Tag Archives: jazz

Welcome to Squirrel Trench Audio!

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Welcome! Squirrel Trench Audio is proud and honored to be the official sponsor this week of DanceMom.com’s Dance Mom of the Year Contest! It’s only fitting, since this week, the contest is all about the music used in dance. Break a leg to all of the Dance Moms competing! And we are also excited that we will be giving the winner a FREE music edit!

The mission of Squirrel Trench Audio is to ensure that all dancers have gorgeous, beautiful, funky, grooving, and/or soulful music to dance to. Towards that end, there are many things you may find valuable on this site. We have:

• Tips for all you music editors out there, including how to Avoid Awkward Fade-Outs, Understanding Song Structure, and CD Care Tips

• Songs that are a little off the beaten path in the categories of Jazz, Tap, and Lyrical

• For those of you looking for a professional music editing service, we also offer song edits for $39, or custom remixes starting at $74. Some samples are here, and Testimonials are here. We can also fix music that has already been edited, but that still have jumps, clicks, or glitches in it, as well as master music for proper volume, if it has sections that sound too soft in competition halls.

Feel free to browse this site, and ask me any questions at any time. I can be reached via email at: morriss@squirreltrenchaudio.com.

Break a leg, all you Dance Mom of the Year contestants, and break a leg to all the other dance parents and dancers as you enter another year of exciting competitions!

More group CDs bound for competition!

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Here are just a few of Squirrel Trench’s original remixes for small to large groups in jazz and tap categories that will be competing (and in most cases premiering) this weekend in Springfield, Massachusetts at USTD.

I can’t even begin to fathom the number of hours that went into producing these gems… a true labor of love. We’ll see if it translates into scoring well for the dancers. I can’t wait to see them performed!

Testimonials for Squirrel Trench Audio

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Normally I like to contribute many ideas and techniques for how YOU can edit your own dance routine music better, but I would be remiss if I didn’t occasionally post some of the glowing testimonials that are coming in for my Squirrel Trench Audio music editing and remixing work. It is truly a pleasure to make so many dance parents, dance teachers, and dance studio owners happy by providing solid, click-free, glitch-free, well-structured music for their superlative choreography.

Here are a couple testimonials; more can be found on the Testimonial page:

“You are a rock star! This is amazing! I can not wait to see her rock out on stage to this version!”

— a dance mom in Texas,
December 17, 2011

“Oh my goodness!  This is great! I can’t wait to have her listen when she gets home from school today.  I will have her bring it to gym and see what the coach thinks about timing.  I’m sure it will be great.  Thanks so very much! That was fast!”

— parent of a gymnastic student in Ohio,
who needed a music edit/remix for a floor routine
October 11, 2011

“It sounds great; I love your work!”

— Miss Daysha, dance teacher at
OnStage Dance Studios, Cedar City Utah
February 21, 2012

“Thank you! It’s perfect….I’ll be sending some more requests soon.”

— Miss Kimberly, dance studio owner at
Dance for Joy, Brielle, New Jersey
November 2, 2011

Soloist’s CDs are ready!

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It’s that time of year… when the anticipation reaches a peak with the first dance competition of the season coming up in just days or weeks. The students have been rehearsing for months. Costumes have been selected and have arrived. Now it’s time to make sure that all of the studio’s music is perfect too. Squirrel Trench Audio has been busy burning-competition ready CDs on high quality Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs, complete with competition-ready labels. Note the nine rectangular spaces on the lower part of the CD; these spots enable the studio to write the number of the routine on each CD for every competition entered.

Competition CDs are ready to go

If you are a studio owner, and you want to make your music prep this easy, contact me about our Studio programs– a full service where you simply select the music for each dancer, and receive a set of rehearsal CDs for each student, as well as competition-ready CDs for performance. With this program, it is possible for the studio to make a small profit on their music each year instead of incurring an expense.

For more information, email me. The sooner the better, because the 2012-2013 dance season will be here before you know it!

Unique music source for choreographers

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At many competitive dance studios, guest choreographers are invited to create routines for the most advanced students.

If you are such a choreographer, and want to bring a unique world-class song remix to your students along with the unique world-class choreography you are creating, look no further than Squirrel Trench Audio. I can take your concept and create a unique song interpretation which can then provide the inspiration for your unique choreography. If you are a world-class choreographer looking for unique music which works in a competitive dance format, send me an email.

