Music.

 

Music is very important, some styles of music just don't suit a skater, and some go together like s/he was born to skate that piece. It's all about the match and the feeling the skater has for the music. A common mistake skaters make is skating 'through' the music, this means they look as though they are skating, but not even hearing the music. In this case the music choice is wrong. The ideal is a skater who skates 'to' the music, visibly feeling the music and listening as they skate, the feeling of unison between the athlete and the music they have chosen to showcase their skills to. So, below you'll find information on cutting music, formats of music and a listing of popular music used for skating programmes.

Cutting Music:

Well the choice between getting someone else to cut your music, or doing it yourself in entirely up to you. Some pro's will cut music for their pupils or recommend them to go and talk to someone who they know and trust will do a good job. Cutting music is something of an art and can take a while to perfect, of course if you have music editing software on your pc at home that will help alot but not everyone has access to such programs and thats why they entrust their music to a professional. First of all you must decide on the piece/s of music you want to make up your programme, it's an important factor to have light and shade to your music, rather than it staying the same tempo the whole way through and becoming monotonous. The best way to make sure you choose the best piece of music for your style and ability is just, some might say unfortunately, to listen to as many cd's as possible. Aha! You've found it. Three hundred and twenty seven cd's later, just when you though you were dropping of to sleep, bam, thats it, THE music. And that's what it's all about, something that makes you say WOW, so perseveer and you will come across something that just makes you want to SKATE.

Formats:

Compact Disc, Mini-Disc, or casette tape. Most ice rinks are equiped with the means of playing all three these days so the choice is basically up to you, out of the three the mini disc in the most resiliant. CD's can get scratched, permanently damaging the data recorded on them and rendering them useless (thats if you dont take care of them and leave them out without a protective cover). Tapes, well, they can get eaten by machines and if un-raveled you'd be lucky to get evevrything back in without some sort of damage having been done. Mini-Disc's are small, have a protective plastic shell on them and would take a good hammering, if stepped on for instance. Some arenas may not have the means to play, say, a mini-disc, so thats a very important factor to check out before traveling to another arena to partake in competition or test. This kind of information is usually stated in the 'Anouncement Package' for the competition so you'd have plenty time to make copies or anything else that might be necessary.

Some Music Ideas:

Well the amount of music out there that is skateable is limitless, and the choice is up to you, but here we have listed some popular names to get you started.

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