Well – I’d sworn I was done with the Big Apple edits.
However…
You know how it is – the more you look at something, the more you see the imperfections – and having done the original audio sync videos, I was starting to see some really strange things. To cut to the chase – they made me realise I’d not done a good enough job. So here’s two much better versions. I hesitate to call them the final ones, but I very much hope they are.
After working for far too long on my last little editing project – Fixing the Apple – I thought it might be a fun idea to try another version of the same routine, but this time using Solomon Douglas‘ wonderful modern version of the Big Apple track. Since this is the track which is nearly always used these days for dancing Frankie’s Big Apple – with good reason, as it’s an excellent version – I thought it might be a fun project. As well as being a very useful thing to have as a teaching tool – to have the modern music accompanying the original routine would just make it that little bit easier to learn from.
If you’ve been swing dancing for any length of time, you’ll have heard of the Big Apple. Most of you have probably learned the Big Apple, or at least part of it. You know – the less fiendish parts, up to London Bridge, before it all gets a bit crazy.
Well – crazier. Anyway – after a recent workshop, and watching various badly synced versions on YouTube, I got it into my head that the source material is in serious need of fixing.
Following on from At The Chase 2018: Competition DJing Pt 2 (Strictly Lindy) – this is the final part of my Chase competition DJing… and far and away the most challenging to find music for – for two reasons.
First – it’s probably the highest-level competition I’ve yet to play music for. Even though this is just a qualifying round for the cup (the final will be in 2019) – qualifying for the qualifiers is far from easy… Secondly – unlike the other Chase competitions, I was providing the music for the final. So… no pressure.
I was thinking about a few of the stranger things that have happened in the time I’ve been DJing, and thought it would be amusing to make a list for your entertainment. So in no particular order:
Another set-list – this time (on request) from yesterday’s hugely enjoyable post-workshop dance at the wonderful T C R Hub in Barnard Castle.
This post is a follow-on from At The Chase 2018: Competition DJing Pt 1 (Mix & Match) – where I started to chronicle my decisions behind choosing music for the Chase Festival competitions. The Strictly Lindy prelims had the same format as the Mix & Match – which is to say three heats, each with three songs, each song for 60 – 70 seconds, two medium and one fast. Nice and simple.
As before, my key criteria were to have songs that were fun, swung hard, and that maintained a good energy for the time I’d be playing them. If I were playing the whole song it’d be a different matter – but a one phrase section of quiet can eat a large chunk out of a sixty second running time, and I wanted people to really have a chance to go to town.
So here we go…
The first time I went to Herrang – which all those years ago was pretty much our only way of getting to quality Lindy Hop classes – I found a musical paradise. There was SO MUCH INCREDIBLE MUSIC that I’d never heard the like of before – and I came back home with songs like Jeep Jockey Jump and One O’Clock Jump ricocheting around in my brain. At that time, I had no idea what these songs even were – the word “swing” just suggested some guy called Glenn Miller, and Glenn Miller meant exactly one thing – In the Mood. I’d barely even heard of Count Basie… but I absolutely had to find out more.
