This is how we decide
on our music.
Jill P - Flemington, NJ
Our season runs from August till November/December,
but it might as well be year round because our music
selection starts in January! I'm sure everyone hears
all kinds of songs year round and you think to yourself
"that song would be great in a cheer mix."
When you hear those songs, jot them down -
a small memo pad that fits in your purse is perfect.
Then when the time comes, go through that list. Download
songs, burn CD's, email songs back and forth to other
coaches, etc. This may go on for weeks! After all
of the coaches have their music ideas we have a meeting.
We listen to CD's and hear everyone's thoughts and
ideas. We create our own routines (actually the Junior
Coaches pretty much do all of the work there), so
make sure whoever is taking care of choreography is
involved in the planning stages of the music.
Some years we decide on theme. If we do decide on
a theme then we try to eliminate songs that do not
go with the theme. If we do not go with a theme, we
try to pick songs we agree on that we like. There
may be particular parts of songs that one of the coaches
thinks may go great with a particular stunt or dance.
This is where it is helpful to have the person who
is doing your choreography present. Sometimes creative
people can visualize parts of a routine to certain
songs or parts of music.
From there we listen to the songs
we decide we would really like to use. We figure out
if there are specific parts of the song we would like
and we try to decide what the team would be doing
during that particular song... stunting, tumbling,
dancing, etc. We also think about what we would like
to start and end the music with (a voice over, explosion,
etc).
Sometime the first meeting does not
end with our final selections. There may be more downloading
songs, buring CD's, and emailing songs back and forth,
which would lead to another meeting!
Once everyone is in agreement with
songs we want to use we we make sure we have more
than enough to be passed on for mixing. We find it
is always better to have too many songs than not enough.
This way we can say - use song 1 and song 2, then
choose the rest of the songs from the list of songs
we like. Also, sometimes we might say - use song 1
and song 2, then choose anything you would like, whether
it is from our list or not. This works well when you
only have a couple of songs that you know you want
for sure.
We ask Justin for his opinion on the
songs we picked and then we just let him do his thing!
The mixes get more and more amazing every year!
