The intention of this post is to give an overview of how phrasing in music can be employed in improvising music for a ballet class. These techniques come from a system called The Motosonus Method, which was created by Don Caron and Elizabeth Carlssohn, the composer and producer, respectively, for the ballet class music series, The First Class Albums.
Let’s Define Phrasing
Phrasing is used in music similarly to the way the human voice is used in poetry. It encompasses, in addition to several other things, where to take breaths, where the high points and low points are, preparing for what is coming next or finishing up what just took place, as well as shape, tension, relaxation and many other elements that are characteristic of good story-telling, which is what phrasing is about.
How Do You Apply It?
When music is used to drive dance, as it is in a ballet class, the phrasing tells the dancers about the way to move. This is done, to give one example, by prolonging the culmination of the musical phrase, which will help the dancer to increase a stretch a bit longer and wait a little longer before releasing the working muscles.
Small Sub-Phrases
Musical phrasing can also be optimized at the lowest level, using individual notes and small groups of notes to make micro-phrases. This is handy in ballet exercises that use the smaller muscle-groups and are require movements that are quite fast (i.e. frappes or degages). As an example, the ballet accompanist can create four or perhaps eight mini-phrases inside the primary phrase. Each one of these mini-phrases corresponds with a single frappe, or degage whichever the case might be.
Assignment Help Australia – The pianist attains this through the use of staccato and tenuto. The stretched notes function well when the working leg is going away from the body and the short, accented notes go with the snap of the foot, or the exact moment when the foot gets to its destination. These methodologies make the ballet class music quite a bit more focused and effective, both for the participants in the class and for the teacher of the class.
Conclusion
Anybody desiring to write music for a ballet class needs to be tuned into the best way to use the phrases of the music, following the examples above. This is also helpful for ballet masters who will be able to locate a better quality of music for their classes when they are aware of the link between music and movement, as is detailed in The Motosonus Method.