ORIGINAL: AeroDave
This is a very cool topic. I've been thinking lately how we tend to accentuate the beats with point rolls. It seems to be the easiest way to express a strong, driving beat. I wonder, though, if there might not be another way......It seems in most of the videos I've seen lately when the music goes from something smooth to hard driving the plane too often goes into point rolls. Ideas?
Yes, many. Again, my artistry is limited by skill, but I make do nonetheless.
Point rolls do become passe quickly, but with that driving beat it takes noticable attitude OR heading changes. For this example, feel music with a driving beat (and bluegrass works great for this with a funflyer, Madness, Hype, something wild) in your head that calls for point rolls. OK, the first pass of point rolls has well demonstrated your skill in that arena and you know that the crowd will start to yawn should you make a flight of that. So, flip around and start again a point roll, perhaps an 1/8th right, quick 1/8th left and then yank quickly through an 8 or even 16 sided loop. Exit that loop and lay her on knife-edge (can I say that here?) and fire through a knife-edged hexagon, or a knife-edged square with rapid four-point rolls on each leg. Now, flying like that you can make a simple but very exciting 2 minute flight. That is why it is SOOOOOOO necessary to mix your flying music to allow several styles. Any single style can quickly get boring unless you are one of those absolute top notch pilots that carefully choreographs an entire musical ballet (I mean the type that are the top five or ten freestylists in the past T.O.C.. Even the nice flights in the Ballet of the Sky series, while nice, lose something in the repetition of the style). Anyway, without going into too many more details on the possibilty, remember that point rolls need not go always in the same direction. 2/8ths left, 1/4 right, snap one quickly and slow roll the rest of the past. Keep changing directions. Keep changing headings. One should not fly straight and level for more than a couple of seconds and then only that long to accentuate the next figure. Get wild, hold the line and keep as much precision as possible, it will look good.
The last thing I can say to this is that I have been able to make two or three really wild and fun flights before my head is absolutely drained of attention and alertness.
Mark