This series of albums was inspired by Andrew’s work on the videos for the new Associate Training and Assessment Programme at the Royal Ballet School. This programme doesn’t have a syllabus as such – rather, teachers are encouraged to put their own enchaînements together for students, using a prescribed vocabulary of movements.
In class, a teacher may want a ‘fast 2/4’ or a ‘slow minuet’ or a ‘steady mazurka’, and this series is designed to offer an easy way to access music in this way. As well as being organised by time signature, these albums are also ordered by tempo so if, for instance, a teacher wants to teach an exercise on a medium tempo waltz and gradually speed it up through the term as students develop confidence with the steps, this can be done easily by moving forward on the album week on week.
The 3/4 album contains Minuets, Flowing 3/4s, Mazurkas, Polonaises and Waltzes, starting slow and getting faster.
The 2/4 album contains Tangos, Choro pieces, Marches, Polkas, Reels, Hornpipes and codas ordered by tempo.
The 6/8 and 4/4 contains Classical 6/8s as well as jigs and tarantellas, and flowing, funky and swung 4/4s.
Click an album to listen