index

Why put music to martial arts forms?

Actually, martial arts patterns being performed to music is nothing new, but you only see it done with newer styles, usually in free form. In free form the performer can choreograph his techniques to pre-existing music. But for traditional martial artists, performing specific patterns from his or her chosen style to pre-existing music is simply not possible. If you create your own pattern, you're no longer performing the art you've been studying. And if you try to use pre-existing music, it's impossible to find something that musically reinforces or 'kicks' with all of your techniques. You can find something with occasional 'hits' but you almost always have to delay or rush through the timing of your techniques to line up with the kicks in the music. Then you end up performing the pattern with extreme changes in the timing of the form that you've practiced for so long to learn. Also, these forms usually last between 45 seconds to a minute, so your music has to be chopped up, with no beginning or ending. This just doesn't work.

Many times in competitions this means competing separately from those using music. Some tournaments even have the Musical Forms competition on Friday night, and have the Traditional (no music) Forms competition Saturday morning. In all practicality, the only way for traditional martial artists to perform to music is to use music that's been composed and produced specifically for their particular arts. This is Kickin' Tracks!

What are the uses of Kickin' Tracks?

They're mainly intended to be practice aids. The biggest benefit from practicing with Kickin' Tracks is 'motivation'. Repetition is the key to practicing patterns, and the music creates a level of excitement while doing the forms that makes it basically more fun to do. People end up wanting to put more time into their pattern practice. Added benefits are an increased focus, improved timing, and more 'snap' to your performance.

Kickin' Tracks are also great to use at tournaments and team demonstrations. To make practice easier, the CD includes an extended version of each piece, which repeats it 5 times. If that isn't long enough for some people, they can set their CD player to 'repeat' mode and chop 'til they drop!

How do you go about creating these pieces?

I use a film scoring approach, which involves mainly using a 'time line' and 'hit points'. The big challenge is that it's putting the 'cart before the horse'. It's the reverse of someone choreographing the motion to the music (i.e.: gymnastics, skating, free form martial arts or dance). Choreographing physical motion to a piece of music has a lot of leeway in what you can get away with and still look good. But putting music to physical motion isn't so forgiving. If I extract hit points from a video or CD-ROM and put them to music exactly as is, it would just sound like random percussive events that make no sense, would feel unnatural, and basically sound very bad (not to mention difficult, if not impossible, to learn).

Music, to be usable, has to have a specific structure (time, tempo, meter, etc.). These martial arts forms and patterns, depending on the style, could have been created 50 years ago, 500 or even 2000 years ago. I have to try to score these pieces without compromising the integrity of the original pattern. So I want to strike a balance between music that feels natural, and timing the techniques so that they're as close as possible (in time) as they were originally meant to be.

What kind of music did you come up with?

Mostly contemporary (rock, funk, dance, Latin, etc.). The stuff has to be moving, exciting, and even danceable. People need to hear music with a strong pulse, very preferably in 4/4 time. Strong beats to place hit points are on beats 1&3, and 2&4 (sorry if I digress musically). Up-beat eighth notes (half beats between 1, 2, 3, and 4) sometimes are tough to remember, as are hits on downbeats if they end up in contrary patterns (i.e. a repeating 3 beat pattern in 4/4 time). Even though there's a video tape to demonstrate the performance, I had to make sure that those hit points that are tough to feel or remember have subtle musical cues (i.e. 2 or 3 notes in a strong bass line, a short drum fill, etc.) that lead into or set up the 'hit', so after a few viewings you start to learn quickly where the hit points occur. It's really very simple to learn as long as you know the pattern you're working on beforehand. In fact, that's essential. DO NOT use Kickin' Tracks videos to learn the patterns; they are used to supplement the audio CD only! Learn the techniques and patterns from your instructor, your school, or any teacher approved instructional videos or CD-ROMs.

How did you learn the patterns you scored to?

Many moons ago, I studied ITF style TaeKwonDo in Rhode Island at one of Master Hee Il Cho's schools, under Black Belt 5th Dan, Jery Potenza. I basically cross-referenced between Master Cho's videos that I still have, General Choi Hong Hi's TaeKwonDo Encyclopedia, and the Legacy CD-ROM (General Choi).

