Figure Skating in Harlem: Michael Jackson lives on

I dare you, DARE you, not to start dancing while you're watching these adorable girls from Figure Skating in Harlem (FSH) strut their stuff on ice! Above is their March ice recital and the theme for this season was "Michael Jackson -- A Tribute." FSH is a program started by former competitive skater Sharon Cohen more than ten years ago -- she wanted to create something that would benefit girls in the Harlem community but that also would sustain them for a lifetime. She decided to combine free skating lessons but with a strict criteria -- the 125 girls in the program must maintain a B average in school and participate in the academic and cultural programs that FSH holds throughout the season. And the best part? All of this is free!

FSH held their major fundraiser last month, called Skating with the Stars, at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Photo galleries of that amazing night, featuring Johnny Weir, Jeremy Abbott, Kristi Yamaguchi, Sasha Cohen, Mirai Nagasu, Tanith and Ben, Meryl and Charlie, and many others, can be found here, here and here. (Photo below, Johnny Weir at Skating with the Stars benefit surrounded by the girls of Figure Skating in Harlem)

Selecting great skating music: Closing thoughts

Joe Jorgens (see right) is the head of Sonic Edge Music, which provides pre-cut and custom programs for figure skaters. As a professional music editor, he wanted to share ten tips for selecting great music, especially for younger skaters. Throughout the summer, we have been dispensing Joe's advice and here is an index for easy reference:

1. Choose music that is appropriate for the skater’s age
2. Accentuate the positive
3. Fit the music to the skaters style and skating personality
4. Look for music that delivers a mixture of different tempos and musical themes
5. Connecting with the skater’s preferences and spirit
6. Consider recent trends in programs, music and judging
7. Be unique
8. Consider suitability to rink acoustics
9. Design of the music
10. Putting it all together with fresh ideas for younger and mid-level skaters

Joe wanted to conclude the last article in his series with some parting thoughts:

We’ve certainly covered a lot of ground...err, ice here. But this just scratches the surface on the selection of good music for your younger skater. For many skaters there is nothing quite like the magical feeling of being alone on the ice and capturing an audience. Often, one good program leads the skater to wanting to perform more in the future; but it all starts with the early programs they learn and skate during their formative years.

Competitive skating is clearly a sport for the young and I always have to remind myself of how different very young skaters are as people when I’m asked for musical recommendations. They just change so much from season to season. Their personalities, abilities and likes develop and change at a rapid and seemingly continuous pace. That 9, or 11, or 13-year-old you thought you knew in September is a very different person at the end of the season. These rapid changes present us with both a challenge and an opportunity.

First, a skater’s musical selections need to evolve and broaden over time. In this sense we can view their music as a journey. Their programs and music are a continuing process, where we make selections that allow them to showcase new skills, but that also serve as a base for a future program. When we look at music in this way, we can see that our skater’s next piece of music needs to be not only about who and where they are now, but should also help them to build towards where they want to go. Do they want to be a good recreational skater, a good competitive skater, or do they have even bigger ice dreams? The second thing we should consider as a result of these youthful changes is that with each new program you are really working with a very different person.

Even coaches that have worked with a student for quite some time, find themselves walking into a rink and discovering a whole new person in place of the student they used to have. This presents some unique challenges, but it also gives you an opportunity to build a real connection with your skater. Most skaters, even young ones, take their music very personally. By engaging them in real conversations about what they like in other skaters, programs and music, you can learn some deeper truths about what they value and also give them a chance to express themselves. Engaging them in this way gives you a chance to build a very strong connection with your skater and transform the relationship into a genuine, long-term partnership.

This all brings us back to our beginning.  Skating is the art of communicating a feeling through skating elements, music and interpretation. The music you select can come from many types of music, or genres as we say, but the best selections are those that fit the skater and their skills and communicate well with the audience and judges. Having worked with and seen thousands of skaters and performances, I can definitely say there is no science, or set formula for all this. Like skating itself, the selection of music requires much thought and communication. That’s the thing that keeps us in the business. There is no one right answer for each level of skater -- we talk with coaches and skaters, we listen to their goals and the feel they want in their music and then work hard to offer ideas that fit or craft a custom solution. When it all comes together, the result is beautiful, inspiring and memorable.

I want to thank Jim Watkinson and his Weststar Company for their collaboration and assistance in the research, writing and production of this article. Good luck to all the skaters out there!

Selecting great skating music: Putting it all together

Joe Jorgens (see right) is the head of Sonic Edge Music, which provides pre-cut and custom programs for figure skaters. As a professional music editor, he wanted to share ten tips for selecting great music, especially for younger skaters. In today's segment, Joe offers numerous ideas for skaters, parents and judges to consider when putting a skating program together.

