Dressage Music - vocals or not?

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Dovorian

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I've been researching ( watching dressage for hours!!), on the Continent, vocal tracks seem common at a high level. I am not sure if it detracts or not, welcome comments from those who know more....
 
Yes to vocals! For gods sake we need to drag dressage to music into the 21st century!

Watched the dressage to music at the nationals and all the riders that had vocals in their music, especially those who used contemporary stuff in the charts at the mo did really good tests and definitely got the crowd going!

Can't remember which rider it was but one lady in the GP freestyle had 3 different Muse tracks sort of moulded into one and it complimented her test brilliantly. I think everyone had goosebumps and a lump in their throat when she cantered down the centre line to the words 'we will be victorious'

Definitely the way to go IMO. Classical is boring and outdated IMO
 
Think it is a little outdated to not have vocals - though I guess it comes down to judges preferences.

I wish more people would have vocals, I hate the 'lift music' type of tracks which are well known but sound like they are hammered out by someone on a keyboard! Only a small step away from pan pipe versions!!

The Muse one sounds amazing, wow!
 
It depends what suits your horse, but you could do one or two vocal tracks for say trot and canter and mix them with a modern instrumental for walk if your walk is in the middle? Depends how you cut the tracks really, three big and bold vocal tracks would, in my opinion be too much. There needs to be a change in the music style in the paces, and sometimes sticking to a similar scheme.

If you need any help I make cd's for people, i'm doing a modern one for myself at the mo, its instrumental though as the judges in our area don't normally go for the vocals unless its a themed (ie xmas) do, or something like Abba! I just did an Abba track for someone at the national sidesaddle show at addington, and I have to say it was very good fun to watch.

There is a balance, finding the perfect tracks for the horse, finding something the judge will go for (and recognize!) and pleasing the crowd!!

Please note this is only my opinion......!
 
Oh yes, judges do probably prefer classical at the moment but the more they hear of rock/pop/rnb the more they might like.

Also this is going to sound awful so apologies in advance but the really old judges (in their 70's say) in 10 years time will probably still not be judging or even with us and it will be younger folk that judge so its inevitable things will change.

God, there was some fantastic music at the nationals, another lady had a mix of 3 songs but slowed them down/quickened them to suit the movements/ horses rhythm. One of them was a song by Eliza Doolittle and a couple of others out in the charts.

And the 'bad boyz II' to music by charlie hutton and I can't remember who the other one was- now that was fantastic, all stuff in the charts and things like alexandre burke's 'bad boys' seriously brilliant fun to watch, all the crowd were laughing, dancing and clapping along and the judges all had a smile on their face! Now that sort of thing would make dressage more interesting and 'cool' to joe blogs non horsey public!
 
The classical is so boring isn't it? And as for pan-pipes, I heard one the other week and nearly died, I was so embarassed for the rider! Poor girl. She probably spent ages choosing it.

There is some really nice modern instrumental stuff too.

Your right about the age of the judges, thats half the challenge with the modern tunes, especially the vocal tracks.
 
Lol I think Andrew Gould had panpipes in his freestyle. It was irish jig music anyway. It wasn't too bad actually because it was upbeat with a fast tempo which suited wild angel's rhythm etc
 
My friend's music for the champs was from the latest Now album :D

When I am doing it, I want a disney theme - lion king for walk, the little mermaid for canter and possibly toy story for the trot :D
Just think - 17h billy trotting down centre line to "under the sea" :D :D
 
PMSL laughing at 17hh BIlly dancing to 'under the sea' and the wu tang gravel pit!

There's 2 songs that as soon as I heard them I thought 'if I ever do dressage to music it'll be to this song' and that was Beyonce 'halo' and Labyrinth 'let the sun shine'

They started doing dressage to music last weekend at a venue near me so in a few months I think I might see if my current 'rides' owner will let me do it with her
 
I did a unaff about 8 years ago organised by my PC and we used Queen and The Beatles :D Though we did use instrumental versions of Crazy Little Thing Called Love for trot, Killer Queen for canter and The Long and Winding Road for walk but when I came to do my last trot bit, we used the vocal version and I still remember my friends dancing along in the gallery as I came down my last centre line :D
But back to original point, yes I do think you should if it fits and works :)
 
The problem with using vocals is that its harder, uses more studio time and is therefore more expensive!
No one wants to cut a singer off mid sentence,so vocal tracks require more cuts to edit them to length. Also, alot of modren vocal tracks do not have a proper cadence. This makes them difficult to use for your 'big finish' and also leads to disappointing transitions.Thankfully dreadful fade outs/fade ins (and big GAPS)are becomming rare in freestyle,partly because people are steering clear of the popular music that does not have a definitve finish and partly because people are taking the discipline more seriously and spending time or money on their music.
You will also find there has been alot of work done on the final mastering of world class freestyle music using vocals. The original audio track will have been mixed and mastered to be pleasing to listen to on a home stereo,or in the car and they generally don't work in a large space,so geeks like me will spend hours re mastering stuff to work in a large space.
Then you have the problem of copyright,so although BD for instance has a blanket PRS ticket,this does not cover any tempo changes, or production tweaks or even changes in track length! This is a grey area of copyright law that even musicians like me have trouble understanding fully.
I do agree that freestyle could do with a kick up the ar$e. It should be dramatic,foot-tapping and emotionally moving. But instrumental does not necessarily mean classical or boring. Modern music technology gives us infinite choices so it is possible to rouse an audience,and even a dressage judge without infringing the law or chopping up a cheesy vocal line.
Having said all that. My view is that it is essential that you and your horse love your music,so if you want to canter down the center line to Tina Turner singing 'Simply the Best!' then go for it!
 
