My Kur Debut & Musik zum Reiten

My first ever "Kur" aka "Musical Freestyle", has now been done. This past weekend, Jeddien and I performed a 3rd Level Freestyle at the Mystic Valley Hunt Club in Connecticut.

We rode to German folk music, using three different songs for walk, trot, and canter.   Using "Audacity", I edited the songs, modified the tempo, and put together 5 minutes of music to which I then choreographed a riding pattern.   In all, the effort to do this took many, many hours.   But in the end, it was well worth it!

We earned a full 70% score, with an "8" for the music and both written and verbal comments from the judge that she really liked the music.

I have to give Isabell Werth some of the credit on this great debut!   While I would love to report that I regularly train with Isabell and that she helped in this production, that's simply not the case.   However, she is the rider who provides the dressage world with the "Musik zum Reiten" series of music CDs.   High quality instrumental music selected, performed, and designed specifically for editing for use in freestyles.   My music originated from one of my "Isabell" CDs.

Ingredients used in the creation of our first Kur include:

• Competition size arena
  
• Metronome   (Little Seiko DM-50 clip on model)
  
• iPod Shuffle   (So rider can listen to music)
  
• Full sound system  (So horse can hear music)
  
• Computer   (with CD burning capability)
  
• Audacity   (Excellent music editing software)
  
• Blank CDs
  
• "Dressage Divas"   (Optional software to help design kur)
  
• A lot of stress & creativity   :-)
  
• One clever husband / partner / friend to help provide input
  

So, our debut is behind us and now we are getting ready for the next performance which is in a few weeks.   Until then, a big THANK YOU to Georg for all his help, and to Isabell, too!