Second Piece -- Done

Just knocked You Are The One off my to-do list.

That's two dances finished in just over two weeks. Sing Your Freedom took me ten weeks; You Are The One (from the time I started working on it in earnest after I finished Sing Your Freedom) took me exactly two weeks. Round up to two and a half if you like -- that's probably about all the work I'd put in on it before I finished Sing Your Freedom.

Granted, Sing Your Freedom was far more of a challenge -- the main rhythm (that I followed, anyway) was five beats per measure for the verses, four for the chorus. During the breakdown I actually had one part where half the dancers are working in five-beat measures (following the lead guitar, plus they were dancer's counts*) and the other half are working in eight-beat measures (following the bass guitar) -- simultaneously.

Add to that the fact that it was my first ever piece in BMN and the dance kind of took on a life of its own as I worked on it... honestly, there are steps in there that I don't think I could even perform. (But oh, do they look good on the stage in my mind...)

After such a steep learning curve in Sing Your Freedom, I'm not actually surprised that I cut my composition time down to a fifth. Not only am I far more comfortable with the notation now, You Are The One has half the performers of Sing Your Freedom, plus it's two and a half minutes shorter.

Still, it's a nice feeling to be able to tell myself yes, I can compose an entire dance in two weeks.


*Dancer's counts -- When you count to the music according to the timing of the dance step, not the actual number of beats per measure that would be written on the sheet music. We have one exercise in our ballet class that's actually (from a musician's perspective) in 9/8 time, but we dancers count it as 1-2-3-4-5-6, because that's the timing of the steps.