Help! I am working on getting a new program(maybe programs) and desparately need music suggestions. I am Young adult bronze at the moment, so the program needs to be 1:40 for a technical program. I am also open to suggestions for a potential artistic program. I am female, 23yrs old. I am a fairly powerful skater(or so I am told), and have all jumps through lutz-loop combination very consistent, and spins-wise have a scratch, backscratch, sit, camel, and occasionally sit-back sit and camel-sit, camel-backsit. The spins aren't to to the level of the jumps, but they are improving.

I would prefer classical music, something intense, but not necessarily fast, and something cheerful sounding. There is so much to choose from that I appreciate any and all suggestions. I know this topic comes up fairly frequently, but I haven't seen it in a while. Thanks

Well I don't know about intense but a beautiful piece of music is Butterfly's Day out, it's on Yo-Yo Ma's Appalachian spring. For intense there is Elgar Cello Concerto #2 that Jeff Buttle used last season, awesome piece of music. There's Ode to Joy part of a larger work of Beethoven. There's a lovely Chopin Etude that is totally escaping me!! As for artistic, I don't know what you like, if you want something techno and different try William Orbit or if you want beautiful vocals Jane Monheit is brilliant. Another piece of music that could be skated quite well to is jazz "A love supreme" by John Coltrane.

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Maurice Setter

Almost any Tchaikovsky ballet music is good. Peer Gynt is nice and powerful.

My suggestions on what to avoid: anything that's been done to death (!) and anything New Age. (That New Age stuff is pretty cliched for adult skaters and is boring as heck!)

Try getting a classical compilation-type CD, with stuff on it from lots of different composers. If you hear something you like, even a little, get a CD of that composer's other stuff. If you like something that's used a lot, try different versions/orchestrations of it. Your library may have some classical music CDs, or your coach might, which would cut down on the cost.

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

Try getting a classical compilation-type CD, with stuff on it from lots of different composers. If you hear something you like, even a little, get a CD of that composer's other stuff. If you like something that's used a lot, try different versions/orchestrations of it. Your library may have some classical music CDs, or your coach might, which would cut down on the cost.

Nice to have another Young Adult here, BTW. That makes four of us, soon to be three since Stormy's turning 25. If you live on the East Coast, you'll have competitors at Adult Sectionals.

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

I have been listening to se;ections from the sound tracks of both "Jurassic Park" and "Dante's Peak"

There are some pieces on both that would fit the tempo of my skating. Once I get back from Lake Placid, coach and I will narrow down the choices. Having never done this before, it is definitely a new experience.

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I have been hearing a lot of Dvorak's Slavonic Dances and Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies on the radio lately, and some of them sound skatable. You might even be able to check them (or other classical music) out from your local public library to get a listen without having to pay for a CD you'll not use. Some universities and music schools also have listening libraries on vinyl--you can't take anything out of the library, but you're free to listen to what they have on their turntables. If you have a long list of things you want to try, that might be a good way of ruling things in/out.

My favorite "cheerful" classical music piece is Bach's Brandenburg Concerto #3, but that is probably too frantic and frenetic to be skated to...

If you like powerful skating, something Vivaldi or Vivaldi-like might suit your type of skating. I don't know what's overused in terms of that, though...(I am quite partial to Bizet's Carmen but we all know how often that is used in skating programs...)

For intense, but not cheerul, the flower duet from the opera Lakme is beautiful (this is the music in the British Airways commercials). The original has vocals, but I heard a version on the radio that has flute instead of vocals.

For intense but definitely not cheerful, I really love passages from Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet and also the Meditation from Thais by Jules Massenet. I don't watch a lot of skating on TV so I don't know if these are overly skated to. (My guess is that the Massenet would be, plus it might be too much one-tempo, and I've heard the lord's and ladies' dance from Romeo and Juliet used a lot for men's programs.) One day, I want to do a program to Meditation.

For cheerful but not as traditional classical, you might want to listen to some of Los Angeles Guitar Quartet's recordings. I have the one that's just called LAGQ and they have some beautiful things and some cheerful pieces. When I got married, I walked down the aisle to their version of Peter Maxwell Davies's "Farewell to Stromness."

For artistic--I haven't listened to very much by this group, but there's a band from Iceland called Sugur Ros (I'm not sure of the spelling). The stuff that I've heard is kind of dreamy like Enya but doesn't have that "Enya sound." I can't recall if there's enough of a pulse in their music that it would be skatable...

I agree about the Elgar cello concerto too. I love this piece, particularly the Jacqueline Du Pre recording of it.