Squirrel Trench Audio has created the music for a Mr. Junior Nationals Superstar winner in 2011.

Best place for dance teachers to get unique music

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I love monitoring the search terms that people are using to find this Squirrel Trench Audio web site. And here’s my new favorite: “best place for dance teachers to get unique music.”

YES! Squirrel Trench Audio IS the best place for dance teachers to get new, original, and unique music. One of my all-time favorite assignments is to take an existing hit, for instance Martin Solveig & Dragonette’s Hello, and give it a new twist that no dance competition judge has ever heard before (I’ve got a spectacular remix of Hello that will premier in competition in March 2012).

The best part is, with a unique Squirrel Trench Remix, there is NO chance that any other dancer will have the same music. Someone else might have the same song, but the Squirrel Trench Remix will be BETTER, and will impress the judges much more since the audio portion of the routine will be unlike anything they’ve heard before. It won’t be the same-old, same-old that they’ve heard on the radio or on stage dozens of times before.

One of the reasons why a Squirrel Trench Remix is better is that most dance songs are looooong so that they get playing time in clubs. I can take the long song and condense it down (retaining the integrity of the musical structure), giving it as much dramatic impact as possible. The Squirrel Trench remix will hold the judge’s ears’ attention while your student(s) holds the judges eyes’ attention with the dance routine.

Not decided on exactly the right song for your dance routine yet? Give me an idea of the age of dancer, type of dance (lyrical, jazz, tap, acro, contemporary, etc.) and the personality of the music you want, and I’ll give you some suggestions.

So if you are a dance teacher, dance parent, or dance studio owner, and you are looking for new, unique remixes, shoot me an email and I’ll create a unique remix just for you!

I know you are struggling with cutting your music

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I know you are out there, and you are frustrated. You are a busy dance teacher, and you’ve got a boatload of choreography you have to create and teach. And in addition, you have to pick out the perfect music for each of your groups and soloists. Now you have the task of cutting down a song that is 4:10 to a competition-ready length of 2:45, or to a recital-ready length of 2:00. You grab your trusty music editing program of choice, and start listening. You stare at a bunch of strange squiggly lines on the screen, trying to figure out what-in-the-heck they mean. How on earth do these squiggles represent MUSIC? They look like a bunch of scribbles that your 3-year-old toddler drew in pre-school! They sure DON’T tell you where the bass guitar plays a riff, or the saxophonist starts wailing on a solo!

Instead of pulling your hair out, trying to figure out what needs to match up to what, just shoot me an email and I’ll solve your music cutting problems for you. And all at a VERY reasonable price! And maybe save you a from a few gray hairs in the process. After all, your students test your patience often enough, you don’t need more aggravation from trying to wrangle your music into shape!

Behind the scenes of a Beatles remix

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It’s been a pleasure, a joy, and labor of love creating the Beatles remix called Somehow Someway. I can’t wait to see the choreography for this routine performed at Regionals and National dance competitions in 2012.

I’d thought I’d give folks a sneak peek at what went into the creation of the music for this piece.

More behind-the-scenes peeks of this remix will be posted soon. Let me know if this is useful to you, and I’ll do this for other remixes I’ve made. Questions? Comments?

Solos, duos, trios, and gymnastic floor routines

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It’s been a blast doing some fun music editing and remixing for this dance season’s soloists, duos, trios, as well as for a number of gymnastic floor routines. I’m really excited for all of these songs to be performed by a wide age-range of students, anywhere from ten to eighteen years old. The songs range from jazz to electronic to pop, and artists range from Martin Solveig to Club des Belugas to Dee Dee Bridgewater.

If your son, daughter, or student still needs their music professional edited for dance routine length or gymnastic floor routine length, send me an email, and I’ll try to get it done for you right away!

Video tutorial: How to Avoid Awkward Fade-outs (Part 2)

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Here is Part 2, in which I explain how to avoid awkward fade-outs when editing songs for your dance routines:

In case you missed it, here’s Part 1 of this video tutorial, where I explain why this is important.

Let me know what you think, and what aspects of editing music for dance you’d like me to cover in future video tutorials!