Choice

[yingying932]

I can't tell weather I should do dance or music next year. I have to make a choice because I will also be going to college. I have studied dance and music for an equal period of time but, I am a stronger dance student than music student.

[Mel Johnson]

Which makes you happier to do? Do that.

[Swanilda]

I actually h ad to make this decision myself. I had played the violin since I was 6 years old and loved it, but by high school I had to pick...what it came down to for me was that I had more professional potential in ballet than I did in music. I guess for everyone it's different.

[Guest Raymonde]

I am a fan of the double artist approach. Yes, chose one for a career. But don't say goodbye forever to the other. Especially if you love it, too. All the great artists I have come to know or read about usually have that passion for piano or painting or dressage or landscaping or something. I find personally that it gives one perspective when approaching your professional craft.

 

Playing the piano meant for me that I could accompany ballet & flamenco classes in college which is really an art unto itself. I also got to compose a couple ballets later in my career. I've enjoyed at times choreographing with a score in front of me. I've prepared a score for a symphony orchestra that my ballet company was

working with and gone up to conductors and pointed to scores and sung how I wanted it played. They are sometimes miffed and sometimes impressed but it makes the rehearsal go quicker.

 

Historically, ballet and opera are siblings. Thus, the structure of training that happens in a ballet class is very similar to the structure of practice a classical musician might undertake.

 

So take some college music theory and sightsinging classes, anyway. Your school may require some of that anyway. It proves a valuable tool to have if you are a ballet dancer/teacher/choreographer.

Edited February 9, 2006 by Raymonde