Tiffany Poon: Entering The Open World Of Jazz Music

Every year at my ballet studio, my dance teacher holds a class talent show to end the year off. The last year Tiffany danced at my studio, after announcing she was moving to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music, she played a piece she composed and showed the true musical talent she held. As she played the song, you could feel the emotion she felt, both towards the music and the whole concept of music itself. Tiffany Poon is a classical pianist who also dances ballet. To Tiffany, “music is a lifestyle, something that unifies people and is meant to be shared” (Poon 2015). She believes that regardless of background, people can listen and enjoy the same types of music because it surpasses cultural and language barriers to unite its

The improvisation of jazz music, along with the free flowing nature of it, is different from the typical, fixed structure classical music has (Murphy). To enter the open world of jazz where spontaneity is welcomed is a variation that she likes to explore. Tiffany believes that music, if it is created and played well, will affect and stir up some sort of feeling in listeners. She feels that while listeners may not understand the lyrics of a song, they can feel the emotion behind the song and intent of the composer (Poon 2015). Music breaks cultural and language barriers in the sense that it stirs up feelings and impressions on the aural field. It is powerful because of its ability to communicate feelings so undoubtedly. She believes music allows people to be more in touch with their emotions and lets them say what they find difficult to formulate into words (Poon 2015). Music lets the artist play a piece that shows all the raw emotions they feel, something they may not be able to convey through words. She thinks composing a piece has such a personal facet to it because it is a way to completely express one’s thoughts and beliefs (Poon 2015). A composition can be adjusted in multiple ways to cater to the musician’s emotions, such as a change in octaves or melodies (Johnson, 15). The piece is an extension of themselves and to be able to wordlessly show someone all their emotions is a powerful

If a dancer or pianist does not put in the hard work and practice needed for a dance or composition, it will seem choppy and less fluid. Ballet and musical arrangements have a fluidity that stems from how structured both activities are, there is a set way in which a piece or dance needs to be executed or else they seem awkward and graceless. One of Tiffany’s best ballet related memories, during her senior year of high school where she was Alice in the production of Alice in Wonderland, shows just how far dedication took her. All our older classmates were main characters with us and it was one of the biggest productions we had done at the studio in a long time. Each main character had a solo and there were multiple dances incorporating the younger students as well. It was one of the most stressful productions because of the multitude of dances everyone needed to learn and practice as a group. It was also one of the first times she got to dance a big role and was one of the last times she was working with the rest of our classmates she had grown close to over the years. The music was different from anything we had ever danced to and the musicality was hard to follow, so we devoted time to creating choreography that fit the story while also appropriately fitting the song. The amount of times we visited the studio weekly increased as the performance got closer and we stayed at