Transcript of Ballet Piano Podcast Series 1/Episode 10: Broadcast April 17th 2020 Taking part: MG: Matt Gregory CH: Chris Hobson AH: Akiko Hobson DY: David Yow ---BEGINS--- [MUSIC: Ballet Piano Podcast ident] V/O: You’re listening to the Ballet Piano Podcast: Lifting the lid on dance accompaniment. [Music ends] CH: Hello podcast fans and welcome back to episode 10 of the Ballet Piano Podcast. You join us for a very special celebration because we’ve finally made it through to the end of the ballet barre. [all: yay!] So the exercise that we finish off with at the ballet barre is the biggest beats we’ve done so far, and in French it’s referred to as grands battements. But before we start celebrating, setting off fireworks and heading down to the local boozer for a pint of your favourite beverage, please let me introduce our wonderful podcast team. I’m Chris Hobson, and of course, I am here with Matthew Gregory MG: Hello listeners CH: Akiko Hobson AH: Hello CH: And the delectable hashtag David Yow of Instagram DY: Hello CH: So, grands battements David, it can come in two forms, can’t it, we have your standard grands battements or we could have grands battements en cloche. DY: Yes, so grands battements means “big beating,” you’re beating the air, and you’re trying to also beat your legs together, so you’re practising for the centre practice when you’re going to jump and use a very quick action of your legs to get yourself, to help yourself get airborne into a big jump. So grands battements by itself would just be like starting from a fifth position, and you just battement the whole of your leg out either to the front, to the side, or the back, as high as you can, trying to keep your posture correct. And as you said earlier, you can add on to that battements en cloche. If you imagine a grandfather’s. the pendulum of a grandfather clock going from one side to the other side, well we do that in ballet, kind of, and we mimic that in terms of going to the front as high as we can and to the back, it can also be called battements balancés, which means that it will be balanced equally high at the front as it would be when you battement to the back. CH: So like the swinging of the big bell or something DY: Exactly. 1 Transcript of Ballet Piano Podcast Series 1/Episode 10: Broadcast April 17th 2020 CH: So shall we start off with, let’s say, going with the basic grands battements. DY: The basic I would normally go, and I’d choose, if it was very basic, I’d choose something like a 4/4, a march, and I’d do from a fifth position, I’d ask the students to do a grand battement to the front as high as they can, controlling coming down through a tendu and closing into fifth. So it might be timed, we had four counts in, we’d go [in rhythm] five and a six and seven and eight. And then we’d do grand battement one tendu and close, and battement tendu and close and let’s say we’d do that three times, and close and stay, and hold. We might do that en croix which remember means in the shape of a cross, so then we’d do the same sequence to the side, to the back and to the side. That would be a very very basic exercise. CH: Once of the first things I think as a pianist you’re listening out for on a basic grands battements, you’ve got the march there, and it’s, does it go, is the grand battement on the one, or is it on the upbeat. Does it go “and a one and a two,” or is it “three and four and one and a two”? And that’s a. you’ve got to be aware of that, haven’t you, you’ve gotta get that right, because you’re going to lead the whole class with you, and you could lead the whole class incorrectly. AH: Yeah. CH: If you don’t know that, so I think that’s the first basic one that I would always listen out for, regardless of what the level is I’m playing. Where the grand battement is. DY: And hopefully the teacher will have explained that clearly for you, for the students. MG: It’s very different tempos between those two. If it’s up on the one or up on the and. Very very different. AH: Because legs are heavy aren’t they. DY: And it does take a lot of energy to throw your legs up that high and control them coming down without hurting yourself. CH: Is it a little bit like at the end of a grand, when you get to grands battements, if you’ve had a long barre, let’s say you’ve been there for 45 minutes after a long break, a long summer break or whatever, or an hour, it must feel a little bit like finishing a 10k or, Matt, you’ve done a marathon, how hard was the last mile, you know, you’re just coming to the end of it, is that what grands battements can feel like? You know, you’re getting to the end of it? DY: It is a bit of a, when you’re starting to get, well, if we were going to use a 3/4, now that feels more like a release, because you’re swinging your leg and the music is matching what you’re doing, so you’re going up perhaps as quickly and then slowly coming down, up 2 3 down 2 3 up 2 3 down 2 3. And so there is a kind of a release to that kind of swinging motion, isn’t there really. MG: It’s a throw isn’t it. 2 Transcript of Ballet Piano Podcast Series 1/Episode 10: Broadcast April 17th 2020 DY: Yes. MG: It’s a throw of the leg, as opposed to a lifting. AH: If the teacher choreographed that way with the 3/4—because sometimes I experienced that, you know, with the 3/4 music, I am, I think that what you explained David, is the feeling that I have with the grands battements in 3/4, but sometimes I experience the teacher put the wrong movement to the wrong accents, so it becomes very uncomfortable with 3/4. However, you somehow have to manage to play 3/4 for this particular exercise, and that’s going to be a struggle for the musician. DY: What do you do then, if you know that it’s not going to work, what do you then do, do you carry on with what you were playing? AH: If I don’t know the person, the teacher, I just try to make it work, very uncomfortably, if I personally knew the person, I might suggest something, outside of the studio, but not when the class is going on. What do you think? CH: I’m with you, yeah, even if, I mean like, people we work with David, they know, they obviously know that we’re friends outside of the studio as well, but I would never correct you in the studio in front of dancers, to say, oh, I might, you know, or if you came home and said, what do you think, let’s say, oh maybe it would work better if you did it, you know, and a one, or one and, however, but I don’t think any of us, would you ever do that? You would never openly give feedback like that would you? MG: No, not in class. I would just always try and do what the teacher sang as best possible, and if the grand battement is up on the and, “and a one and a two” as deathly slow as that, would be musically just, you know, that it’s benefitting them. Or even if it’s “and a one and a two” slower is always better, certainly at company level. I almost go to an adage, something I would play for adage, with a bit of accent, you know. CH: If you’re just starting out in the ballet world as an accompanist, and you’re presented with a march, as David said, let’s go with your two most obvious options realistically, you could play, Do you hear the people sing? If it’s going up on the and a one, or you could play Dance of the Knights for going up on the one [sings the tune]. MG: Yeah CH: It’s not a march, but it’s got that dotted rhythm to keep it going, doesn’t it. And get you through, and from there, you can start moving away off to anything then, can’t you, you can increase your repertoire as, cast your net as wide as you want to, look for any sorts of marches, you know, you can use 6/8 Sousa marches, you can use anything, but you know it’s just something very very basic to hook on to at the start. MG: And to be kind to the dancers as well, they’re getting to maximum extension at this point, I mean, it’s quite aggressive isn’t it, grands battements.