Other suggestions I have are:

The Adagio from Spartacus (Khachaturian)
Waltz from Maquerade (Khachaturian)
Shostokovich - Jazz suite No 2 has some really nice waltzes with quite a degree of intensity

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No, no, not this one! I claim this for my next program! I'll tell anyone thinking of it, though, it's a ***** to edit. And it wouldn't fit what RNsk8r is looking for; it's incredibly sad.

AWESOME. I wanna come to the free style sessions when you're working on it!! It is incredibly gripping and moving particularly how it's used in the movie Jackie & Hilary. Jeff Buttle did an amazing job with it even if he never skated it clean it was a pleasure to watch.

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Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.
Maurice Setter

For cheerful classical and not overdone, I would suggest the third movement of Tchaikovsky's piano concerto #1 (the first movement is often used and is much heavier), and the third movement of Brahms's violin concerto.

I don't think there's a skater in the world who could have skated Buttle's program cleanly... I don't remember another competitive program with the amount of complexity and difficulty in the choreography.

I'm not going to start working on it until next spring, so you'll have to wait a while to see it!

HEY!!! Yanni isn't BORING!!! Especially the "Live at the Acropolis" album. (That's my ol' skating music!!!)

I'll have to agree with Tchaikovsky, except that's been done A LOT too!!!

Something fun I've been meaning to try but I don't have the guts to do it (plus I don't come from THAT era) are any flute solos from the ol' Jethro Tull CD from some ROCKIN' good time. Of course, I don't think any skating coach in their right mind would approve that music as a skating program!

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jazzpants

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Silver Moves is the next "Mission Impossible"
(Dare I try for Championship Adult Gold someday???)

Thank you for the support, you guys!!!

Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend! That's an awesome artistic number! My mum made it to Canadians with Diamonds

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I used 'Darling Violetta (Sufferance Mix)' which is the theme tune from 'Angel' for my Prelim Free test. I hadn't heard it used before, it's fairly classical, not too fast and has enough interest to be useable. Everyone said they liked it and the judges didn't complain!

If I can get my act together (I don't get much internet access) I'll put this and a couple of other things up on UKSkaters (Yahoo group) in the next week so that you can have a listen to them.

All the best

x

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These are wonderful pieces that are never used in skating:

Prokofiev's Piano Concerto #3 - the exciting finale
Poulenc's Piano Concerto for Two Pianos (spritely, lush, intense, jazzy and upbeat) - first and last movements
Ravel's Piano Concerto in G (spritely and upbeat) - first movement; a bit formal, though
Debussy's La Mer - surreal: a swirling seascape with intense moments of crashing waves and an exciting finale, lots of good bits here

Happy Skating!
Raine

It's Sigur Ros--and their stuff is great. If you want to hear some of it, Yahoo's LAUNCH for music videos has one or two. (I imagine if you do a search, you'll find some sites with more.) It might be a bit too dreamy to skate to, but on the other hand, small clips might be appropriate in a mixed cut.

I don't know enough about classical music to be of much help, but for cheerful but not intense, I kind of like Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze--sorry, don't know the piece number. Might be a bit lethargic for skating, though. I also like Sleepers, Wake. Not intense, exactly, more stately, but again, might be nice in snippets in a mixed cut. I like Yo-Yo Ma's versions, but then, haven't heard many others enough to remember if they stand out or not.

Goodness, Thanks for all the great ideas. Keep em coming! The Peer Gynt suite and the Lyric Suite by Grieg are two of my favorite pieces of music. I know I'll end up using one or the other in a program sometime. I'm also glad to know there is other young adult competition out there in Easterns. That is where I am from. I am already planning to go to the SCNY adult competition in February; my coach is planning on taking a bunch of us up there. Where are eastern adult sectionals this year? Thanks again

Edward ScissorHands soundtrack, suprisingly good. Honest.

Adult Eastern are in Syracuse, NY sometime in March. I'll be there too, although I only compete in dance, and I'm sure some other posters will attend too. We should all arrange to meet at the party or something. Last year the only poster I got to meet was the one I skated against.

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

I will definitely be at Adult Nationals in Lake Placid in April...hope to meet a lot of the regular posters there!!

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

I hope to be there too!

PS - Figureskates -- did you ever get my PM about volunteering at AN from the other site?

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Not me... I'm not old enough until 2007. Of course, we've already met Speaking of which, I leave in eight days! I'm so excited, I'm going to see Shae-Lynn and Victor skate in the show on Saturday!

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Shae-Lynn and Victor: We knew you were champions, and on 3/28/03 the whole WORLD found out! Thank you for twelve wonderful years!

Yes I did, and I will pass the information on.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!

We'll see you at the show. We are going up Friday.

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Keeping School Figures Alive!!