How important is music that is recognizable?

Discussion in 'The Trash Can' started by TheGirlCanSkate, Feb 4, 2013.

  1. TheGirlCanSkate

    TheGirlCanSkate Active Member

    If a skater used a piece composed solely for him or her, would that detract the judges/audience from the performance?
  2. iarispiralllyof

    iarispiralllyof Active Member

    No as long as the music serves its purpose and allows the skater to channel some emotion or feeling or character
    ie Michelle's lyra angelica

    Gracie Gold was PHENOMENAL at the nationals...but wtf was with that music in the lp?

    Edit: I found out it's from the movie Life is beautiful.. wtf?.I loved that movie. IDK I still didn't like the music choice at all..or maybe the cut of music she used. I just felt like she had this big pageant smile on the entire time and there were no dimensions.
  3. Vagabond

    Vagabond Well-Known Member

    You tell me.
  4. AndyWarhol

    AndyWarhol Well-Known Member

    I think its is more important that the music is memorable than recognisable.
  5. TheGirlCanSkate

    TheGirlCanSkate Active Member

    I was distracted by the liberal use of cotton balls. :D The music I think did work for their program.
  6. briancoogaert

    briancoogaert Well-Known Member

    When Pechalat and Bourzat used that kind of original music, they weren't medal contenders. They started to be medal contenders when they decided to use well-known music. Is there a correlation ?
    For sure, original music distracts judges from skating. Judges are human and need to feel comfortable, lol. It's not exactly a problem if the music is used very early in the season. JMHO
  7. Zemgirl

    Zemgirl Well-Known Member

    Correlation does not equal causation, not to mention that P/B won their first GP medal with that music (ETA: having skated to the more conventional Les Mis and Cats the two previous seasons) and qualified for their first GPF with their Craziness/Organ Donor FD. They moved up into serious medal contention post-Vancouver not because they asked Marina Zoueva to send them her CD but because DelSchoes and DomShabs retired.

    In their final season, DomShabs skated to The Double Life of Veronique, which is not exactly Carmen or POTO. Brian Joubert won Worlds with a Metallica LP and showed up the next season with SP music that was composed especially for him (that he only skated one clean SP is another matter). Jeffrey Buttle won Worlds skating to Ararat, which is probably not very well known. Carolina Kostner got her PB with a Shostakovich SP. Savchenko/Szolkowy won their first Worlds with L'Ouiseau and last season's title with Pina. Etc, etc.
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2013
  8. antmanb

    antmanb Well-Known Member

    IIRC French skaters in the 90's/early 2000s used to get Maxim Rodriguez to compose pieces of music specificlly for them to use as skating programmes. I think Abitbol & Bernadis used pieces by him that were compsed for them ( I think one of called angel and devil or something like that and I know other skaters used the mnusic after them). I think he also composed the music for Philippe Candeloro's Dartagnan programme from the 97/98 season. I also think Dambier and Jeannette also skated to purposefully composed pieces of music.
  9. Skittl1321

    Skittl1321 Well-Known Member

    Wasn't there some American man who composed his own music and recorded it (piano?) I swear the commentators talked about that at Nationals last year or the year before.

    ETA: Timothy Dolensky composed his own short program in 2012.
  10. Cherub721

    Cherub721 YEAH!

    Yup, I think he did A&B's Tristan & Isolde, Angel & Devil, Mermaid, and Conquistador, and Phillipe's Napoleon and D'Artagnan (probably more). I believe Jeanette's Little Prince program was a special composition as well.

    I&K's Andijan Polka music this year is supposed to have been composed for them, although from the interview I read it sounded more like it was re-arranged and recorded for them.

    Makarova's Maria & the Violin's String SP of the past two seasons has been successful for her, although I had never heard the music used before.
  11. gkelly

    gkelly Well-Known Member

    Dmitri Dmitrenko composed music for a couple of his programs -- I can't find those specific programs on youtube though.

    Nancy Kerrigan skated to music that was composed for her by Mark Militano. Didn't hurt her results any.

    With any music that is neither already overused in skating nor brand new composed for the occasion, then you might have some judges who recognize it and others who don't. So what really matters is whether the music is effective for skating to begin with and how good a job this skater does in interpreting it in this performance.
  12. briancoogaert

    briancoogaert Well-Known Member

    Thank you for that !
    So, why do they go to conventionnal music now ? Why Requiem for a dream in 2010 instead of the previous fantastic Ez3kiel whole thing about time ? :wuzrobbed
  13. aliceanne

    aliceanne Well-Known Member

    I don't think music has to be recognizable, but it should be accessible to the audience. I think when the commentator has to explain your choreography and what you are trying to portray you have already lost a lot of people.

    If you are an international level skater it is good to consider the different cultures of your audience. For example, Ryan Bradley's "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" number was popular in the U.S. but was met with silence in Russia. Since it is heavily associated with WWII, I would not want to skate that number in Japan either, where the World Championships were originally scheduled to be held.
  14. Cachoo

    Cachoo Well-Known Member

    I'm not sure it is necessary for the music to be well known. There are many performances across all of the disciplines I've enjoyed and been unfamiliar with the music. That said when there is music I love combined with an excellent performance I am hooked and will watch again and again and again. For me it is Tara Lipinski's performance to Patrick Doyle's scores from "Sense and Sensiblity" and "Much Ado About Nothing." And her SP that year to the "Little Women" soundtrack. I believe her coach said they wanted to exhibit her delight on the ice. If that is what they were aiming for they hit the bullseye imho.

    I'm glad though, that many skaters choose something unknown to the judges and the audience. I love Mark Isham's "Taj Mahal" and would probably never heard it if not for the German pairs skaters who chose it. Or Kwan's use of "Red Violin." I like the classics but I'm glad to see skaters using more contemporary pieces-both unknown and well loved.
  15. Zemgirl

    Zemgirl Well-Known Member

    My understanding is that someone (with terrible taste) in the FFSG made it clear that they should change it. I think Joubert's switch to Gladiator this season was also, em, encouraged. As for P/B's other recent programs, Chaplin was Zhulin's idea, IIRC, and the Mummy stuff last season did have some lesser used pieces of music once you got past The Feeling Begins.

    I had a final sentence in my previous post that somehow got deleted - it was basically that a good skater and a good performance can transcend both lesser known and tired music choices.
  16. Macassar88

    Macassar88 Well-Known Member

    Its the music that Pechalat and Bourzat used in the r 2009 FD
  17. giselle23

    giselle23 Active Member

    There is some music that becomes recognizable once someone skates a memorable program to it. I am thinking, for instance, of Michelle's Red Violin or Takahashi's Blues for Klook. I wasn't familiar with either of these pieces before I saw the programs (or Lyra Angelica, for that matter), but I am now!
  18. Tony Wheeler

    Tony Wheeler Well-Known Member

    Interesting observation, because I saw it as a completely blank look in her face with no relation to the music until the step sequence started-- some 3 minutes in.