Music Monday

This week's Music Monday includes two songs I'll be hearing at the U.S. International Figure Skating Classic this weekend. The first is "Turning Tables" by Adele, which is part of Lynn Kriengkrairut and Logan Giulietti-Schmitt's free dance, a program I am so excited to see!

"Turning Tables" by Adele

The second song is "Beethoven's 5 Secrets" by The Piano Guys. This piece is being used by Lindsay Davis and Mark Ladwig for their short program. I love the original song "Secrets" by One Republic, and this mixture with Beethoven's 5th Symphony is fantastic!

"Beethoven's 5 Secrets" by The Piano Guys

I'll be in Salt Lake City for the competition starting Thursday with the Senior Short Dance. It's going to be a great field of dancers with Americans Kriengkrairut/Giulietti-Schmitt, Madison Chock/Evan Bates, Anastasia Cannuscio/Colin McManus, Canadians Alexandra Paul/Mitch Islam (whose free dance I'm very much looking forward to seeing!), Aussies Danielle O'Brien/Gregory Merriman, and more!

Music Monday

Another Monday, another set of tunes! This week there are a couple of very different songs on my repeat playlist:

"Overcome" by Better Than Ezra

I bought this CD after Hurricane Katrina when I was exiled in Houston, and I listened to it constantly, enjoying the connection to home (Better Than Ezra is a local band). I still love so many of the songs from the CD, and I'm hooked on this one again.

"The Crisis" by Ennio Morricone (from the soundtrack to The Legend of 1900)

I first heard this song when Daisuke Takahashi skated a gorgeous exhibition to it at the Grand Prix Final last year. I loved it so much that I've included it in EDGE OF THE PAST, the upcoming sequel to LIFE ON THE EDGE. The song becomes an important symbol of some of the emotions in the story.

Hope you all have a great week! I'm leaving for Los Angeles on Friday and will be attending An Evening On Ice on Saturday, a wonderful show to benefit the US Athletic Foundation. Look for a report here next week plus hopefully photos and videos (if the lighting/camera situation works out!)

Music Monday

Monday comes too quickly, but maybe a little music will help make it brighter! Here are two songs I'm fawning over this week:

"It's Time" by Imagine Dragons

I heard this song during the trailer for the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which looks fabulous!) and immediately fell in love with it.

"With or Without You" by Vitamin String Quartet

 

"With or Without You" is one of my favorite U2 songs, and I was so excited to find this version done by the Vitamin String Quartet. It would be perfect for skating!

What are you listening to this week?

Music Monday

Need a little pick-me-up to start the week? Take a break and listen to some tunes on Music Monday! After watching the gymnastics and swimming Olympic Trials all week, I've been in the mood for songs that would fit well with Olympic montages. Here are a couple of them in my rotation:

"Kings and Queens" by 30 Seconds to Mars

"Ours" by The Bravery

What songs are you loving this week? Have a great Monday!

Music Monday

Welcome to another edition of Music Monday! There are two songs I'm spotlighting this week:

"The Face" by Kings of Leon

I love everything about this song, especially the beat. And lead singer Caleb Followill has one of those distinctive voices that meshes with the beat and makes the song one big powerful hit of awesomeness.

"Parting Words" (from the LOST soundtrack) by Michael Giacchino

This was another piece I discovered through the Young Artists Showcase. I was looking for other videos of Garrett Kling's choreography and found this. I was a faithful fan of the show LOST and loved some of the score but had never looked up the soundtrack. It's a beautiful piece of music and another one I'd love to see used in a competitive skating program.

Tell me what songs you're obsessed with this week!

A Little Ice Music

Even though I've only stepped on the ice once in my life, I love to choreograph skating programs in my head, many times to music that hasn't been used. Since I'm not a skater, I've taken to using some of this music for the fictional skaters in my stories. I would very much like to see programs performed to these songs/classical pieces in reality, though!

Here are some of my wish-list instrumental works for competitive programs: (each piece is linked so you can listen)

"Enjoy the Silence" by Tanghetto - Yes, it's a tango (which I've become very weary of), but it's a different spin on it and a great remake of the Depeche Mode hit.

"Victoria's Secret" from the Due South TV show soundtrack

"Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix" from Samson and Delilah performed by Stjepan Hauser

Piano Concerto 2nd Movement by Grieg - I've heard other parts of Grieg's Piano Concerto in skating programs but not this movement.

"Overture" from Prince Igor - "Polovtsian Dances" is the popular piece from Prince Igor, but I think this piece could work well for skating, also.

"Morning's Promise" by David Sun

"A Pine Forest in Winter" from The Nutcracker - The Grand Pas de Deux from The Nutcracker is the usual skating music, but I think this piece is more beautiful.

And some of my wish-list songs for exhibition programs:

"Sparks" by Coldplay

"Blue Dress" by Depeche Mode

"Overcome" by Better Than Ezra

"A Bad Dream" by Keane - could Lynn/Logan or Meryl/Charlie please skate to this? :)

"Decode" by Paramore

"Sunshower" by Chris Cornell (also on the Great Expectations soundtrack)

As you can probably tell from my music choices, my favorite exhibitions are moody or romantic. Fun and upbeat ones are great, too, but they don't stick with me like the more emotional programs do.

If you've seen performances to any of the music listed above, please let me know in the comments section below! I've watched a lot of skating over the years, but I'm sure there are some programs out there I've missed.

The Power of Music

When I sit down to write, I often listen to music. The wide variety of genres on my mp3 player - classical, pop, rock, movie scores, R&B - give me many different moods to sample. If I'm writing a skating action scene, classical puts me in the right frame of mind. If it's an intense emotional scene, I want to hear something with a lot of depth. Keane's "A Bad Dream," for example (someone needs to skate to this song, by the way). 

I like to work music into my stories, also. In LIFE ON THE EDGE, it plays a key role, not only in the skating aspect of the story but also in the relationship between the two main characters. There's something very powerful about the emotions that music can evoke. It can remind you of certain events, happy or sad, or certain people, and it can put you back in that place, experiencing everything you felt when you last heard the song or instrumental piece.

I've always made "soundtracks" to my stories - a list of songs that fit my characters plus songs/classical pieces I actually mention in the story. In this new age of e-books, I'd love it if there was a way to link audio files into e-books so the reader could listen to the soundtrack while reading, if so desired. I'm sure the copyright issues could be a huge barrier, but almost every song imaginable can be found on YouTube with one click, so perhaps this could be a possibility in the future. Is this a feature you would find interesting, too?

Below is part of the soundtrack for LIFE ON THE EDGE. When I first heard the song "Un-thinkable" by Alicia Keys on the radio, I knew the lyrics fit my main characters' situation perfectly. Have you ever heard a song and felt like it was written about you or something you experienced? Drop me a comment below!