I had the great pleasure of editing the music of a number of soloists at Cedar City, Utah’s On Stage Dance Studios last year in the January to March time frame. I’m happy to report that dance parents at On Stage Dance Studios have already begun having their music edited by Squirrel Trench Audio again this year, and I am happy that they are loving the results that we deliver. Here’s what another satisfied dance parent had to say today:
“Hi Morriss! Thank you so much! It’s perfect! You are definitely the best at what you do! The choreographer said you are amazing and that she can’t believe you were able to do it so that it blended so well and didn’t even sound like it had been cut. Not to mention how fast you are at getting it done too. Talk to you again the next time we need some music cut. 🙂 Have a great New Year! Thanks again”
There are more dance competitions to choose from these days than ever before. If you are a dance studio owner, how do you pick which ones to attend? Which ones are well-run and have the most fair scoring?
Squirrel Trench Audio is jumping into the void by presenting a survey of your satisfaction with dance competitions you’ve attended. This 10-page survey asks you to report your satisfaction level overall, and then breaks it down by asking your satisfaction with several aspects, such as judging fairness, dressing room accommodations, quality of photos and videos, etc.
Take the survey and find out how your results stack up with others’ experiences!
Crank this song up if you have a good sound system connected to your computer:
This song comes from the Weathervane/Shaking Through project; independent musicians and bands are tracked, and then the stems are raw tracks are uploaded for anyone to download and mix. This band is called Snowmine; fronted by lead singer and keyboardist Grayson Sanders. Produced by Brian McTear and Tracked/Engineered by Jonathan Low. You can find more about this song, band and project here: http://www.shakingthrough.com/snowmine
This sound file above is my original mix of this excellent song. I’ve had a bit of fun changing a few of the elements up a bit, but I’ve also tried to stay true to what I imagine the band’s vision for the track is, and let their musicianship shine through.
Have you ever noticed how hard it is to hear clearly in your studio’s rehearsal space? As a teacher, are you constantly having to yell to be heard above the music? There is a reason for that: most dance studios’ acoustic characteristics are about as bad as they can possibly be. Because all the walls are parallel (floor and ceiling of course too), and one or more walls are covered entirely with mirrors and windows, sound bounces around and around and around and around. This bouncing is known as echo or reverb. Often these types of spaces have severe flutter echoes.
The net effect of all this sound-bouncing (reverb and echo) is that it makes it hard to hear things inside the room clearly. And when you can’t hear clearly, it makes you want to turn the volume of the music up much too loud. It makes you have to yell in order for the kids to hear you, and even then, it can be hard for them to understand what you are saying, and also hard to hear the details of the music you are playing.
This is ESPECIALLY PROBLEMATIC FOR TAPPERS! Not only are tap shoes loud to begin with, but flutter echoes and loads of reverb make it really hard to hear the details and timing that your tappers are trying to achieve! No wonder that your tap students are having such a hard time trying to get in sync with each other…. they can’t hear what they are doing!
Another downside to the terrible acoustics inside your dance rehearsal spaces is that by cranking up the music to try to hear it better, you are annoying your neighbors, whether they are other businesses or other dance rehearsal spaces. If it’s another dance teacher in the next room, then they have to turn their music up to drown out yours… leading you to turn up your music even louder to drown out theirs, in a never-ending loudness war.
It’s time to stop the loudness wars in your own dance studio! It’s time to start hearing the music and the instructor more clearly inside the the studio space! It’s time to stop going home at the end of a long night of teaching with a headache and your ears ringing!
Fortunately, solutions are EASY and relatively inexpensive! But the difference, from a sonic perspective, is NIGHT and DAY!
Many dance studios have a cadre of talented and able-bodied Dance Dads who build amazing props for their dance daughters and dance sons. These heroic dads (and of course moms too!) then also have the job of carting said props long distances to various regional and national competitions.
Well, the next “prop” your studio’s dance dads should build is …. drum roll….. broadband acoustic absorbing panels.
