Last night, I got my intro to a very unique place. The physical space measures less than a metre square and yet the influence that is contained therein is enormous.
The venue is a skating rink, and the occasion is a gathering known as Let's Skate! This was not my first time inside the arena, but it was my first time on this side of the glass. From inside the 'musician's' box, I had a relatively unobstructed view of the ice surface, but the purpose for my being there was not so much to watch the skaters in action (that was a bonus).
My instructions were simple: start the music when the skater is ready and don't make them wait. To be fair, that's putting the wording simply. In reality, keeping up with the parade of skaters is a finely honed dance which involves a list of skaters, in order of their appearance, one flight at a time; a box filled with two copies of each skater's music; a disc player; and a stopwatch. Oh ... and an extra set of discs which stay in he booth, and which are used to provide background/motivational music for the warmup periods that preceed each flight of skaters.
The don't make them wait part isn't so crucial in the early part of the day, when the skaters are either younger in age or more inexperienced on the ice surface, but as the day progresses, and the technical aspects become more and more complicated, there's little if any room for error. No pressure here.
The venue is a skating rink, and the occasion is a gathering known as Let's Skate! This was not my first time inside the arena, but it was my first time on this side of the glass. From inside the 'musician's' box, I had a relatively unobstructed view of the ice surface, but the purpose for my being there was not so much to watch the skaters in action (that was a bonus).
My instructions were simple: start the music when the skater is ready and don't make them wait. To be fair, that's putting the wording simply. In reality, keeping up with the parade of skaters is a finely honed dance which involves a list of skaters, in order of their appearance, one flight at a time; a box filled with two copies of each skater's music; a disc player; and a stopwatch. Oh ... and an extra set of discs which stay in he booth, and which are used to provide background/motivational music for the warmup periods that preceed each flight of skaters.
The don't make them wait part isn't so crucial in the early part of the day, when the skaters are either younger in age or more inexperienced on the ice surface, but as the day progresses, and the technical aspects become more and more complicated, there's little if any room for error. No pressure here.
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