TIP #10: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER WITH FRESH IDEAS

As I mentioned earlier, there are many musical genres and among each, there are often many pieces that can work well to showcase skaters with specific strengths. You do not have to limit yourself to the most famous, but overused skating pieces. We do however have to consider our own guidelines about fitting the age and capabilities of the skater. Below are some of my suggestions for various age groups and levels.

Several musical ideas for skaters 5-7 year olds:

• 1:06 Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker - Waltz of the Flowers
• 1:09 Henry Mancini -Baby Elephant Walk
• 1:09 Spiderman
• 1:10 The Cat In The Hat

Several musical ideas for skaters 8-10 year olds:

• 1:28 Forest Gump
• 1:29 Home Alone
• 1:30 Riverdance -Reel Around The Sun
• 1:33 Enigma -Out Of The Deep
• 1:35 Riverdance
• 1:36 Cirque Du Soleil - Rideau
• 1:38 The Producers

Several musical ideas for skaters 10-13 year olds:

• 1:27 Elton John -Funeral For A Friend
• 1:28 Ayman -Possession, The Mummy -Tauger Attack
• 1:30 Zorro
• 1:33 St Elmos Fire Love Theme
• 1:34 Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake
• 1:36 Amelie

The musical pieces noted here are really just beginning thoughts; we can offer many more ideas for music that channels the same feel as these and of course more ideas beyond these to fit a specific skater when we speak individually to coaches or their skaters.

Giovanni Spinelli, composer of Pop Star On Ice: This film needed a rap song

Have you seen Pop Star On Ice starring Johnny Weir yet? I attended the New York premiere and it was great! You know what contributed to the greatness? The music behind it. Wow, there was classical, dance, techno, rap(!), alternative, you name it, they all fit Johnny moods throughout the film. Giovanni Spinelli (at right) is the composer of Pop Star On Ice and he shared with us his experience as the man behind the music.

How did you become the composer for Pop Star On Ice?

The filmmakers James Pellerito and David Barba called me in September 2007 while they were still shooting Pop Star On Ice. I had already worked with them on several film and theater projects in the past and was of course very excited to contribute to this project. It struck me from the outset as something very specific and unique, not only because of Johnny's captivating personality and talent, but also because of the filmmakers' entirely fresh approach to the subject and to the medium. They said the film would be more a portrait of Johnny than a traditional biographic documentary and that the score would require a mix of classical and pop music. Overall, the final score contains examples of classical, solo piano, alt rock, dance, pop, techno, ambient, electro, reggaeton, arrangements of Russian traditional music, and, yes, even an original rap song about Johnny (My Moment performed by John MackEnflow).

What was it like to compose an entire soundtrack around Johnny?

Johnny Weir was, of course, a very inspiring topic. His unique style on and off the ice, as captured by the filmmakers, was a catalyst for all sorts of musical ideas. A lot of the skating sequences, coupled with solo piano pieces (for example Aftermath or Vulnerable), in my opinion, really do resemble a "ballet on ice" (please be sure to say that with a thick Russian accent:). On the other hand, his "Pop Star" persona fits in so well with dance tracks (like the Heatherette Runway sequence), alt rock (like the explosive skating sequence of the Introduction and my favorite Johnny's Workout) and even Latin music (like the Johnny Reggaeton sequence). For his more introspective and challenging moments I sometimes worked with classical (like the Rink opening sequence) and other times with ambient and electronica ideas (like Practice).

Can you talk about a little about the process you went through?

As I often do, I asked the filmmakers to involve me well in advance of the final cut of the film. This allowed the film and the score to grow and mature together. Because of the nature of this film, David and James had literally over a hundred hours of footage from which to choose and edit. They knew what certain key highlights of the film were going to be, but, beyond that, they had many difficult editing decisions to make. This also meant that the film was continuously changing as we worked together.

As a result, we went through many different versions for the same cues (overall, the draft cues I wrote for the film occupied more than 72 gigabytes of disk space). To cite an example, for Johnny's segment in Canada, we worked with several pop versions, an alt rock version, a marching band version, a classical version, a chamber version, a techno version, etc. of the Canadian national anthem, for over 30 different arrangements (the latter two were used: see O Canada and Cruising High). The same applied to my various arrangements of the Russian traditional songs Kalinka, Ochi Chernie and Katyusha. Instead, for Johnny's visit to Japan for the 2007 World Championships, the filmmakers chose a very specific ambient track that I happen to be very fond of (the track is entitled Worlds '07).

The entire process of working on Pop Star On Ice was highly stimulating and enjoyable for me as a composer. I found it effortless to work with David and James who I think are two very innovative, thoughtful and mature filmmakers. I would keep an eye on them!

One of my favorite songs in the movie is the figure skating rap song My Moment. Was a rap song a hard sell to directors David Barba and James Pellerito?

