Rob Colling

A mailout for an online arts directory called Glartent, featuring an AI-generated picture of three people sitting at a laptop, engaged in a creative task. The woman on the left is holding her phone and looking over it at the laptop screen. She appears to have the correct number of arms and fingers. The man on the right is operating the laptop trackpad with his left hand. His right hand disappears up the shirt of the man in the centre, who is holding his phone in his left hand and operating the laptop's trackpad with his right hand. His hand and wrist do not join up with the rest of his arm, and the fingers on his hand are weirdly distended and look like noodles. On the desk are various pots full of paintbrushes and an antique camera from the early 20th century, mounted on a modern desktop camera stand and apparently in use as a livestream camera. In the background of the shot is a fourth person, a bearded man, who clearly has three arms. He is wearing a grey denim shirt from his chest downwards, and a dark grey-green blazer from his chest upwards. The text surrounding the picture extols the virtues of AI and how it can benefit the reader's arts organisation.

"We are an arts directory using AI! See how great AI is! It can make things like this picture, where two men are jointly operating a laptop with one hand each! And one of those hands isn't joined to their body! And the guy in the background has three arms! AI is so great! Join us!" #ummmnothanks

Thanks for the thought! ☺️ Actually it's more of an issue for the skaters than for me so far. I just do as I'm told, and if they're not able to give me the green light yet then I don't start work. But of course it's just stacking up problems for later. I fully expect a tidal wave of work in June. 🫣

Ha. Dammit. Great minds think alike. I've been using Sound Advice as the name for a series of how-to videos I'm planning.

Said source also confirms that the two dances will be half-and-half, back to back. So I can only assume everyone is going to have to use the same music for both, so they'll have to restructure their quicksteps to work over a straight rhythm rather than swing. This is about to get MESSY. 😂

OK, I've had confirmation from another source that it is (we think) the rhumba d'amor, not the plain rhumba. And from what you said it sounds like they're considering the tempo of the amor to be 88bpm, rather than the 176bpm they quoted in 2017/18. So they're counting at half speed this time.

Crikey. Presumably this was rhumba d'amor, then, rather than just the plain old vanilla rhumba?

I couldn't possibly say. :) But yes, it's becoming a worry!

So, in short, I'm reeeeally hoping they pick something else! 😂

And even if they are at the same tempo, one is behind the beat and one is right up on the beat, and one has straight time and one has swing time. I mean, skaters are going to ask me to fix this for them, and even with 43 years of musical experience I may not know how to make it work. 🫣

I guess they're intending to slow down the rhumba and speed up the quickstep...? Which would be difficult, because as i said the quickstep is actually 224 not 112. So maybe they're going to speed up the rhumba and slow down the quickstep?? I really don't know how this would work.

So we have a rhumba at... what is it, 170+ bpm? Which has a very laid-back feel and straight time. And a quickstep which is 224bpm, feels very urgent and up on its toes, and must by definition be in swing time. No one piece has both. I can't even think of a * genre * that has both. :)

But because it's given as 112bpm, skaters think they can just pick anything that's at 112bpm and it will work for a quickstep. Aaaand we get absolute judging travesties like LaLa skating a Finnstep to a foxtrot rhythm, so the rhythm doesn't match the steps, and somehow nobody penalising them for it!

The main problem is that the ISU counts quickstep tempo half as fast as all the other rhythms for some reason. If you speed up a foxtrot to double the speed, you get a quickstep, so really the quickstep tempo should be quoted as 224bpm rather than 112bpm.

I heard that too, and I'm a little worried about it to be honest! There is no music in the world which has both of those rhythms in it. They are absolute opposites.

So choosing music was extremely difficult for the last two seasons, and it was hard to make an artistically coherent RD. For this Olympic year I'd love to see the required RD pattern matched with a time period or style where that rhythm was actually popular. Let's see some really coherent, fun RDs!

Those same RD requirements suggested jive as one style we could choose. But jive requires a swing rhythm, and paso requires a straight (non-swing) rhythm. The two are completely incompatible and should never have been suggested together.

Likewise last year the ice dance technical committee asked for a 50s, 60s or 70s RD containing a paso. Well, there were loads of suitable pasos in the 60s and 70s, but 50s music was much more likely to have a swing rhythm, making it unsuitable for a paso. Basic music theory, innit. :)

What do I mean by "incongruent music requirements"? Two seasons ago they asked for a high-energy 80s RD containing (for juniors) a foxtrot. But there were hardly any foxtrots released in the 80s, it just wasn't a fashionable rhythm at that time. I couldn't even name one.

And finally my third call is for a bit more musical awareness from the ice dance tech committee when it comes to the RD style. After two years of incongruent music requirements I'd love it if the time period and the pattern dance matched up a bit better!

Of course ISU is primarily a volunteer-run organisation and it's hard to find time for committees to meet. I get that, and I respect them for it. But on this one issue, for this one difficult year, please, forget about "let's do it when we meet at Worlds". Get on a Zoom call & take care of it now.

To be serious for a moment, I can't overstate how urgent this is for ice dance. ISU releasing the RD requirements TODAY would be a bit on the late side. March would be negligent, they'd be failing their skaters. Later than Worlds would in my opinion be a resigning matter for the committee.

My second call is specifically for the ISU ice dance technical committee. Given that some of my clients start competing in June, and it could take months to clear the music... we need the requirements for the new RD, and we need them yesterday. :)

The new ISU requirement to license the music we use is entirely correct and I applaud it. But many skaters will need to wait several months for decisions from artists & publishers, and maybe change music if their request is rejected. We need to choose music much earlier than usual this year.

The issue is that for many skaters the season starts in June. Many feds are hosting major national and international competitions by then. Many of my clients need to choose music this month. Or this week, ideally!

First, skaters, parents, coaches and related professionals like me all need to know where we stand regarding music for next season. We need the official, final ISU guidelines on music, and we need it ASAP.

Just been over in the Bad Place, calling on the ISU to make good decisions regarding music for next season. Gonna adapt and repost here, even though ISU themselves are not on BlueSky yet, just so you have an insight into the anguished mind of a skating music editor at this time of year. :)

German pair skating team Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel executing a difficult lift at a skating competition. Robert is lifting Annika above his head, his arms at full stretch. Annika is striking a badass pose and grinning from ear to ear. The photographer is Mao Yanzheng.

An appreciation post for my clients Annika Hocke and Robert Kunkel. Their current Falco FS was exceptionally hard to create and is equally hard to skate. Rap music is seldom used in pairs because it's so hard to skate to, so 👏 from me for a team who prioritised their artistic vision above all else!

The top half of the image depicts me in my nice, orderly recording studio, surrounded by instruments and equipment, with the caption "how it started". The bottom half of the image depicts a big pile of moving boxes and furniture, in a totally disorganised room, with the caption "how it's going".

I've been too ill to work for 12 of the last 24 weeks, and in between I've been packing for a house move, 500km due south, to Helsinki. It's been a pretty strange time! But I'm in the new place now, unpacking and getting healthy as fast as I can, ready to work on everyone's programs for next season.

A little public service announcement: I'm currently packing my studio into boxes to move it to a new address five hours south, in Helsinki. If your program is already on my schedule it will be done before Christmas. If not, I'll be open for business again in mid January. See you then!

😁 Yep, I did both their programs this year.