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Two ways in which poor music editing can lead to students who quit dance

Recently, there was a great conversation about the value of music editing as it pertains to dance studios in the Facebook group Dance Teacher Network. As I’ve outlined previously, there is much more to quality music editing for choreography than simply making a cut and calling it a day. Good music editing for choreography takes into account song structure as well as employs a variety of audio engineering techniques when needed. But there are two specific cases where poor music editing can completely frustrate a dancer, and in extreme cases, may even lead a student to quit dance entirely!

There are two kinds of poorly executed music edits that can lead dancers to quit: Awkward fade-outs and too much repetition

The first kind of poor music edit is one that robs the dancer of the applause that he or she so very much deserves after performing a routine. This poor choice is when a dance group or soloist’s song is simply faded out without any thought as to how the music should flow from start to finish. These type of fade-outs usually have the performer(s) dancing off the stage at an awkward point in the song; at a point where the audience isn’t expecting the routine to end because the music does not sound like it’s supposed to end. So the dancer is all the way off stage before the audience realizes that the routine is over, and there is a hesitation before they start to applaud. AND, the dancer is now not on the stage to properly feel, and fully receive, the audience’s applause. In extreme cases, this leaves a young, fledgling dancer who is timid, or a little bit uncertain of their dancing abilities, feeling like the audience may not have really appreciated their routine after all. Instead, always put a button on the music to ensure the dancer(s) receive the applause they deserve while on stage!

The second, and even more direct route where a bad music edit can lead to a dancer quitting entirely is when there is too much repeating left in the music edit for a young soloist. This can happen no matter whether it’s a competition solo or a recital solo. When too much repetition is left in the music, it is extremely easy for a dancer to lose track of where they are in the song and thus where they are in the choreography. When the music repeats over and over (especially choruses that repeat and verses that repeat), the dancer doesn’t have the “help” of the music or lyrics to serve as auditory cues as to where they are in their choreo and what comes next.

Properly edited music for dance has all possible repetition removed. This is an aspect that the vast majority of DIY music editors (and even many audio professionals who have not studied the intersection of dance and music) fail to realize. Music with too much repetition retained leads to students who more easily lose track of where exactly they are in their choreo, an especially big problem in solos where you can’t cue off of another dancer. In these cases, the person creating the music edit doesn’t even realize that the repetition in the music is a big contributor to the problem. And if a student doesn’t not have the “help” of the music to help them remember their choreo, then that leads to frustration, which can lead to quitting dance entirely.

I’m sure you have viewed hundreds and hundreds of solo routines in competition as I have, and therefore you know that at a large comp, there will ALWAYS be at least one young soloist who runs off the stage sobbing because they forgot their choreo under the bright lights of the stage. I have come to the conclusion that poorly edited music containing too much repetition is a major contributing factor to these breakdowns.

Of course, sometimes a dancer who forgets their choreo returns later to the stage and performs triumphantly, but some of these dancers decide to quit dance forever right then and there. Why risk it? Why lose young dancers forever due to poorly thought-out music edits? Sure, there are sometimes when a student forgets their choreo, even with perfectly edited music. But no one wants their students to experience these kind of choreo-forgetting melt-downs.

You, as choreographer and teacher, pour your heart and soul into your choreo, into teaching your students, and cleaning their routines. You spend hours picking out the perfect costume to match your choreo. You deserve to have perfect, optimized music to match the effort you put into every other aspect of the dance, and you deserve to have music that actively helps your dancers remember their choreo instead of being a stumbling block.

This is why Squirrel Trench Audio music is created with the UTMOST care and precision — with song structure analysis to eliminate all possible repetition, ensuring that each music edit is a complete soundtrack, start to finish, that is ideal for choreography. Squirrel Trench Audio even has more than 1,000 clean song edits and remixes available in our archives. Check the listing for the songs that you want and email me or use this form to send me your music requests or for more information.

The economics of a competitive group dance routine

1902765_10152284887868103_160835853_n.jpgIt’s pretty amazing how much time, sweat, rehearsal, effort, and money goes into putting a competitive group dance routine on stage. I think it’s terrific and amazing that so many dance parents are able to give their kids the experience, discipline, camaraderie, and excitement of performing an intricate routine, complete with music, choreography, and costumes. While the kids on stage and the choreographers are the ones who get the medals and awards, really it should be the parents getting the awards for making it happen!

One thing I am always surprised about is how often these amazing routines go on stage, and are performed at competitions, with less-than-perfect music. Often times the music for these routines have jarring clicks, jumps, awkward timings, and mis-matched phrasing. While competitive dance is not judged on the quality of the soundtrack, bad music edits can make counting and choreography more difficult for the dancers since musical phrases can wind up with nonsensical timings like 9.7 beats instead of 8!

It surprises me that so much music with significant issues winds up on the competitive stage when you consider how much time, energy, and money goes into each dance. After all, the music is the foundation of the dance, and great music serves as the inspiration both for the dance teacher/choreographer as well as the dancers themselves. There are some studios, such as Mather Dance Company in the L.A. area, that go so far as to have original music commissioned for them by professional recording artists. While understandably, that kind of budget is out of reach for many studios, working with a skilled music editor is quite reasonable, especially when you think about the finances that go into each competitive routine that is put on stage. After all, we wouldn’t dream of putting a dancer on stage with a wrecked costume, so why would be put them on stage with wrecked music?

So let’s take a quick look at the cost to put one competitive dance on the stage. Oftentimes a unique music remix can be created for $199 or less, so I will wrap up our analysis by looking at that music cost as a percentage of the total cost of putting a routine on stage.

