I've been a Cars fan forever – they were the soundtrack of my senior year in highschool. Yes I know that dates me, but these we cassettes – not 8 tracks 🙁
Turns out I have a bunch of Cars fans in my Thursday class (we're all of similar vintage) so I thought it would be fun to include a few tracks in my class next week.
Digging around I found that there are some very nice Mashups and remixes. Would any of these fit into your next profile?
It's hands down the most convenient service on earth for discovering, sampling and sharing music. I use Spotify every day and enthusiasticly promote it to anyone who will listen.
If you're privileged to live in an area where it's available, you can try their Premium version free for 30 days.
With the Premium version you can download and use the Spotify App for both iPhones and Droids. Try using it in your class and you may never use iTunes again 🙂
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NEW PREMIUM USERS!
Spotify only works via a wireless connection between your computer and device. Yes it shows an option for connecting and transferring music using the USB cord on your iPhone – DON'T USE IT!
Please review these help articles for more tips and tricks.
Instructor Carole Harrell shared this awesome 11 minute mashup over on our Celebrate Indoor Cycling Group – The Ultimate Mashup of 2014. 55 track remix by Robin Skouteris. Listening to it, I don't recognise many of the tracks… but there's a good chance that your class may know them. As I think about it, you could do a fun “Name That Tune” game where you have anyone how knows the song yell it out.
http://youtu.be/igZA100ZTQ0
If you don't see a download link in the Soundcloud player you can find it here.
DJ Scott Melker playing the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Golden, CO
As many of you know I've worn many hats in the fitness industry, I've been an Assistant General Manager, Operations Manager, Fitness Director, Triathlon Coach, Master Swim Team Coach, Master Educator, Personal Trainer, Group Exercise and Indoor Cycling Instructor. Throughout my almost 25 years in this customer service industry I have heard many member comments, complaints and compliments. Through these years I have grown a thick skin but the one comment that still cuts the deepest is when I hear that someone complains about my music. Being an indoor cycling instructor has, forever, changed the way I listen to all music. Music is now put into two categories; will this song work in class or not. I'm on a never ending search for the perfect indoor cycling song. This search reminds me of the story of Sisyphus from Greek mythology. He was punished for chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever. After I find the “perfect” indoor cycling song I feel I'm on the same journey at Sisyphus. I find the song, listen to it, probably 20 times, find all the beat and energy changes, figure out a profile for it, listen to it another 20 times imagining my profile being used with the song, use it in a class, make changes, use it again in a class, perfect it, then when I finally push this boulder to the top of the hill and have produced the perfect mix of music, movement, rhythm and riding it's time to start this process all over again because riders are getting tired of this “perfect” song.
Around the same time John and Scott announced their “ICI/Pro DJ Scott Melker Music Playlist Contest” I was in a state of the dreaded “profile writers block” and I was told that a club member had commented about the lack of variety in my music. Yes, at first I was offended, but then I thought maybe the announcement of this contest and these negative comments were a sign. I decided to take on the challenge of using Scott's playlist and building the best profile I could. This project was extremely challenging for me, I'm usually a profile first music second type of class builder, this forced me to swap my way of thinking. Scott's playlist included some songs that I never imagined playing in an indoor cycling class, when I first heard them I immediately put them in the song category of “will not work in a class”, but I was being forced to use them so I had to figure out how to make them work. After countless hours of listening to Scott's playlist and tweaking my profile, I believe I have come up with a class that uses the artistry and energy of a playlist put together by one of the world's top DJs, while staying true to my scientifically proven teaching methods.
I hope you find this class profile both fun and effective, my class sure did.
I challenge you to step out of your comfort zone and create your own profile for this contest.
Scott Melker's Playlist, to download Right Click > Save As / Save Target As to download. Open in iTunes and then you'll see this in your Spotify Local File folder.
This week's ride focused on cadence work…..I absolutely love cadence work. While I think the hardest work we do is speed work (that is next week), I find cadence work to be the most satisfying. I love working on the control and building the leg's ability to accurately respond to the work.
So, in working on this week's ride I came across Down Dirty by Rivero. This song has a ton of energy, and it provides just the right breaks and accelerations that work perfectly for cadence work.
I would give this song a chance. I have included my timing below:
