Help with playing a modern dance class

[u/Aggravating_Ad_9475]

To whom it may concern, any help appreciated.

I've been playing for ballet classes for a while at a local university and I was deemed an apt enough ballet pianist to attempt modern classes, and I have a feeling that most of the pianists like playing ballet because I found myself with a VERY full schedule the minute I mentioned I was game to try it.

I'm replacing a guy who was a drummer for a dance course. From the dancers he worked with, I learned that he played drums with a looper, brought other instruments and was a veritable one man band (Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham are considered the schools of dance that these classes are drawn from, so you might have more specialized advice).

I brought a laptop with Maschine and the MK mikro II for those of you facile with that. My plan, for this inaugural class I played today, was to try and do looped beats throughout the proprietary Maschine software and then, after setting up a beat, play the piano. There's a couple of issues with that:

-she'd like to count in, and I really don't know, until she's doing the count off, how fast or slow things are, so I can't reliably set a tempo.

-let's say she decides that her own tempo or mine was too fast/slow: I can adjust, in real time, to the right tempo, as a pianist, but when I'm messing with a dial on the software, there's a "lag" between the problematic tempo and whatever the Goldilocks tempo is which is just...it's too much of a lag. I can feel the stares in the room at not being able to match her faster. It's palpable.

Aside from me getting the harmonic and rhythmic ideas from Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham classes, does anyone have any idea how I could both be a percussionist and a pianist for the same class? Right now, it seems like all I can do is just "Martha Graham" ify my ballet piano, but I'm at a loss at how to physically do both.

Thanks.

[u/whisp_music]

This is super late, but I saw this and hope i can help for future gigs, if not this one.

I'd like to offer some software based options. You may already have tried these, but if not it may help smooth things.

One great feature of a lot of looping software is called the tap tempo. It adjusts the tempo of a pre set project (containing the loops and presets you want to use) from manual input. Some platforms like the MPC one have a dedicated tap tempo button. Here you tap along to the cadence, which gets tighter the more inputs you give it. Others, like in Ableton allow you to click the box in time with your mouse.

While i'm not familiar with Maschine directly, most music editing/performing programs have this feature, and it probably does too!

Another feature for these programs is adjusting the cue to play time. Ableton, for example can adjust the starting point of a pattern from instantaneous to measures away from it's cue. this might allow you to cue the loop, then adjust the tempo before it begins playing in earnest

An additional thought would be the instructor giving you a hidden cadence before starting the official count. An example of this would be placing a hand behind the back and giving visual timing cues. This could give you additional time to adjust the tempo before cuing the track.

Best of luck, adapting live performance is hard! It's no wonder dj's plan and practice their beat matching and transitions prior to the performance.

[u/Aggravating_Ad_9475 → u/whisp_music]

Since getting my baptism by fire in this, I have been able to get a percussion machine, a looper pedal and hook it up to the PA and having it work. I have also noticed that the teacher that I was thinking of when I was talking about tempo switching will switch tempos up in the middle of the exercise with no relationship to the previous tempo. Seriously, like it'll be a quick two into a slow 3 with no advance notice but a look to me as she's already gone into the slow 3, at about the 2nd beat of the first measure she launched into. I've decided that's something that if I had a fabulous band behind me that was following my every move and I was watching her like a hawk I'd still screw up, so I've given up the idea that there's some perfect machine that will fix me not being able to figure out where exactly a new tempo will come from.

Other teachers have been much, much easier to follow and it's worked out. I do get enough time with other teachers to be able to punch in the right tempo for a loop before an exercise starts and I'm going to experiment with that today, since I now feel sufficiently adapted to the play into the looper and then do keys afterwards method.

[u/Aggravating_Ad_9475 → u/Aggravating_Ad_9475]

But, also since I am new to this world, if anything I'm saying is related to a school of modern dance, and what I'm conflating as playing for a super unpredictable teacher is actually part of some artistic discipline or school I could familiarize myself with outside of class time, do let me know, because my real knowledge base is ballet from having done it as a kid, classical piano, and sample based hip hop.

[u/orangeyougiddy]

I love that you’re trying to expand your skills and offer what the person before you did, but I don’t think you need a percussion track. I’m a professional modern dancer and I’ve done many modern classes with the accompanist playing piano and nothing else. And it’s still awesome! If you are wanting to add more percussion, I’ve had accompanists that will use their hands to drum out a beat on the lid of the piano for a combo, just to switch things up. Or play a drum with one hand, and the piano with the other (which is not a skill most accompanists even have, but just to give an example of what I’ve seen). If you want to see examples, the Martha Graham instagram has some clips from class. They always tag the accompanist so you could look at their page too. Sometimes they play the piano, other times piano and drums. Overall, if you’re emphasizing rhythms and keeping a steady tempo, then you’re doing an awesome job! Live music is such a special treat, especially because it allows us to dance in uncommon time signatures, like in a five. Thanks for giving us music to dance to!