The rap song came about in one of those magical moments that one hopes will occur at least once in every artistic collaboration. Once we had agreed upon the film's basic musical theme with the filmmakers, it suddenly struck me that what this film needed was a rap song about Johnny and his oncoming struggle to win the gold medal in 2010. Don't ask we why. A rap song about a figure skater. It seemed such an absurd juxtaposition that it had to work! However, I imagined that if I suggested this idea to the filmmakers at that stage, in the abstract, without the finished song in hand, they might think I had lost my mind. So I called upon the very talented rapper and actor, John MackEnflow (see right). I sent him an instrumental base for the rap, and asked him to work on some lyrics for the song. After a few days, John came to my studio and we recorded the track in less than two hours. The lyrics were exactly on point, and John's delivery (I guess I am really supposed to say "flow") was superb. I was flabbergasted and couldn't wait to have the filmmakers hear the piece. I then met James and David at the annual New York Shorts Film Festival (of which they are the organizers) and sprung the rap song on them (I literally had them listen to it on my iPod cold, without explanation). Sold! There were about a dozen or so mixing sessions following that, but the basic song was set.

I also want to add that the soundtrack album also contains songs performed by two outstanding female singers: Everybody Wants This a dance piece, sung by Lindsay Campbell, and Flying an electronica piece, sung by Katy Cunningham. These are bonus tracks that were inspired by Johnny and the film and that we wrote and recorded without a specific scene in mind. However, an instrumental version of Everybody Wants This was in fact used in the film (the Heatherette runway scene: the track is entitled Runway).

My thanks to the multi-talented Giovanni Spinelli for sharing the inside scoop with us Johnny fans. Folks -- The soundtrack album is now available on iTunes. You can purchase the whole album or single tracks individually. For more information on Giovanni Spinelli, you can visit his website:
http://www.giovannispinelli.com

And now, for those of you wondering what a figure skating rap song about Johnny Weir might sound like, here is a portion of the lyrics from My Moment, music by Giovanni Spinelli, lyrics by John MackEnflow:

I've worked my whole life / to be right here, right now /
but what I do in the next few minutes / could shape my whole future /

Everyone thinks I'm gonna blow it / But I got what it takes inside, I just know it /
Talk is cheap, it's time to just show it /  'Cause this is my moment

A lot of folks wanna know why I changed coaches /
Can I win gold, or is Johnny just plain hopeless? /
All of this hype while I'm trying to stay focused /
A lot on my shoulders right now if you ain't noticed! /
I'm not like everyone else—started late in the game,
started taking my pain, started skating my way
to the top like I was meant for the fame,
but today, it's a shame the way you taking my name
through these hoops and these scoops about me and my family /
and why I withdrew my events from the Grand Prix /

Selecting great skating music: Design of the music

The summer is the perfect time to begin thinking about new skating programs for the fall. Joe Jorgens (see right) is the head of Sonic Edge Music, which provides pre-cut and custom programs for figure skaters. As a professional music editor, he wanted to share ten tips for selecting great music, especially for younger skaters. Over the past month, we've been dispensing Joe's advice and here is his next tip.

TIP #9: DESIGN OF THE MUSIC

Often a skater will need music from more than one track, or elements from different sections of a musical work to showcase their many skills. In these cases it is important to consider how the melody or musical themes of the music are combined. This is called the "design of the music" and we have some choices to make at the transition points to give the music a good natural feel that fits the performance. At these transitions we want the music to either flow, or pause from one section to the next. Rarely do we want to jolt the audience by moving quickly from one tempo to another; this will negatively affect both your audience and the judges. We can listen to some examples to help us understand how this works. 

In our first example we hear a transition that simply does not migrate well from the first section to the second section of music. 

• James Bond

In our second example we hear an ending that is too abrupt. The music ends in a way that leaves the audience yearning for more.

• Phantom of the Opera

When you work with very well-known pieces of music you have to be careful not to short people’s expectations. With this example the transition is not a bad edit, but because everyone knows the song so well, we feel jarred when we don't progress into the expected section of music.

• Riverdance and Aha

In some instances the two pieces of music have a different beat and tempo. Listen to this example and see how this mismatch would cause the audience to cringe and negatively affects the performance:

• Richie Rich

Another possible misstep that a skater or coach may take is using a piece of music that is closely associated with a television show or movie. This can be a distraction, with the audience reminiscing about the source of the music, instead of enjoying its inherent beauty. We want the music and the skating to work hand in hand, so that in unison they are the sole focus of the judge and audience.

• X Files

Many times a customer will come to us at Sonic Edge Music looking for a way to blend two or more pieces of music and each collection of music can present its own challenges, but these are just a few of the many pitfalls we consider when working with a coach or skater to custom blend music for them.