sounds a lot like James Brown!

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Or the Miracles: "Oh...yeah, I'm just a love machine....And I won't work for nobody but you."

I once sent Lori Nicole a CD of Marvin Gaye's "(I'm your) Love Man" for her to use for Tim Goebel. I always thought Timmy and Marvin broadcasted pretty much the same vibe. (Only I changed the words to "Quad Man.")

OK, I have now read your paper pretty carefully. I love this kind of stuff. It's what makes me a figure skating fan. (We don't look to hockey players or cross country cyclists to mirror cultural norms, right?)

http://herjazz.org/maria/emp2006

When I get my thoughts together I will post on the site.

First, I thought your thesis was highly original. There have been so many sociological examinations of figure skating in culture and the culture of figure skating that it would seem pretty hard to come up with a new insight that wasn't done to death by the feminists of the seventies.

But your insight to focus on the actual music selection in the context of aesthetic conformity was quite fresh, IMHO.

I do, however, find myself still not really up in arms over the issue of music that is "slocky, intro-to-classical-for-dummies"

-- OT, I just Googled this title. Yes, there is a book "Classical Music for Dummies." Act now and Amazon will throw in "Opera for Dummies" at half price! --

"slocky, intro-to-classical-for-dummies, so defiantly middlebrow in its conception,..." Well, God must love us boozhie middlebrows, he made so many of us. Go Tchaikovsky! What figure skater would dare Beethoven -- who could possibly hope to skate up to the music?

MM

Mathman said:

-- OT, I just Googled this title. Yes, there is a book "Classical Music for Dummies." Act now and Amazon will throw in "Opera for Dummies" at half price! --



MM

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Did this come with a CD? It seems to me that at some point, about 10 years ago, there was a "Classical Music for Dummies" CD floating around; seems to me my boyfriend at the time had a copy. While in favor of the basic idea, the "culture snob" in me was just a little mortified at the liner notes, i.e. "Sabre Dance" by Khatchuturian, heard in the "Scrubbing Bubble Toilet Bowl Cleaner" commercials; "Appalachian Spring" by Aaron Copland, heard in the "Beef. It What's For Dinner" commercials. While I knew that these pieces had been used for that, still, when flat out expressed like THAT, it seems to cheapen things just a bit.

Mathman said:

I once sent Lori Nicole a CD of Marvin Gaye's "(I'm your) Love Man" for her to use for Tim Goebel. I always thought Timmy and Marvin broadcasted pretty much the same vibe. (Only I changed the words to "Quad Man.")

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Ok, so somewhat had to be the first to say it.....SAY WHAAAAT??? Timmy and Marvin? Argh!

JonnyCoop said:

"Appalachian Spring" by Aaron Copland, heard in the "Beef. It What's For Dinner" commercials.

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Just to clarify our memories, I thought the Copland in the Beef commercials was the Hoe-Down movement from the ballet, "Rodeo."

As much as I don't like the fact that this great music gets associated with such mundane things, it is helpful when teaching music to non-music majors to tell them that they have heard the music of America's greatest composer.

(goes off to check the CD, using the excuse that since I'm enrolled in Music in the United States for the summer term, I'm really studying...)

ETA: Yes, even hubby agreed that it's Rodeo.

It's Hoe-Down not Appalachian Spring. I studied Copland in HS for the academic decathlon. I heard Hoe-Down way too many times for my liking...

You know, Appalachian Spring did not sound quite right to me when I was writing that post, but I do remember attending a concert where the "Beef, it's what's for dinner" piece was played and I could have sworn the program said Appalachian Spring, but there is an excellent chance I could be mistaken. (I was on a very bad date and have tried to block out most of the whole evening.... ) As a matter of fact, I definitely remember, when the piece was over, I did say, out loud, "Beef. It's what's for dinner." and got looked at like I just stepped off a space ship.

Lanie said:

I studied Copland in HS for the academic decathlon.

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Did you win?

Mathman said:

I do, however, find myself still not really up in arms over the issue of music that is "slocky, intro-to-classical-for-dummies"

-- OT, I just Googled this title. Yes, there is a book "Classical Music for Dummies." Act now and Amazon will throw in "Opera for Dummies" at half price! --

"slocky, intro-to-classical-for-dummies, so defiantly middlebrow in its conception,..." Well, God must love us boozhie middlebrows, he made so many of us. Go Tchaikovsky! What figure skater would dare Beethoven -- who could possibly hope to skate up to the music?

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Well, no one wants to be told their taste in music is middlebrow! We're taught that everything we do is unique and special.

If it's in "Classical For Dummies", its ceded its right to retaining artistic value. Ask anyone with a PhD in Musicology and they'll agree. In fact, they will probably have some very harsh words to say about Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, etc. Compared to them, I'm being pretty nice.

That said, it's the job of academics/critics/whathaveyou to question the existence of canons, musical and otherwise. If I had never wondered why skaters perform to utterly horrible music, I wouldn't have written this paper.

As far as sociological & cultural writings on skating go, Ellyn Kestnbaum's "Culture On Ice" and the collection "Women On Ice" were quite essential in developing my theoretical foundations. Of course, what validated my work was the dearth of musical discussion in either book, specifically how it stuck to "song X was playing" and nothing else. Considering that music is the driving force behind the artistic component of the sport, I was surprised by the lack of analysis.

Mathman said:

Did you win?

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I personally got a ton of medals at County, but no, we lost because on our team we had two people who were total slackers and blew it in the Super Quiz (Lewis & Clark - despite my hating of them the questions I got in my round were pretty easy and I got 9/10. I felt so cool since we didn't prepare very well for that ). Sniff. I competed in Ventura County, CA which is supposedly the hardest county in the nation.

I am not saying anything derogatory, just thought that it was the Piedmont schools that held that category - I guess I was wrong. Maybe they are good for just Bird calls and spelling bees

theoreticalgirl said:

Well, no one wants to be told their taste in music is middlebrow! We're taught that everything we do is unique and special.

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It's one thing to call something "middlebrow."

"schlocky, intro-to-classical-for-dummies garbage" goes beyond simply characterizing it as such.

If it's in "Classical For Dummies", its ceded its right to retaining artistic value. Ask anyone with a PhD in Musicology and they'll agree. In fact, they will probably have some very harsh words to say about Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, etc. Compared to them, I'm being pretty nice.

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So if a piece of classical music was considered good in its time, and popular for decades or centuries afterward, and then the Dummies publishers, or pops concerts programmers, decide to include it, it suddenly becomes bad? Surely the value of a piece of music as music is more complex than that.

And its value as a framework for a sporting performance would have other considerations that are irrelevant to musicologists.