Creating a Freestyle: Music

I'm currently going through the music choosing process for the second time... and I wish it could be the last! Choosing music for a freestyle has proven to be a stressful and time-consuming task. 

The first step is to find your horse's tempo in all 3 gaits. Then it's on to listening to a million soundtracks (mostly browsing youtube.com for me) to find music you like AND would work well in a freestyle. The kicker is that it also has to be the right tempo for your horse. Tempos can be modified, but large modifications (more than around 10%) probably won't end up sounding the way you want. Also, it really needs to be music that's quite pleasing for judges of every background. The BHB's favorite music happens to be R&B... but I can't imagine it would go over as well with the judges as classic rock would!

For the DIY-er, you can download the free music editing program Audacity. It's not a very beginner-friendly program, so if you're not very tech-savvy you might be better off hiring a professional. Heck, anyone would probably be better off hiring a professional... I'm just trying to see if I can squeeze by in creating a great lower-level freestyle without spending more than $3. Granted, I've done plenty of video editing in the past, but editing music seems to be much more complicated.I do realize I may have to end up hiring someone to create seamless music, but at least it will be less expensive since I've picked out the music and made the choreography.

If you're still reading this after hearing how daunting music editing can be, let's go to the next step. First, I did rough edits of the music to eliminate the part of the music that I don't want to use. I figure if I have a 5 minute limit and have to do all of my movements in both directions, then I need no more than 45 seconds of walk, 1 1/2- 2 minutes of canter, and around 2 minutes of trot. Counting in both directions for the trot and canter, and I could probably edit it down to 1 minute trot and canter segments to repeat in my freestyle. I still left 2-3 minutes of music for each gait so that I had enough to easier match it to my choreography without creating horrid franken-music by piecing many different parts together and loosing the natural song flow.

I video-taped my choreography ridden how I'd like to show it so that I could get timing for each movement.  Then I used Audacity to edit the segments. I found the segments I wanted and pieced them together with Fade/ Cross-Fade effects. I'm still learning to use Audacity, so maybe in the future I'll figure out how to use some other effects in editing freestyle music.


A few educational articles on choosing and editing freestyle music:
USDF Connection article "Got Music?"
USDF Connection article "The Wow Factor"
USDF Connection Article "To Turn a Phrase" 

May Chatt Hills Show Recap

Our May show was decent, but I'm not sure we improved any from our April show. I did get 3 more qualifying scores for Regionals-- now we're fully qualified for the first level freestyle and need one more score for both first and second levels. Hopefully we will pick these last necessary scores up at the June Chatt Hills show we plan to attend! I still haven't uploaded videos from my rides, but I definitely will post once I do. 

We weren't set up for the best success since both of our rides each day happened to be less than an hour apart during the heat of the afternoon. The BHB does much better in the morning and/or when it's not 90* out in the blazing sun. I'm sure he would have enjoyed more than a 15 minute break to chill out after the first ride before he had to warm up for our second one. I'm sure the same thing will happen to us at the June Chatt Hills show, so I'm in the process of figuring out how to better prepare so that he can have the energy for the second ride of the day. I think we actually crawled through our second day tests and I could barely manage to get a trot lengthening/mediums out of my beastie. 

After this show, I've decided to edit our freestyle some more, at least the last part of it. We received good scores for movements at this show but then the collective marks were 6's straight down, lowering our score to a 65%. I'm not sure if the judge just hated the music or what... So now I'm going to try increasing the difficulty and improving the music even more!

Right now, I'm trying to finish an application for my GMO's Adult Amateur grant award. Having $750 more to spend on training would be awesome! I'm also planning to go to Aiken to train a week with Amber this summer (late July or early August). The BHB will be overjoyed to see her again and I'm sure will show off all his new tricks to her. 

Videos From Last Weekend's Show

I finally got the videos from our show last weekend uploaded onto youtube.

Our freestyle video. Hopefully next time we show this I won't have to do as many improvisations to stay with the music! I also really need to figure out how to make the one trot music transition a bit smoother before we ride it again!