To make this calculation, I’m going to use conservative estimates. For many studios, the costs might be much less, while at others, they might be far more. For this example, let’s use a group routine with 15 dancers. If each of those company dancers is paying an average of $180 per month in studio tuition, and is in a total of 8 competitive routines, then their combined total studio fee, on a per routine basis is: 15 kids x $180 x 10 months / 8 total routines = $3,375 combined cost per dance. No matter if a guest choreographer is brought in, or the studio’s own teacher creates the choreography, that takes considerable effort, so we’ll budget $500 for the choreography. Next, costumes can easily run $125 per, for competitive routines, so that is another $125 x 15 = $1,875. But we haven’t even gotten to entry fees, let alone hotel and food costs that dance parents incur. If a competitive routine is entered into three regionals and one nationals, the entry fees can easily be $40 per regional and $50 per national. That is 15 x ((40 x 3) + 50) = $2,550. We are up to $8,300 for the combined routine cost, and we haven’t figured hotel or travel expenses yet.

Let’s assume that one of the regionals is near enough to the studio to not require a hotel, and let’s use a conservative estimate that the other two regionals will require one hotel night, and that the nationals will require four hotel nights. That’s a total of six hotel nights, so our calculation is 15 families x 6 nights x $110 / 8 routines = $1237. Let’s just round up to $1300 when you figure in food on the road. We’re also going to assume that families don’t have to purchase air fare to get to Nationals.

So our total cost, to put one group competitive routine on stage in all competitions is $3375 studio time + $500 choreography + $1875 costumes + $2550 entry fees + $1300 hotel costs = $9,600. Now imagine spending even as much as $200 for a spectacular custom music remix. That $200 represents 2% of the total cost in putting the routine on stage. Some would say that that is money well worth it. But I might be slightly biased as a music professional. Even if it’s not worthwhile to spend $200 on the music for a competitive group routine, it’s still very much worthwhile to spend $40 on having smooth and seamless music edits handled by a professional.

The economics of quality music in dance studios

Dance studio owners, who creates the music at your studio? Whose responsibility is it? Since most commercial songs are 3:30 to 4:30 in length, and most dance routines are between 2:00 and 2:55, who does the editing? Is it up to the students? Teachers? You? Or do you use a professional service?

In some studios, the music editing is up to the dance teachers. The teachers are the ones selecting the songs for the students, so it’s up to each one of them individually to get the song edited down to the correct length.

I’m going to suggest that this is not the best scenario to produce optimal results, especially if you run a high quality, top calibre studio.

As a dance teacher, your instructors are experts at many facets of dance, and teaching proper dance techniques to students. However, seamless music editing is not an expertise for a vast majority of dance teachers. The result is that your studio winds up with competition performances that might be visually beautiful, but have a variety of aural scars and mistakes. You wouldn’t put your dancers on stage with tattered costumes, so why would you put dancers on stage with scarred music? Especially for routines that are being graded in Regional or National Competitions, where one of the components is musicality. Especially considering that the music is pumped out to the dancers, audience and judges on high-powered sound systems at loud volumes…. where every pop and glitch is magnified.

Your dance teachers should be working on their choreography, not struggling to figure out how to edit music with no jumps or hiccups, which usually leads to using substandard music in their routines.

Once your teachers have selected the right song for their students, you, as the studio owner, should be enabling them to have their songs professionally remixed for dance routine length. Then your teachers will be using seamless music for their choreography.

You might wish that you could have professional-level music editing, so that your routines sound as good as they look. But the expense might be what’s holding you back. If that’s the case, I’d like to show you how you can use professional quality music editing for your routines AND at the same time make a small profit for your studio on the music. If that sounds appealing to you, email me with the number of recreational and competition students at your studio, and I’ll send you a spreadsheet that shows you how this would work for a studio of your size. It’s a win-win-win proposition for you, your studio, your teachers, and your students.

In a future post, I will lay out a financial case for top-flight remixes for top-flight competition groups.

Professional studios deserve professional music

It just makes sense…. when you are a professional dance studio with a high caliber of teachers and students, you deserve to have professionally edited music for your competitions and recitals. While certainly the focus of the studio is on dance, it’s pretty hard to dance well to music that is less than professional.

It doesn’t really make sense to ask your dance teachers to edit their own music. Your teachers are experts at choreography, turns, and motivating students to dance their best. It’s unreasonable to also expect them to understand the intricacies of song structure, phrase editing, normalization, beat alignment, zero-crossings of audio wave forms, and reverb, compression and equalization techniques.

But how is a dance studio owner to pay for the expense of professional music editing, when budgets are already extremely tight? Fortunately, there is a way for the studio owner to not only pay for professional music editing, but also make a small profit by providing individualized practice CDs to every single student of the studio. By charging a modest music fee to all students, to cover the cost of editing the songs they are in, plus providing them with an individualized practice CD with all of their group and solo songs, you will cover the music editing expense, the CD burning expense, and have a small profit left over for the studio. The size of the profit will depend on the size of your studio, plus a few other variables such as the total number of different songs your studio has edited for the season. Email me, and I’ll be happy to provide a spreadsheet showing sample income and expense projections for a studio of your particular size.

Wow. Imagine that. Professionally edited music for every song your studio uses in competition and recital, a customized practice CD for each and every one of your students containing all of the songs they are in, and your studio makes a small profit in the process. Win-win-win!

If you are a dance teacher, and you edit your own music, this blog has many tips for doing a more professional job. Start with the Top 5 music editing mistakes heard at competition, along with the cure for the most common one: How to avoid awkward fade-out endings.