Abitodd, how do the licensing laws work. My boyfriend makes music and I always wondered how the copyright rules would work if I say used two different tunes together His very talented and has a great ear for music shame me and my steeds talents don't quite match xx
 
Its quite complicated,but basically boils down to money!
If you use/change/rearrange music that is subject to copyright(that can be the composer's,singer/performers copyright) then officially you have to apply to the Performing Rights Society to use that music. Of course what they are trying to avoid is Joe Blogs reworking David Bowie,making a million and not giving Dave his cut! Your BF reworking David Bowie for you and your horse falls under the same umbrella,but tends to get overlooked by PRS(They would be hard pushed to police the use of music in this way!) So as long as you or your boyfriend do not make any money out of using David Bowie,that should be fine(Overlooked)
If someone comes to me to edit their favourite CD for a dressage test,they pay for 'studio time+engineer' making the end product officially their creation,for personal use.
Although I usually try and steer them towards bespoke arrangements of non copyright music, a)because its better and b)because its 100% legal and safer!
 
I hate hearing vocals in dressage tests - purely because I find them distracting and also because they are incomplete - the tempo changes so the music does too - often in the middle of a verse..
 
agree with the NO to classical and pan pipes!

am slowly pulling together a GP music floorplan (nothing like planning ahead, i CBA to do a music class until i can do all the fiddly bits that build it up, like pi/pa, one times etc)............................definately have Greenday (Boulevard of broken dreams) as the entry/passage music, and will also be using Arcade Fire (Rebellion ,Lies)......but will most likely have the instrumental versions, no vocals.

one of my trainers also plays in a band, and has all the editing software, so can do me ANYTHING i want, played to fit my floorplan if needs be :)
 
SummerxStarsx said:
Yes to vocals! For gods sake we need to drag dressage to music into the 21st century!

Watched the dressage to music at the nationals and all the riders that had vocals in their music, especially those who used contemporary stuff in the charts at the mo did really good tests and definitely got the crowd going!

Can't remember which rider it was but one lady in the GP freestyle had 3 different Muse tracks sort of moulded into one and it complimented her test brilliantly. I think everyone had goosebumps and a lump in their throat when she cantered down the centre line to the words 'we will be victorious'

Definitely the way to go IMO. Classical is boring and outdated IMO
Click to expand...

It was Becky Moody and I thought it was a great freestyle test - It's one of the ones I remember lets put it that way! Just having a few sections with a few vocals I think can add to the overall impact and impression rather than detract. There was one person who had vocals throughout put I didn't really like it, the vocals didnt match what was going on in the tests etc................so I think acoustic with the odd section of vocals is good.
 
As a complete novice I don't find it too difficult to get vocals to finish at a sensible point for music change overs tbh, wouldn't be good enough for GP freestyles but fine for what I do :) with some free audacity software, it just takes a bit of playing with, cutting and pasting and adding of repeats, that way you don't get any tempo changes either (live and let die is a bugger for that!) :).

Vocals can definitely tell more a story, plus I like to sing along then :D previous vocals have included t-rex I love to boogie (quite apt), robbie (handsome man ;)) and rock dj. Current includes shrek (smash mouth, Donkey, eels and more smash mouth!) and James bond (guns and roses, scouting for girls and moby!)

Fwiw I am a big lover of classical music but it certainly wouldn't suit Frank. I need to get mum doing some more dtm so that we can use aqua (barbie girl) again! ;)
 
I wholeheartly agree with Evelyn and Abbitod.

It's a hell of a job to edit music with lyrics in it, and specially in the UK you ran in to tons of problems with the copyright holders.You are also not allowed to mix PPL and non PPL music which is an extra handicap in the UK. Next to this : As a songwriter I hate it to see the story I want to tell to the public is cut off every time.

In general I would advice NO LYRICS, however in cases like the Tom Jones Freestyle of Carl Hester it worked out very nice. The redline is always does it add something to the whole performance or will it distract judges and crowd from the ride.

In the FEI rules you can read again and again that lyrics should be used in a moderate way, and above this we have the judges who told again and again that "because of the lyrics they gave a lower score for the music" .

Main point however is": Does the music suits the horse and rider, the gaits of the horse and above all isn't the music already used to often.
 
Having been involved with much planning of DTM it is much easier to make a track without vocals but I also prefer it without vocals, but still contemporary music
 
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