Hey y’all
I was thinking about getting a musical freestyle written, and I was looking for suggestions. Does anyone know of a good company?
I liked Equestrian Choreography a lot but I’m not sure, does anyone have any experience with them?
thanks!
Karen Robinson of Applause Dressage is excellent!
1 Like
Is it hard to write your own freestyle for 1st level? I am not at a level to spend $$ to have a freestyle made for me. It sounds fun, but there are only so many movements that it might get boring. If people have done this – do you start with the pattern/movements and find music to go with them or get music and then add in the movements to match it? (Or a little of both?)
Approximately how much does a free style cost?
Do you want 4 beat music for walk and trot, then 3 beat movement for canter work?
I would say that at the lower levels focus on creating a smooth test that your horse can perform well. Degree of difficulty is only one score and you are quite limited, everyone is. The canter is actually 4 beat as well 3 beats of hoof then a moment of suspension. For me picking music is all about whether it feels like the gait. Just listen to a bunch of songs while you ride, see what makes you want to canter, what gives you a great rhythm in the trot etc.
Don’t know costs for buying, but it certainly can be done without it. If you know someone who is really good with software they can make everything just as smooth. It’s more about the planning. Just take your time. And make sure you REALLY know the rules for freestyles and what you can/can’t do.
If you know a bit about music and musical editing, then no, writing a 1st level freestyle isn’t rocket science. I did it and I placed at regionals with my home grown choreography and music. That said, I have a background in music.
You don’t try to match every beat in the canter to music … you’d need wicked fast rhythms. What most people do is pick one footfall and count that out as the rhythm. Here’s my how to on finding what music works:
- get some good video of you riding your horse when he’s well warmed up and working through. Get all three gaits with a good couple minutes of each.
- Take those videos and use internet rhythm counters to figure out how many beats per minute your horse does. Walk, you count every footfall. Trot, you count the pairs. Canter, count one footfall.
- Go find music. You probably have some songs you love - chances are, if they are modern pop or rock, they are 128 bpm and not useful for any gait. There are huge websites for runners that list beats per minute for all sorts of music. Go searching and find a variety. This is where you have to be flexible. Say your horse trots 150 beats per minute. You can find music that is 150 bpm … or 75 bpm … or 300 bpm. Any factor of 150 is going to be within range of doable. You can also slightly speed up or slow down music without too much damage to the overall sound so if you have something that is 145, moving it to 150 isn’t that hard.
- Make your mix tape. You want multiple songs for all three gaits. You also want to play around with styles. It’s like the sound track in a movie … the same scene can be either deadly serious or wicked funny depending on the music. You need to decide what feeling you’re going with. You don’t want to do powerful drama with a Baby Elephant Walk type walk music or vice versa.
- Go ride to it and not just wearing earbuds. You want your horse to hear it too. Find out which ones “click” for you and the horse. Some that you love are just going to be lackluster when you ride it. My horse absolutely lit up for the one trot song so that’s what I built my freestyle around.
2 Likes
I did my own for Training, and have gotten positive comments from judges and spectators. I did the choreography first, then edited the music to fit. I spent a lot of time with video of the horse being ridden at the different gaits, and music playing, while figuring out what worked. There was a specific type of music I had in mind, so that narrowed down what I was listening to a good bit. SO comes from a family with entertainment/theatre professionals, so was very helpful in making music suggestions and critiquing the fit for us.
That said, I work in television and am very comfortable with digital editing, and even so, found the editing of the music a little frustrating. If you’re not used to working with sound editing, or digital editing, it might be less flinging-the-laptop-across-the-living-room inducing to pay someone else to do it for you 
2 Likes
I debuted my 1st level freestyle, which I choreographed and edited completely myself (with input from my coach), at my last show. I got great marks (from Janet Foy!) on the artistic portion. My horse and and I have room to grow on the technical elements. I hope to continue working at it and maybe qualify for regionals with it next year.
Prices for freestyles can vary, but the good choreographers are around $900+ for a 1st level routine.
Most choreographers will continue to work with you and tweak your routine as you move up the levels so that you can re-use your music–so it’s an initial investment that you can continue to build on.
If you want to do your own, it will be much easier and you will get better marks if you have two key attributes: some musical experience (played an instrument in high school or sang in choir, know basic musical theory concepts, etc) and a knack for computers. If you lack one of these skills, you’ll have a tougher time producing good results.
I followed the same basic process that AltersAreUs outlined above.
I spent many hours listening to music and watching video to find songs that complemented my horse AND were thematically cohesive. When I hit the right combo, it just felt RIGHT. I love our music.
I went through several choreography drafts before my coach and I were happy with the routine. At first we were too ambitious and the time limit was an issue. Once we had it narrowed down, I videoed it, used the video as a reference while i was editing the music. Once I had a draft of the music, I rode it several times on different days, and tweaked the music again to allow more time in certain places. Then it was showtime!
It was a lot of work to put together, but very rewarding. I have wanted to do a freestyle ever since I started dressage 6 years ago, so it was cool to reach that goal. I’m sure I spent over 20 hours on music selection, choreography and editing, not even counting actual riding time to test the choreography and music. It was definitely an obsession for awhile there 
Lynnette at Goldbar Freestyles, as someone else recommended. She helped me with mine, and I get so many compliments every time I ride it. My music is about as perfect as it could be. Gives me goosebumps every ride!
It’s also possible to save money on having music customized, by purchasing one of the ready-made selections available online. Two such examples: Marvins Music, I believe they are out of the Netherlands. And in the US, there is Musikur. On both sites you are able to listen to samples of all the various selections they have available.
You can pull up a video of your horse and play it at the same time you’re listening to their samples, to determine whether the tempos suit your horse’s gaits.
It’s much, much cheaper to buy your music that way than to have it professionally ordered for your horse from one of the designers. And there are plenty of people out there riding to these kinds of pre-made musical pieces.
There are of course pluses and minuses. One negative is that you cannot easily change the music if you receive it and feel that one part or another doesn’t work for your horse or your choreography, for whatever reason. You can’t really change the music, but, you can keep adjusting the choreography if you have to. Or if you start getting judges comments like, “Walk music tempo seems too quick for horse”, well, you really can’t address that when the whole thing is prepackaged.
I rode a First Level Freestyle to one of the prepackaged ones from Marvins Music. I didn’t care for the choreography they sent, and it was pretty simply done. So I choreographed it entirely myself. I got scores from 65 to 69, low, frankly more due to the technical aspects and the coefficients than any issues with the music itself. I think in all but two cases, the Musical scores were higher than my technical scores. If I ever could have managed a 7 on my leg yields, I’d have broken 70 more than once.
I did have a lot of problems with my music stopping in mid performance but that turned out to be a problem with file formatting and misunderstandings between show management and announcers. Those problems didn’t have anything to do with how the music was originally sourced.
But I do have a little bit of a musical background and I was a percussionist in school a hundred years ago, so I “get” how to fit the beats together and it’s easy for me to tell where I am in the music while riding. I also have a theater background and a good sense of spatial relationships, so I can envision the arena or “stage” in my head. I realize a lot of riders can’t do that so easily. That’s really a help in doing your own choreography.
I have no issue with paying a pro to do a custom piece for me at some point but I am hoping to ride a Freestyle at every level. I figured for First Level and the limitations of what’s required, it wasn’t necessary to spend the big bucks with an experienced designer.
Another negative for buying the pre-made ones is that you can end up at a big show where multiple people are using the same music. It’s not a horrible thing to have happen, since everyone’s choreography is different. Still, a lot of people find that unoriginal and don’t want to risk it.
Hope that helps.