Here is the first level test 3 in which the BHB checked out of the arena mid-way through. Other than that, it was a relaxed and accurate test.

My fingers are still in the process of healing from some massive blisters I got the week before the show while trying out some glove-rein combinations. I may end up going back to my leather gloves and give the Roeckls a break!

Good Horseman Show Recap

Our first show of the season was a big success, minus one thing. We scored a 71% on our first attempt at a freestyle with finished music that we only ran through twice the day before the competition since I was out of town for work most of the week! We brought home the reserve high score freestyle ribbon of the show too! Once I figure out how to edit one of the transitions to make me happier, I think it will be all set for Regionals and hopefully Nationals with the $2 freestyle! I found through this that I'm pretty good at improvising to stay with the music, and decided on a couple more changes in choreography that I'd like to aim for. Video to come later :)

Here I am with the BHB's ribbons from this show

We made an attempt at riding second level tests on Sunday. The BHB was pretty tired and lazy, so it required much more kicking through than it should have, resulting in gaining the usual "needs more uphill balance" comments. It's not easy to have the necessary uphill balance for dressage when your horse has short legs to begin with, so it's even worse when they are feeling lazy! We still scored a 62% for 2-1 and 65% for 2-2, so I'm extremely happy with our first efforts. Now I know that we need to schedule the harder tests the first day of a show when the BHB has the most energy.

Now for the thing I'm not so happy about. The BHB decided during our 1-3 test that he was going to duck out of the arena at A without any advance warning. He's NEVER offered to do this before and better never ever do so again or the judge will need to close his/her eyes for 5 seconds to break a habit from forming. I heard from the show manager later that the judge was very surprised about it too and that no one saw it coming. The judge was nice enough to let us come back in the arena and score the rest of the test. We were eliminated of course, but at least the BHB did not get the break he was looking for when he ducked out. We were putting in an awesome test that would have garnered right at a 70% too!!! I think the BHB is just not getting enough mental stimulation at first level anymore after riding this test around s dozen times last year. He's ready for much more than I am! I think I'm going to let Heather show him at least once this summer. She thinks she could do 4th level with him, he's so much further advanced than I am!

We have 2 new horses in the barn that are going to join us in showing, so hopefully we'll have a summer show schedule in place soon. Right now I'm not sure which of several options we'll head to next. I'm very excited to try out our freestyle again and try to get all our 5-7 more qualifying scores for Regionals!

Show Preparation: Our Show Packing/Prep List

Our first show of the season is in one week! I'm just finishing putting the freestyle music together today so we can run through the whole thing once or twice before competing! I'm out of town for work Wednesday-Thursday, then have a networking-type event to attend mid-day Friday. Not the ideal work week leading up to a show! On the bright side, I hear the BHB has successfully mastered his first tempi changes with Heather, so maybe I will actually get to try a real lead change someday soon!


One time I trailered to a jumper show across town, unloaded my horse and was preparing to tack up only to discover that I forgot to put my tack in the trailer! Luckily, I was able to send my dad the 30 minutes back to the barn to pick it up, but how mortifying would it be to have that happen at a dressage show when you're much further from home! Also, in dressage we have custom-fitted saddles and bits carefully chosen through trial and error, so it's not as easy to find tack available to borrow as it would in the H/J world where saddles and bridles seem to be constantly thrown from horse to horse.

When I was foxhunting, I wouldn't trust myself to pack everything correctly at 5am on a weekend morning, so I would actually tack up the horse completely before throwing it on the trailer so I could just hop out and mount up. It also helped that I didn't have to saddle a dancing horse at the meets! Now, I don't saddle up before going to a dressage show, but I do make a list to make sure I have everything before leaving for the weekend.

This is the checklist I use for going to shows. It may seem like quite a bit, but most everything should already be in one place (like the trailer) or easily grouped together.


TO DO DAY BEFORE SHOW:
 Bathe Mark
 Clip Mark
 Clean tack
 Fuel-up truck
 Put coggins, health certificate, insurance info in truck

TACK BOX (The bolded items are things that don't always live in the show box):
 Body brushes
 Tail brush
 CANTER Mane & Tail spray
 Hoof pick
 Hoof oil
 Braiding supplies (comb, clip, rubber bands, quickbraid)
 Small cordless clippers (charged)
 Shampoo
 Bathing sponge
 Sweat scraper
 Scissors
 Sunscreen
 Sugar cubes
 Tack cleaning supplies
 Adult amateur calming supplement (I.C.E. mini liquor bottles)
 Clean towels
 Polos/boots for schooling
 For championships: white polos
 Fly spray
 Schooling gloves

PUT IN TRAILER:
 Tack box
 Full hay bag for Mark to munch on
 Show bridle
 Extra noseband option
 Extra bit option
 Saddle
 Girth
 2 white saddle pads
 1 schooling saddle pad
 Thinline pad
 Blankets/sheets if cold weather
 Hay
 Grain

THINGS THAT SHOULD ALREADY BE IN TRAILER:
 Chairs
 Folding table
 Water buckets with hooks
 Feed pan
 Hose with sprayer attachment
 Muck bucket/wheelbarrow
 Pitchfork
 Shavings
 Twine (from hay bales)
 Saddle rack
 Bridle rack
 Folding step stool (for braiding and mounting)

GARMENT BAG:
 Show coat
 Stock shirt (1 per day showing)
 Stock tie
 Boot socks (1 pair per day showing)
 White breeches (1 pair per day showing)

HELMET BAG:
 Show helmet
 Hair net
 White gloves

BOOT BAG:
 Boots
 Spurs
 Boot polish

BACKPACK/SUITCASE:
 Video camera
 2 casual outfits (jeans, t-shirt)
 Schooling shirt and breeches
 Cash for concessions/shopping
 Sweatshirt/jacket
 Sneakers 
 Toiletries (for overnight)
 PJs (for overnight)

COOLER:
 Snacks
 Lunch
 Breakfast (if not staying at free breakfast hotel)
 Water
 Electrolyte drinks (Gatorade, propel, coconut water)
 Carrots

Happy 7th Birthday to the BHB!

The little troublemaker has grown into quite a respectable horse in the last couple years. The most difficult thing about having a very smart and stubborn horse is that they will find ways to entertain themselves if they are not provided with entertainment. This may vary from crawling under fences and taking down all the electric fence insulators to opening gates and terrorizing pasture mates. Luckily, having a job and an irrigated pasture to graze keep the BHB entertained on most days now.

The BHB's first glimpse of the world

To celebrate his birthday this week, I sent in our first show entry for the year. We'll be showing at the Good Horseman show at the GA Intl Horse Park April 26-27. We'll be debuting our currently unfinished first level freestyle and try out 2 second level tests.

Link of the day: Tips from Carl Hester (worth a read!)

When To Step Up a Level

Should you wait for the ideal movement when everything's correct or throw yourself in with a challenge?

Now that I'm re-evaluating my show schedule this season, I've been pondering whether I should go ahead and make the jump to second level at our next show or hold off until I'm more consistent in riding the collected gaits and the canter to walk transitions. There's no such thing as "too uphill" for us either!

After that, I was thinking that we are solid at first level, but there are still some things I'd like to master before we completely move on-- such as softly bent elbows, better downward transitions, and great centerlines. We could be super competitive at first level this year with a very good chance of making it back to Nationals for it. Maybe I'll show first level until we hit a solid 70% a couple times. If I'm going to be showing at first level anyways, I should probably show in the 6 classes we need this season to get enough qualifying scored for the musical freestyle challenge at first level, which would also give us enough first level scores to earn an all-breed award and try to end up in the top 100 in horse of the year.

With a competent rider, the BHB could easily show at third level at the next show, but I have too many basics still lacking... and, well, I'm also not doing schooling all the required movements at that level :). Maybe this fall or next year I'll attempt to get the scores for my bronze medal, but I'm not ready yet!