We filmed some student waltzers waltzing at Toronto Dance this evening, under the fine tutelage of Chuan Chee. Or rather, Kat filmed, I watched. Chuan graciously permitted the shoot, having cleared it with his students, in exchange for the promise of a link on my (!) website. So
here it is: 3 years old and it took just one for them to become the biggest school in Toronto, with over 500 students and lessons in Latin, Ballroom, Salsa, Bachata, Merengue, Swing, West Coast Swing, Lindy Hop, Tap, and *Wedding*.
And what does this have to do with the banjo? Kat's doing research towards making a short film version of a song of mine called "We're in the Movies," of which the less said (for now) the better, except that Chuan tells us it is a somewhat sluggish version of a Viennese Waltz (58 to 60 measures per minute, as compared to a slow waltz, which features 29-30. My song runs at about 54. The slow waltz was what they were learning tonight.)
We recorded the song today too, in an elementary school gym, with tremendous help from James Thomson on double bass. I play the song very plainly, it being a difficult thing to ornament 3/4 time while frailing. If anyone has any tips to mastering the clawhammer waltz, I would appreciate them. Perhaps when the time comes to do some real solid recording, I'll ask my new neighbour
Chris Coole to come in and frail some of his delicate chiaroscuros around my rusty-squeezebox sound.
1 comment:
NB to this post: All photos of Chuan Chee are from the Toronto Dance site, used with permission.
Also, the official Toronto Dance impression of my Viennese Waltz was not that it was "sluggish" but simply that it was "slow." "Sluggish" implies a judgment that he did not feel. The use of that more *colourful* adjective was just my way of taking the piss out of myself.
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