I hear many freestyle skaters and even non-skaters say that they might be interested in ice dancing, but they are turned off "by the music." The music, they say, "it sucks."
I really can't relate to this. I'm not sure what they are complaining about. In my car I have our compulsory dances, the Silver Samba and Viennese Waltz, on permaplay/infinite repeat. I rock out to these on the way to work each day. Also on the way to the rink. And the grocery store. Pretty much everywhere.
When the weather is balmy I roll down my windows in order to share this lovely music with everyone else. It's one of the few ways I actively promote ice dancing. Frequently I sing along. That's right, I said sing; the lyrics vary based on time of day, the state of traffic on the interstate and my current mood. Most are not suitable for publishing here.
Last year the Blues and Starlight Waltz made up the soundtrack for most of my activities of daily living. The kids groaned every time they got in the car and immediately put on their headphones. Which leads me to wonder what kind of garbage THEY are listening to.
The ringtone on my phone is "Once in Love With Amy." Before that, it was "Get Me To The Church On Time." I'm thinking of changing it to "Tie Me Kangaroo Down."
Wait a minute ... "Tie Me Kangaroo Down"? Is that really supposed to be a Rhumba? What were they thinking??? That sucks!
(No offense Marilu and Bob, it makes a great OD ... but a rhumba? Come on!!)
That reminds me - good luck to Marilu and Bob who are skating the Pre-Gold Dance Initial Round in Lake Placid tomorrow ... hey, text me those results ASAP, OK?
3 comments:
No, I agree that the music is a turnoff. I call it DDM (Dorky Dance Music) and I can see why most kids are turned off by it. I don't know why they don't make an effort to come out with new tunes every 5 years or so, surely they could find new songs with the same rhythm and beat?
My first coach was an ice dancer and would loudly sing "My BODY lies over the OCEAN!" I kept telling her it was "Bonnie" but she just smiled and sang louder. While she had many talents and was a fabulous dancer, singing was not one of them...
There ARE some really good ice dance tunes. Many people have made compilations of "modern" music that is correctly timed for ice dancing. There is a '60's compilation, a holiday/Christmas compilation, and a Broadway show tunes compilation. (I keep threatening to come out with the Disco Collection but not many people seem interested.)
You can do the samba to Shakira, the cha cha to Madonna, and the foxtrot to Barry Manilow. OK, maybe Barry qualifies as dorky too. My post was meant to be humorous but really, there are many options out there - we play many of them at Lloyd Center at the weekend dance sessions.
Also the standard music for the higher dances is really fun (think Paso Doble). The lower dances tend to be on the dorkier side, but it's really just an incentive by the coaches to make people work harder so they can do the higher dances with better music.
Terri - thanks for your comments about the music - I feel the same way - I think the reason it SOUNDS dorky is that the dance music beat is so strong so that we can hear it - but those tunes are CLASSICS (usually) and I'm happy that I know them.
It's true that they get better the higher up they go, but is that really an incentive?
Great blog, BTW.
Lisa
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