Yes, you heard me right. For a total of about $150-$200 in materials, your handy dance dads (and moms!) can build six or eight 2′ by 4′ acoustic panels and hang them in your rehearsal spaces, bringing down the amount of flutter echoes and reverb to a reasonable and comfortable level. The result of which will be:
You can hear the music CLEARLY at a comfortable volume
You don’t have to yell as loud to be heard by your students
Students can more easily hear the instructions you are giving them
You don’t leave the studio with a headache every night from the volume of the sound system
You don’t annoy your neighbors with OONCE OONCE OONCE all night long
If you have the budget, you can purchase pre-made acoustic panels and traps, but dance studio owners can save a few bucks by enlisting the help of capable dance parents! More about how to build these acoustic traps coming up soon, so stay tuned! If you can’t wait another minute to find out more, here’s an example of how it looks/works installed in a dance studio: Acoustic panels in a dance studio. Here’s a nice and short little YouTube video that explains quite clearly how to build them. My only advice beyond this video is to use a nice-looking fabric for the face so that you have something beautiful to hang on your walls instead of burlap.
This song was remixed expressly for a dance teacher at a nationally-recognized dance studio, using both a swing and live version of Aerosmith’s Walk This Way. This remix was used as the basis for tap choreography for a small group at regional and national competitions.
Here’s how it looked at Nationals:
To learn more about how I created the ending for this song, check out this post and video about avoiding awkward fade-outs.
If you are looking for an original remix for your next choreography, check out my services here.
As we gear up for the 2011-2012 dance season, Squirrel Trench Audio has been super busy getting music ready for a new slate of superlative dance routines.
Some dance studios have started their junior, teen, and senior summer camps, and their group numbers have their soundtracks finished. Many of these are character and concept pieces – routines that tell a story. Several are tap pieces, several are jazz pieces, and at least one is a character piece. All of them are the foundation for winning performances. When the music is generating excitement for the kids, that enthusiasm is going to translate to the dance floor, which will make for excited audiences, which makes the kids more excited, in a positive virtuous cycle.
In addition to numerous remixes prepared for a competition level studio, I’ve also just recently edited a beautiful lyrical piece for an older teen, as well as a character medley for a dancer in Texas. With modern technology, Squirrel Trench Audio knows no bounds… I deliver your finished song or remix as an mp3 in a private folder just for you or your studio.
If I have time, I will post some music remixes that I created for dancers last season that have been retired, so you can get an idea of the quality work that Squirrel Trench Audio delivers – quality that is equivalent to what a major recording studio would deliver. Also, Squirrel Trench Audio is on Facebook, so feel free to “like” our page.
If you are getting your music ready for the 2011-2012 dance season, check out our services, or email me for more information about our music editing and remixing!
Here it is, the Fourth of July. While families kick back and grill up some hamburgers and hot dogs and enjoy fireworks, dance studio owners are trying to catch their breath now that recitals are over, and the only thing left in the current dance season is Nationals.
Right after Nationals are dance camps, and for some studios, that is when new music is introduced for next season’s choreography. For those studios, now is the time to start prepping the music, in time for their dance camp debut!
How is music handled at your dance studio? Who edits the music to the right length for routines? Is it left up to each teacher to supply their own music? Is it a hodgepodge of aunts, uncles, spouses, friends, and students, all of whom have varying degrees of musical talent and audio editing skill? Or do you have it professional produced by a studio engineer who not only knows music, but understands the demands of skillful editing expressly for dance choreography?
If you are currently producing your dance music via the hodgepodge/patchwork method, and are tired of the hassle of pulling together CDs from all different people, I would urge you to consider Squirrel Trench Audio’s Soup-to-Nuts Music Editing Service. With this program, ALL of your studio’s music will be professionally edited AND each one of your students will receive their very own practice CD with all of their songs for the season. Not only that, you will also get a set of complete teacher CDs as well as a set of backup CDs. And by charging a nominal music fee to each of your students for their practice CD, your studio will actually make a small profit on the whole thing.
You pour your heart and soul into teaching your dancers, making sure every detail is right in their choreography, their costume, hair and make-up. Shouldn’t the music be as crisp and perfect as it can possibly be as well?
And what could be better? You, as studio owner, no longer have to worry about the music that your teachers are using, your students each get their own practice CD, your teachers each get CDs with all of their songs, you get a backup set of CDs for competition, and the studio makes a small profit.
It’s a win-win-win situation. Currently, Squirrel Trench Audio is doing this program for OnStage Dance in Stratford, Ontario. We have the opportunity to provide this package to two more dance studios this season. If you are interested, email me right away. Tell me approximately how many students your studio has, and I will email you a spreadsheet to show you how the financials could work for your particular studio.
Break a leg at Nationals and for the 2011-2012 dance season!
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.