How did you decide on the final timing of the 'hit points'?

This was the toughest part of the whole project. The performances on the Legacy CD-ROM are superb teaching aids; deliberate and very definitive. I've seen 2 other video tape series (including Master Cho's), and also well-respected black belts perform patterns in tournaments. I notice that no 2 people perform with the exact same pace and timing, and they shouldn't have to. Human beings come in all different shapes, sizes, and personalities. Some people naturally do things faster than others do, others are more deliberate, others more centered, and these traits can be observed in their daily lives in everything they do, including martial arts. The martial arts are also art forms, and although we try to duplicate the original as close as possible, there is a certain amount of 'self expression' involved (remember the Pierre Burton Hong Kong TV interview with Bruce Lee and Lee's talk about the importance of 'honestly expressing yourself'). Early this summer I came across an article on the ITF/USTF Region 8 website by Louis Reyes, Jr., VI Dan (http://home.att.net/~sandrapinzon/tkd/home0.htm -- under: Articles). Mr. Reyes spent 20 years in what he calls 'intense tournament competition', ranked consistently in the top 1%, and was for 6 years on the USA National Karate Team. He has some great tips for pattern practice, and when he addresses timing and pace says: "Use the correct speeds in your pattern, remember that you are demonstrating techniques against imaginary opponents and you should MOVE AS SUCH." So instead of just thinking in terms of one technique after another, I started looking for groups of techniques (in music called motifs). For instance, in Won-Hyo, moves 1 through 3 are against one imaginary opponent, then turning and using the same movements mirrored in 4 through 6 against a different opponent. The same 'motif' is developed in moves 13 through 15, and again in 16 through 18. So, I started breaking the patterns down into musical 'movements' if you will, and developing the movements in the music to parallel the movements (motifs) in the patterns.

And I must say, many times I found Master Cho's performances to be very 'musical'. In Won-Hyo, he does the first 3 moves 2 beats apart from each other, then pauses an extra 2 beats before continuing to moves 4 through 6, creating a very natural 2 bar (measure) phrase. The first 6 moves (2 motifs) take up 4 bars exactly, and he does the same thing in 13 through 18. So I kept the music for that section basically the same, but slightly more orchestrated in 13 through 18 to keep building intensity in the piece. This became the approach, and I think works quite well.

The only other thing to deal with in deciding placement of hit points is time shifting the techniques, either slightly forward or backward in the time line. This occasionally has to be done to try to put them in places where they would musically fit, or feel natural. Common sense would dictate when this was possible; i.e.: a slight delay after the second punch in a punch-block-punch combination; or the exact timing of a jump kick taking precedence over a preceding block or punch.

Can the demonstration videos be used to learn the patterns?

The purpose of the videos is to demonstrate how the patterns are performed to the music. Watching them is like watching music videos. While this gets the idea across, it's a very poor way to learn the pattern(s), which should have already been learned beforehand. We always strongly recommend: Learn the techniques and patterns from your instructor, school, or any teacher approved instructional videos or CD-ROMs.

Could you describe what you get with Kickin' Tracks?

Basically, they're music compositions that within approximately a minute take you from a paused or laid back intro (ready position), through a count off into a high-energy music track that changes energy levels several times throughout the piece. It musically reinforces all of your techniques, building to the highest intensity about 80-90% through. Then, after a very short 2 bar 'breakdown' section, the band kicks in again for a couple of bars, followed by a nice 'stinger' on the last technique (primary climax point) of the pattern with a chorus 'KiHap', for musical effect. The final bar or 2 brings it back down quickly for the finish position. Also, pretty cool is the slate (intro) using a vocoder; a robot like voice effect announcing the name of the piece (ex: "Tae-Kwon-Do-Hyung--YulGok"). The CD comes with 2 versions of each piece; the main piece, full length, and the extended mix, playing the main piece 5 times in a row (minus the 'robot'). And, of course, the CD is accompanied by the demonstration video on DVD (VHS tape also available; specify which when ordering).

Is Kickin' Tracks just for TKD?

No. Those were my roots, so I naturally started with TKD/ITF. Next in line is the WTF series, then next possibly Uechi-Ryu, etc. But Kickin' Tracks will encompass predominately the traditional martial arts.