by Amy Macgowan | Dec 7, 2012 | Music
John wrote last week about being freed from no longer needing to find ‘long songs’ for riding playlists. I agree, but it is so satisfying to find one that works well musically – for a specific training purpose. This great 68 rpm song coming in at 5 minutes and 52 seconds serves up a perfect climb situation in which to hold cadence and add load (and watch watts go up!)
Here’s how I have been coaching “Hanging On”, by Active Child: We set cadence at 68 rpm’s and initial load where work is sustained around T1. After the first :52, I coach to hold cadence steady at 68, and have them add load each minute and notice changes in HR/watts and breathing. By the end of 5 load adds, we are working well past T2 and putting up some big watts. No power meters? No problem. Coach to the 68 rpm music rhythm for a steady pedal cadence and HR monitors or perceived exertion.
Active Child’s (the working name of electric artist Pat Grossi) Hanging On:
Active Child — Hanging On in Spotify
Active Child Video
Ellie Goulding also does an interesting version of this song, but it is only 3:22.
John's note: I heard/Shazamed this during the Victoria's Secret fashion show the other night. I just love Ellie's big sound in this cover – Turn It Up!
But be careful – there's a foul version of this song that includes Rapper Tinie Tempah that totally wrecks it – what was she thinking?.
Ellie Goulding — Hanging On in Spotify
Ellie Video
by John | Dec 6, 2012 | Best Practices, Music
I was in Rochester MN yesterday and took an awesome class at the Dan Abraham Healthy Living Center. It's a beautiful club, with a stadium style studio, full of FreeMotion S11.9 Indoor Cycles. If you're ever find yourself in Rochester It would be worth your time to pop in and take a class at the DAHLC – that's what they call it.
I've made it a habit to take other Instructor's classes as often as possible. My objective is to learn from as many different people as possible – it doesn't matter who they are or their experience level. I find I can always pick up something of value, not to mention it's just fun take someone else's class!
The Instructor's name was Julie and she had a great playlist that included two tracks that worked very well together as a 70 rpm steep climb that transitioned into a 94ish flat. I'm never in class without my iPhone these days and Shazam identified and saved them so I could add them to my Spotify library and also share them with you.
Juno Reactor — Swampthing 5 minute climb
Van Halen — Right Now 5 minute flat
They have a SoundEar Sound Meter hanging on the back wall of the studio to help the Instructor understand how loud her music is playing. I see this as a valuable tool (although very pricey @ $700.00) that solves the “YOUR MUSIC IS TOO LOUD” problem. With the studios speakers mounted to either side of the Instructor and pointed at the class, Julie isn't hearing her music at the same level as her class. It was interesting to watch her make adjustments to her iPod when she saw the SoundEar's red light flashing – which indicates a volume above the preset level of 85 dBs. In case you are wondering 85 decibels is pretty loud, at least it sounded loud enough for me 🙂
by John | Nov 30, 2012 | Music
It was dumb luck. That's the only reason this playlist worked so well with the Epic Wine Country DVD I played last night in my class. I mean, Amy even liked it and for her to approve of my music is a pretty big deal. I hadn't even intended to use that video last night – I'd forgotten the one I planned to use.
But dumb luck may not have the only reason this class worked so well…
It wasn't that I was getting lazy, It's just that I've always preferred longer songs (>4:00) for my playlists. Maybe it came from my iTunes days where I figured that I was getting a better value if I bought a 6:37 song vs. a 2:54 song. Made sense to me. And I'll admit that building an hour long class of 8-10 tracks was a lot less effort than compiling 16 or more.
It was just random chance 🙂
More songs = More transitions = More chances for a song change to match up with a change in the video. I teach using video in nearly all my classes these days. I've wasted spent a lot of time trying to matchup songs to the structure of the video, with a varying level of success. I'd find myself stressing about exactly when I'm to start the music and video so they are “In Sync” – even though I've been suggesting to you the exact opposite in the companion Audio PROfiles I've published.
This playlist has 16 tracks and worked very well – it was almost scary how well it matched the two big climbs that make up the final 20 minutes of effort. I did end up pausing the music for about a minute before The Gap Band — You Dropped The Bomb On Me.
Here's a screenshot if you don't have access to Spotify.
by John | Nov 27, 2012 | iTunes, iTunes & Spotify Training
What's with Apple these days?
Back in September Apple was talking about a complete redesign of iTunes for version 11, with a promised release in October 2012 – which is obviously passed. I had made a note to myself to look into this so I could understand any changes and help with any new challenges that those of you still using iTunes may experience.
Now I'm reading that the release of iTunes 11 is imminent, whatever that means.
Here's another disappointment.
One recent addition to iTunes that I haven't discussed (I'd been waiting for iTunes 11) is how iTunes now offers wireless home sharing between devices logged in with the same Apple ID.
In this post I talk about how you can share iTunes music between computers that are using the same wireless network. It works very well in a Two Instructor household 🙂
So when I saw that you can now share between devices I thought I should create a tutorial on how to use it. I figured that it would most likely work the same as Spotify; you can listen to a playlist from your computer – or – transfer all the tracks onto your iPhone (turn on the available Off-Line toggle) so you can use the playlist for your class… turns out you can't. Best as I can tell you can only listen to music from another networked computer. There's no option to transfer a track or playlist to your device.
“I must be missing something here?”, I thought. When would I want to use my iPhone to just listen to music from a computer in my house or office?
But wait! I must be able to drag tracks or playlists from my computer, to my device. That's what iTunes Wi-Fi Sync is for right? Well, no. Not exactly. To use Wi-Fi Sync your computer needs to:
- Recognize your device = you must go through the complete setup process if it doesn't.
- Be connected to a power source, er… like your computer. So what's the point of Wi-Fi if you have to plug in?
If Spotify is available where you live and you have a wireless enabled portable device, we have a bunch of tutorials (here and here) to help you make the transition away from iTunes.
by | Nov 23, 2012 | Music
Nothing like flipping the tables on a punishing climb with Crystal Castles goth influenced remake of ‘Not In Love‘ clocking in at just under 4 minutes with a bpm 136 for an RPM of around 70.
It's heavy thumping beat helps to mirror your riders exertion and I've always enjoyed using the image of the riders cadence being so strong and powerful here that they are literally shaking the gravel along the side of the road as they punish the climb for daring to question their ability and resolve to get to the top.
Checkout my ICI/PRO class profile companion mixes.
by John | Nov 16, 2012 | Music
So there I was, sitting in the front row at OMpower Studio in San Francisco on Monday, taking a MyRide+ virtual ride with ICG Master Trainer Jim Karanas. Jim was leading us up a long climb somewhere in Italy when this song came on to motivate us to the top.
“This is an awesome climbing track, I need to remember to ask Jim what it's cal… wait a second… I can just Shazam it and have on my iPhone when I get home!
You'll probably recognize it as the de beers TV commercial music we start hearing as we get closer to Christmas.
It's a version of Palladio and this track screams climb, with a powerful beat at 70rpm and a big finish at the end. Jim actually strung a number of versions of Palladio together for his 10 minute video segment.
Silent Nick — Palladio
 
If you will be in SanFran this weekend, Jim is leading an Indoor Century (100 miles) on Saturday. That's 5 hours on the bike riding to 5 hours of stunning video from locations around the world – I came home too soon 🙁
