Tag Archives: protection

Protect your hearing at dance competitions

hd-bw-solo_1024x1024We all love the music that our routines are choreographed to, and that’s why dance competitions usually play your music really LOUD. Sound pressure levels of greater than 95 decibels are common in competition venues. You can easily get an approximate measure of the sound pressure level of any environment you are in with a free smartphone app. (I use Decibel Meter-Free for iPhone.)

Most dance teachers and choreographers are unaware that exposure to sound sources at these volumes (94 db or more) for more than 60 minutes consecutively can cause permanent hearing loss (source:National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)).

That is why I ALWAYS use hearing protection at dance competitions. You can use the cheap, foam type found in pharmacies, but that type tends to muffle the sound, and is therefore not enjoyable to use. I use Ear Peace protectors, which reduce the volume uniformly across all frequencies. The result is that the music sounds just as good as without the ear plugs, but the sound pressure is reduced so that you don’t damage your hearing or leave the competition with a splitting headache. I find that music actually sounds BETTER at competitions or rock concerts with the ear plugs than without, because at super-loud volumes, music actually distorts in your ear drums. Best of all, you can get a pair of HD Ear Peace protectors, with carrying case, for less than $20.

The other great thing about Ear Peace protection is that you can still have conversations with people that are next to you.

Just as you wear sunglasses in bright sunlight situations, consider hearing protection to be the equivalent device for your ears in loud settings. Do yourself a favor and protect your ears the next time you are at dance competition, especially when the solution is quite inexpensive.

Proud to sponsor YPAD’s new memberships

ypad-logo-webI am proud to be an Advisory Panel member of the organization Youth Protection Advocates in Dance (YPAD). YPAD has just launched a membership option to further their mission to educate dance choreographers, studio owners, teachers, parents, and competition owners about the harmful effects of creating hypersexual routines for students.

And therefore, it is natural that Squirrel Trench Audio, your source for clean edits and remixes for dance studios worldwide, would be among the first to help sponsor YPAD’s new membership levels. In this exclusive opportunity, becoming a YPAD member will give you a discount of 10% off all of the clean music in the Squirrel Trench-Legitmix catalog. (There are currently more than 300 clean edits and remixes in the catalog, and more are frequently added.) Becoming a YPAD member will not only help further YPAD’s education mission, and get you other benefits, but it will also enable you to buy your competition and recital clean edits and remixes at a 10% discount.

Learn more about YPAD Membership here, and then make the purchase to get your Squirrel Trench-Legitmix discount code!

Check out the Squirrel Trench Audio catalog of clean edits and remixes on Legitmix:

Get more Squirrel Trench remixes at Legitmix

You can view clean edits and remixes by dance style here.

What happens if my CD won’t play at a dance competition?

For those of you who make, create, remix, cut, or edit music for dance competition, there is NO worse feeling in the world than watching your dancers get announced, take their opening position, and then….. nothing. Silence. The competition emcee then asks the dancer to leave the stage while the technical difficulties get ironed out.

At a dance competition in Worcester this past weekend, something similar, and yet worse, happened twice to a dance studio. The song played about halfway through, with no problems, and then abruptly went silent in the middle of the song. Fortunately these dancers are already pros at a young age, and finished out their dance routines with no music, with only the cheers from the crowd to encourage them in the last half of their dances.

There is NO REASON this should EVER happen to you.

Without knowing more about how this particular studio created their CD-Rs (Recordable CDs), the likely culprit is the media. You can buy cheap CD-Rs just about anywhere nowadays. Unfortunately these cheap CD-Rs often have bad batches, where something went amiss in the manufacturing process, rendering them unplayable.

To avoid this from happening to you, only use the BEST CD-Rs… which are made by Tayio Yuden, now owned by JVC. These are the gold standards. The optics are impeccable. The burn is greater. The digital data is held more distinctly. And best of all, they are the SAME PRICE per 100-pack than any other brand of CD-R. So what are you waiting for? If you inkjet label your CDs, here is a link to a 100-bundle of white inkjet printable Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs for about $35 on Amazon. If you want the silver version and label your CDs with a Sharpie marker, you can get 100 silver-faced Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs for a few bucks less. A 100-pack of Staples brand CD-Rs costs the same. Remind me how much Staples knows about maximizing optical laser beam recognition and tracking in CD-Rs again?

This CD may look cool, but it is scratched beyond playability. This is what can happen to CDs stored in dance bags without protection.

In any case, you should always burn a backup CD of all of your songs, just in case your primary CD gets scratched. If you print multiple songs on your back-up CD, burn it with four or five seconds between each song so that the emcee has time to stop the CD player before the next song begins.

If you put your CDs in your dance bag, MAKE SURE to seal it inside a plastic baggie. Otherwise, dirt from the dance bag will work its way into the CD sleeve and wreak havoc on the silver surface, scratching it beyond readability.

I have no relationship or endorsement from JVC/Taiyo Yuden, but I can unequivocally state that Squirrel Trench Audio uses ONLY JVC/Taiyo Yuden for burning competition CDs and backups.