Music can help win Olympic figure skating medal

TORONTO - Whether it's the dramatic score of a movie, the canned melodies in the supermarket, or whatever happens to be playing on her car radio, Carol Lane's ears are perpetually tuned to the music, while her mind is doing twizzles and sit spins.

Figure skating's musical accompaniment is the soundtrack of her life.

"It never ends,'' says the Toronto coach, laughing about her eternal search for the perfect figure skating music. "I've been known to stop dead in the middle of Loblaws, and scream out 'What's that?' and then go running to the counter to find out.''

A skater's music and how it's interpreted is a key weapon in their arsenal, as essential as a blistering slapshot to a hockey player, or a bullet arm on a quarterback.

"It becomes a bigger deal when you're trying to win the big ones,'' says four-time world champion Kurt Browning. "When you're trying to create a special moment that people will remember - the music and the costume and how those two things relate to what you're like as a person - when everyone gets really level at the top, that can be what puts you over is that lasting image.''

The image of Browning in white tux and bow tie remains one of the most enduring in figure skating, his "Casablanca'' program a defining moment of his career.

Britain's Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean will similarly be remembered for their steamy performance of "Bolero,'' while Canada's Jamie Sale and David Pelletier skated to "Love Story'' in a program that helped them capture Olympic gold.

Those are the hits. There have also been misses: Germany's Katarina Witt skated to the theme song for "The Muppet Show'' at the 1981 world championships.

Skate Canada officials keep tabs on their skaters' programs, but high performance director Mike Slipchuk said he's never had to give a program the hook.

"At the top level we are very confident that the skater, coach, and choreographer use the best vehicle for the skaters and we are very confident this year with all our top skaters,'' Slipchuk says

Witt went on to win gold with her sultry skate to "Carmen'' at the 1988 Calgary Olympics, where she was one of three women to skate their long programs to music from Bizet's famous opera - the other's were American Debi Thomas, who won bronze in '88 and Germany's Marina Kielmann. The rivalry between Witt and Thomas leading up to Calgary was known as the "Battle of the Carmens.''

Opinions differ on figure skating's greatest hits - the oft-used pieces such as "Carmen,'' "Swan Lake,'' and "Romeo and Juliet.''

"There are so many wonderful pieces of music out there,'' says Lane, who coaches 17 ice dance teams, including 2009 Canadian silver medallists Vanessa Crone and Paul Poirier. "I tend to think if it's been done the best it could possibly be, then I don't want to touch it. I've tended to steer clear of what you might call the warhorses.''

Canadian choreographer Lori Nichol, who works with some of the world's best including Toronto's Patrick Chan, has a different take.

"I don't mind music that's been used a lot,'' Nichol says. "These are incredible pieces of music and the reason why we're still hearing them today is that they are incredible, they are enduring, and they have so much colour in them.''

Nichol chose Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera'' for Chan's long program this season - a popular pick among skaters, but a piece that Nichol loves for its "incredible cello and violin playing,'' and its "darkness.''

"It had the shades that I thought Patrick could do and he's always loved that piece of music,'' Nichol says. "I always feel when the skater loves the music I'm halfway home, they have to skate to that music every single day, several times a day in many cases, the whole year.''

Canada's top ladies skater Joannie Rochette skates a tango for her short program, and to ``Samson and Delilah,'' for her long, both chosen partly for their mature, sensual styles. As one of the older skaters in the event, the 24-year-old Rochette says she doesn't mind being portrayed as the woman among girls. In fact, that was point.

Canadian ice dancers Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skate this season's free dance to Gustav Mahler's "Fifth Symphony,'' a return to a more classical style after last year's edgy Pink Floyd number that helped them earn bronze at the world championships.

"Marina (Zueva, their coach) kept telling us she had the perfect music for us, and finally one day she took us out into the car to listen to it, and Tessa and I, as soon as we heard it we knew it was the program we wanted to skate,'' Moir says. "The music is one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever heard.''

Jessica Dube and Bryce Davison, Canada's top pairs team, opted for a return to their romantic roots for the Olympic season, choosing Marvin Hamlisch's "The Way We Were'' for their long program.

"In all honesty, we hope to make people cry when we skate it,'' Davison says. "We hope to draw the people in so much, they feel they're a part of it, and they get emotionally attached to it. . .figure skating is an artistic sport, we're there to put on a show too, and that's what we want people to talk about.''

Getting people talking and impressing the judges don't always come hand-in-hand, and finding the right combination can be tricky. Scottish siblings Sinead and John Kerr, one of Britain's top medal hopes in Vancouver, chose Johnny Cash for their original dance and music from rockers Linkin Park for their free dance - an adventurous choice in a sport that traditionally sticks to the classics.

"Last year we skated to Muse, a band we really love, and we've always wanted to skate to music that we enjoy listening to,'' Sinead Kerr told BBC.com. "It surprises us that ice dance hasn't moved forward, but we've picked a piece, in Linkin Park, that isn't going to offend anyone and is very skate-able to.

"We've always felt that our responsibility to the sport is to try to bring a new generation of fans into it, and the only way you can do that is by making figure skating cool.''

Johnny Cash won't be the only country strains heard in Vancouver. A handful of dance and pairs teams are skating to country music - perhaps in some mistaken blue-jeans-and-cowboy-hats image of Vancouver.

"I know people will do that,'' Lane says. "When the Olympics were in Italy (in 2006 in Turin), there were 5,000 Romeo and Juliets. I did look at Canadian music but we really didn't find anything I felt was appropriate - having gone through everything from k.d. lang, Gordon Lightfoot, Stompin' Tom Connors. . .

"There was a lot of it that we liked, but between liking it and putting it on the ice, there's a huge chasm. It didn't work for my kids.''

The reasons for choosing particular tracks of music are varied as the pieces themselves, says Browning.

"It's everything in the book: your mom chooses your music, you skated to it because it was the first movie you ever saw and it made you feel good, coach wants you to skate to it because they think that's the vehicle that will take it to the top,'' says Browning.

The 43-year-old, who's a choreographer now himself, skated one of his professional programs to "Antares,'' a song written for him by "The Tragically Hip.'' Browning was already a huge fan of the Canadian rockers when he met them in a hotel bar, and struck up a friendship.

"And they wrote me a song,'' Browning says. "It was a piece of music that never made it on an album. Very cool.''

As for the actual process of cutting the music, there are companies that offer that service. Many coaches, such as Lane, edit their own.