Apologies in advance to the Go-Go's. What I've really got is a new toy: a Korg model IE-1M in-ear metronome. I'm not all that musical so I'm hoping that this little gizmo will plant a sense of timing within my thick head.
It comes nested in it's own little box. The unoccupied slot in the foam on the right hand side is for the button battery. Yes, the battery is included. This photograph was exposed after I'd taken it out and futzed with it a bit.
This pix shows the overall appearance of the gizmo. The grey round wheel looking part allows for adjustments which I'll touch upon later.
The hardest part was getting the black stretchy speaker cover in place. My fingers were too clumsy. Had to get my wife involved. In the middle one can see two small push buttons. The closest one is the on/off switch. The other button is a mode button which allows one to toggle through the various settings for the IE-1M, which include beats per minute (adjustable from 30 to 252 in steps of one beat), beats per measure (from 0 to 9), rhythm (quarter notes are the default) and loudness (either low or high). In this pix I have the ear clip in the open position.
Here, the ear clip is closed. The round speaker can swivel through a limited arc to accommodate different shaped ears.
In this pix I've used the mode button to toggle to the beats per minute position, and then used the grey"jog switch" (the wheel shaped part that lives between the black and white halves of the metronome) to set the bpm to 108. Perfect for the Swing Dance and Fiesta Tango.
In this pix I've moved on and adjusted the beats per measure to 4. Again, the Swing Dance and Fiesta are 4 beat dances.
If one is practicing a 6 beat dance such as a waltz, the adjustment is easily accomplished.
This shows the rhythm set for 1/4 notes. There are other rhythms available but I'm not musical enough to sort through that yet.
Finally, here's a pix showing the loudness adjusted to the highest of the two settings available. I have not tried the metronome out yet during a skating session, but I suspect if a trumpet player can blow a horn and still hear the beats with this gizmo in an ear then it should work for ice dancers as well.
Those interested can read more here: http://www.korg.com/us/products/tuners/in_earmetronome/
The little gizmo even retains its settings after being switched off rather than going back to some default collection. Bonus!
I ordered mine from Musician's Friend. Prices vary quite a lot and also note that Korg makes other in ear metronomes for other uses. The IE-1M is the cheapest of the range.
Will it help keep me on time? Will it stay on my ear while skating? Will the itty-bitty buttons drive me crazy? Don't know yet--stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy today's earworm!
Ice Dance Music. Dare I touch on this subject? For many it's like tossing a box full of shotgun shells into a campfire--no matter how quickly you evacuate the area there's bound to be some casualties. Some say (and you know who you are) that ice dance music is so bad that it "makes your ears bleed".
At the start of a new group of dances, Coach A. presents me with a disk with
music for each of the three dances at that level. Eighteen tunes, six for each. She doesn't
indicate the song titles which I find challenging if not a little annoying. She did this same thing to me when she supplied Preliminary Dance music. I was able to ID some but not all of those tunes. Around that same time my wife had a dinner party for her mother and several of her mother's friends. I slipped the disk into my computer and asked these ladies to see if they could "name that tune". They asked "what's in it for us?" After lubricating their collective memory with an extra bottle of wine, they confirmed my suspicion, and supplied verifiably correct titles (who says youtube doesn't have it's uses) for each and every song on that disk. Yeah, it cost me, but it was so worth it.
Now, I could delve into a discussion about ice dance music and it's target demographic but (a). I think that discussion would run down a very obvious and ultimately unprofitable path, and (b) it's already been whined about numerous times before and probably with better effect.
So, last week I got the Pre-Bronze dance music. Same deal. We met in a quiet ice rink lobby. She wordlessly slid a disk across the table. It was cryptically numbered "Track 1" through "Track 18". Handwriting on the disk indicated that the first six tracks were Swing Dance tunes, the next six were for the Cha Cha and the remaining six were for the Fiesta Tango. I returned her steely glance as I quietly slipped the disk into my coat pocket. As I got up to leave, I turned around to ask her one more question about the disk. The lobby was empty.
Once back at my computer I got to work, carefully listening to the various tracks, and was able to ID some of the more obvious: Track 1 turned out to be "Red Sails in the Sunset". I had no clue about Tracks 2 through 4. Track 5 is "Once in Love with Amy", Track 6 is "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime". Moving on to the Cha Cha: no clue about Track 7; Track 8 is "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps". I awarded myself a +1 GOE for also correctly IDing the vocalist (Doris Day). Moving on, I had no clue about Tracks 8, 9, or 10. Track 11 is a nice instrumental version of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White". Listening to that song I could envision timing the sweeping wide step of the Cha Cha to drawn out phrase of the trumpet. Track 12, in what I assume is a gesture to the "youth" of ice dance, aka 30 somethings, is "I need to Know" by Mark Anthony. Moving on to the Tango selections I had more luck. Track 13 is the "Jealousy Tango" (Coach A. refers to it as "Celos Amigo" but I'm going with my title). Track 14 is "A Media Luz", Track 15 is "Cumparsita", Track 16 is "Adios Muchachos". The remaining two tracks were unknown to me. Maybe I should have played the disk backwards...
Night after night I wracked my brain trying to break the code of the remaining mystery tracks. I had nothing. But then she took pity on me--right before last night's lesson Coach A sent a tightly worded email revealing all the song titles.
First, the mystery Swing Dance tunes. Track 2 turned out to be "By the Light of the Silvery Moon" but the tune has been so ruthlessly massaged to fit the required beats per minute of the Swing Dance that no one this side of an ice dance judge would ever recognize it--not even my M-in-Law's wine loving pals would have cracked that nut. Track 3 is simply entitled "Schottische". The Schottische is a specific type of Nordic folk dance which my wife, originally from Sweden, would be familiar. I'll have to see if she recognizes it, and if so what title she gives it. Track 4 turned out to be "The Object of My Affection". The mixture of vibraphone and pan pipe makes this tune so irresistibly cheesy that of the six Swing Dance tunes on the disk it's my current favorite! Kseniya and Oleg use this same tune on their Swing Dance video so it's no doubt a good thing that I kinda like it--it's probably inescapable.
On to the Cha Cha. Track 7 is "Sweet and Gentle"; Track 9 is "Enjoy Yourself"--again the tune has been tweaked beyond reasonable identity so that it fits the needs of the dance. Track 10 is "Bodeguero" which has a pleasant Latin beat.
Finally, the two Tangos which I failed to ID are Track 17's generic "Tango Time" and Track 18 "Yira Yira". They'll probably grow on me with enough repetition.
Latin dances such as the Cha Cha and Tango are pretty much tethered to specific music--and for the most part that music is good and there's enough variation so that the music doesn't need to be completely disemboweled to work with the ice dance in question . As for the Swing Dance you'd think by now someone would have come up with some good alternatives to remixed tweaks of ballads from the 1950s. Perhaps someone has. Coach A. mentioned that US Figure Skating has a list of dances which serve as standards for solo competition. I'll have to check these out to see if there are any Swing Dance winners.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with a clip featuring K & O skating the Swing Dance to "The Object of My Affection". (Fritz, Fritz--turn off der bubble machine vhile I dance mit die Champagne Lady.)
I found this tune on youtube. I must go see if it's available for downloading. I can see myself going down the long axis of the rink practicing alternating progressives and swing rolls to it. It's four count beat is strong enough that even guys, like your old diarist, who have limited musicality can ID the strong beat.
As for my progressives, they're progressing. This week's tip--Coach A told me to think "toe point" as I skim the progressing foot forward as a way to keep my right foot from dragging the heel of that blade. I think I'm making "progress". Anyway, enjoy the tune:
