Getting ready for competition or recital season and need to cut music?
Check out the great series of tutorials on music editing by Morriss Partee of SquirrelTrenchAudio. The explanations can get a bit long, but if you are struggling to know how to edit your music, there are some great tips here.
And if all else fails, Morriss also offers custom music editing.
Now that the studio is open and I’m getting back into the swing of things, I updated some of my playlists for class and wanted to share my favorite new songs with you! Most of these are from the Top 40 and some are old favorites, but hopefully they might inspire you or give you something new for the season!
Not offered on iTunes:
Pumped Up Kicks (RLYNX Remix) – Foster The People
Party On The Floor – DJ Earworm Remix – check out his other remixes too!
Today was the season opener at my dance studio. I don’t teach on Saturdays, so I worked in the office and got to sit back (ha!) and observe for the first part of the day.
On Saturday mornings, we have many of our preschool classes and I always love watching kids experience the joy of dance for the first time! I overheard a little girl tell her teacher, “I couldn’t sleep last night because I was so excited to do ballet!”
It’s also fun to watch the first-time parents… nervous that their child will follow directions or like the class – as a teacher I used to think the parents were watching me, until I had a niece take class and all I wanted to do was watch her! We had a lot of dads bringing students today, which is also funny to see their reaction to “Daddy, look at my plie!”
After our morning classes, our performance team danced at a local community event (free advertising!) and then I enjoyed the rest of the night off! After our first week back, I plan to take my office manager out for some margaritas… we’ve been working so much overtime these last few weeks to get everything ready for today, I think its high time for a night out!
If your studio opened this month, congratulations on a new season! What did you do on your first day “back to work”? Did you feel prepared? Stressed? Relaxed? Hopeful? Leave a comment!
And you thought pointe shoes were painful enough! Christian Louboutin has always created mind-blowing shoes, but I have to say that these 8-inch heels, his highest to date according to JustLuxe.com, are ridiculous.
I am ok with ballet and dance setting trends, but there is no way anyone in their right mind would wear them. If the pointe of them (horrible pun intended) is to make people think about fashion, then its a success! But if hope we don’t see these tiptoeing down the runway anytime soon or in any fashion editorials…
Read the rest of the article here or visit ChristianLouboutin.com for more shoes.
Have you seen the Coke Zero and League of Extraordinary Dancers campaign for a new dance move?
It’s still running so there’s some time left to enter, but what’s also great is they provide some nice dance tracks for you to use in your submission videos AND they are free to download!
The ones that I’ve listened to would be great to use for hip hop class – plus all the songs are more than 3 minutes long! I’ve only listened to a few tracks all the way through and while there are no swear words, you might want to listen to the content to make sure its appropriate for your age group.
To get to the songs, click on How To Participate and select your track and click “Download”.
Full Disclosure: Coke or LXD did not pay me to write this!
It’s Labor Day here in the United States, so in honor, here is a short work-inspired playlist to with a little something for everyone!
These songs would also work great for a job-themed recital – we did “Work & Play” a few years back.
Continue reading
For a studio owner, getting ready for fall classes means a lot of things… piles of paperwork, phone calls and emails to return, attendance sheets and class signs to prepare. For me, it also always means painting the studio! It seems like every year I end up painting one or more of the rooms.
Maybe it's just me, but I get very anxious when selecting a new color to paint the studio. Perhaps it's because I will be spending the next two or three years (if the paint is good) staring at the wall color, who knows? Although I do fine choreographing formations, I'm not a very good visualizer of the end product. I need something more. I used to get a bunch of little samples, tape them to the wall and deliberate for a week, asking everyone who walked by whether "summer white" looked nicer than "classic beige".
But wait, there's a solution!
My favorite tool to use before painting is Sherwin William's "Color Visualizer" tool. You can upload a picture of any room and "paint" using their colors.
Now I can digitally "paint" my rooms and change them around as much as I like before purchasing paint! Hooray!
If you are still having trouble choosing a color or narrowing your choices consider the following:
I was so excited to try out my new Tempo Magic Pro app last week at our dance intensive tap classes (see previous post here). I will admit that every time I see it on my iPhone screen I cannot resist the urge to say "tempo MAGIC" while wiggling my jazz hands with a magician-like flair. Try it with me now… tempo MAAAAGIC!
Ok.
Moving on.
The app is pretty straight forward. The first thing you have to do is add the songs you want to slow down. Tap the playlist button.
 |
| Times Union |
Hurricane / Tropical Storm Irene went through my area in upstate New York, but luckily power was all we lost yesterday. Many places in my area are flooded, but we just had a few downed branches and trees. The creek by one of my studio locations overflowed and closed the road and parking lot, but didn’t get close to the building. I am so thankful for all of the workers who were out yesterday repairing the power lines and keeping people safe from flooded roadways. Hope all my readers are also safe after the storm.
Now that the power is back on, I have been catching up on some dance blog reading. There are some really great teaching ideas I can’t wait to use in my classes in the fall and share with my teachers.
Just read Morris Partee’s post over at Dance Advantage on this awesome new app for changing the tempo of your music: Tempo Magic Pro
This app allows you to adjust your song tempos on your iPhone or iPod touch. As a tap teacher, I am so excited about using this app in class! Our sound system currently has tempo-changing CD players, so I used to burn my music to a CD and then use the CD player to playback with different tempos. I am hoping this app will change my life.. hah! I am teaching this week at our summer camp intensive, so I will report back with results.
…off to go play with my iPhone now!
If you’re also an iPhone addict, you might also like to check out this post on two free iPhone apps that I use as a dance teacher.
The Dance Buzz 