The Brainy Ballerina®

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The Secret to Becoming a More Musical Dancer

I’ve played for many auditions and they always start the same. Everyone abuzz with anticipation. The artistic team is excited about the potential, the dancers are excited/terrified about the potential and the pianist is sitting calmly behind the piano watching it all unfold! 

As the pianist, I have the pleasure of seeing A LOT and I always find it interesting! I see the artistic team become very focused on counting precisely what they want, not too fast but not too slow either - gotta keep it real. I see the dancers - some, I can tell, are still very much ‘students’ and are dutifully doing class just like they would as a student. Their body position, their hair, etc. tells me this professional world is very new to them from this angle! Others have been around the bush a few times and look like a professional dancer already in how they handle themselves, others, the directors, etc.

I’m always rooting for the dancers, I want them to do well! I’ve watched young dancers do the journey from 5 or 6 yrs old up to 17 and auditioning! It’s a long journey and I wish them only the best! That being said, there is something that I see where I know that unless things improve, they’ll be struck off the list quickly. 

Musicality. Being Late. 

Here’s the thing: pliés are so telling about whether you listen to your music or not. If you have a 4-count grand plié on a triple meter (1 & a, 2 & a, etc), 2 counts down, 2 counts up, your movement going down should be continuous UNTIL count 3. When you hear count 3 you can finally start pushing those heels back down and rising up! BUT.. if you’re at the top of the plié before the 3&a,4&A, the ‘a’ of count 4, you’re early. You’re essentially rushing the music.

You see, plié is a movement, not a position, so you’ve GOT to use all the music or you stand out as a dancer who doesn’t listen to the music RIGHT FROM THE GET-GO! 

Have you heard of an ANACRUSIS? 

An anacrusis is when the melody of the music, the part you would hum as you’re walking home, starts before the dancer count, on the ‘&’ or the ‘a’.  Notice the underlined parts below - that’s the anacrusis. Count these numbers below, accenting the bold anacrusis. Can you imagine a degagé/jeté exercise with that rhythm? 

Triple Meter: & a 1 & a 2 & a 3

Duple Meter: & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4

Exercises that start on the ‘&’ are VERY different from exercises that start on the dancer count! Try counting the patterns below, again accenting the bold numbers this time! 

1 & a 2 & a 3 & a 4 & a

1 & 2 & 3 & 4

If you try these 2 different ways of counting (Using an anacrusis vs not!) with doing grand battements, you’ll quickly realize that with an anacrusis, you have to count slower or you don’t have enough time to get the leg up on the anacrusis and back down on the count! 

Now, if you don’t want to be known as the dancer with ‘great lines, but..’ because your musicality is abysmal, throw on some classical music and flip from piece to piece and listen specifically for whether or not the melody has an anacrusis. 

3 Steps to Successfully Counting Music

  1. Find the pulse, a heavy basic rhythm that consistently happens throughout the music. Often it’s heard in the low notes of the music. 

  2. Recognize that those are your dancer counts and count to see many accents are happening in between those pulses.This is the ‘&’ or the ‘& a’

  3. Now listen specifically to see if the melody you’d hum starts before a pulse, or right on one! 

If you can do this consistently, as soon as you listen to a piece of music, especially classical music, you’ll be in a great place to then physically respond with accurate musicality (aka not being late!!!). If the grand battement is on the ‘&’, you’ve got to move FAST because A) your foot has got to hit the top of the grand battement on the & and B: your feet need to be in 5th ON THE COUNT!  This is not negotiable in an audition! This is your moment to demonstrate that you are an intelligent and MUSICALLY AWARE dancer!! 

Dancers who are not on the music, are late or are unaware of the accent don’t get hired. Period. 

You NEED to be really intelligently aware of what the accent is in the music. What is the rhythm of it?

Don’t be the dancer dismissed with “she has nice lines…but”. Be the dancer they can imagine showing off their choreography with precision on the stage in 4-5 months. 

You got this!! Go to YouTube and pick a classical music playlist. Listen to it, intentionally. Count it! Find the pulse. Is it duple or triple meter? Does it use an anacrusis or not? As soon as you have a piece figured out, flip to the next one! 

If this all sounds like a new language to you, I suggest you take The Official Music Training Course for Ballet Teachers (The OMTC) through my website (https://www.thebarrepianist.com)! It teaches music to you using the terminology of ballet class in a user- friendly format!



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