I don't know much about the technicalities of dancing - as anyone who has seen me dance will know - I have a limited number of moves and I don't really have anything technically challenging in my repertoire. So I would forgive people for say I know bugger all about dancing, so you may discount my view on dancing in these blogs - but people ask my views and sometimes I think it's easier for me to write them down.
Judges say musicality is important for competition dancers. I have spent most of my adult lift striving to study and understand music - and it is one of the most important things in my life - not the kind of music I hear at dancing. So I decided to write about music and dancing and competitions here. I promised a blog on musicality because here I see a disjunction between what judges see as important and what is presented to them and to the rest of us on the dance floor.
For me the best dances 'dance the music' - they don't dance to it, they embody it. It flows through them like electricity. I see some dancers fighting that, I feel it when I lead them - it's sad to me when that happens. Music works at a very deep level in our brains and accessing them I'm sure improves and enriches our lives at all sorts of levelsI'd say for social dancing let the music do all the heavy lifting in your dancing. When you are with the music (which is more than being with the beat) much of the rest will come easily to you and your partner. Competition dancing - I suspect - requires a bit more discipline - but there are many dancers in competition dancers who are technically adept who combine the discipline required to pull off their moves technically and remain absorbed in and embodying the music.
But when judges say musicality - I think some competition dancers haven't a clue what they mean. And these dancers haven't much idea how their dancing measures up musically in a competition culture which is focusing on the technical. If no one tells you your musicality needs work how would you know? And if no one tells you what musicality is, then how would you begin to reflect on what you are doing or how you might change it.
Unlike connection, I think it's easier to change musicality. You just have to listen very hard to the music. What are you listening for - well here's my list:
The beat: I watched a couple who have had plenty of accolades dancing recently - they were in time with each other, but they weren't in time with the music - both were (like the bass player in Fleetwood Mac) slightly ahead of the beat. The beat is the simplest bit of music - you can keep it even if all you have a fingers to click or hands to clap. But get a group of social dancers together and there will always be some who don't get the beat which predominates - but nowadays there are even competition dancers who aren't on the beat. I saw a semifinal last year where in one track 3 (or arguably 4) couples of the 7 on the floor weren't on the beat. A judges nightmare I suspect - but some of them got through to the next round!
Not that there is always one beat - sometimes there are several. Not that they are always fixed (the beat changes in the music). And not the musicians in the recording studio always find the same beat! BUT if you can't hear the same beat as your partner and you can't both be on the beat - it will show.
Next up is the paucity of response to phrasing. A musical phrase comes in many shapes and forms - the tune of the song is often the easiest to follow.
But a musical phrase does lots of things and I think a competition dancer should be alert to all of these - hearing them even if they don't know precisely what's going on:
Accelerando and Ritardando (quickening and slowing)
Crescendo and Diminuendo (louder and quieter)
Long pauses and short ones
'Flow' of the notes e.g. staccato (pointed articulation) legato (flowing phrasing), ostinato (bass patterns)
Counterpoint (one tune mixed with another)
Syncopation (emphasis off the beat)
Cadence and false cadence (endings and pretend endings)
Harmonic tension, (when they music moves away from its familiar key)
Modulation (when the music changes key)
Modality (when the music only uses certain notes e.g. Chinese, Indian influences)
Timbre (the sound different instruments or combinations of instruments make) and
Texture (the effect the combination or shift in timbre make stop the way the music feels)
More on these here on Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_musical_terminology
I would say the very best dancers in competition should be able to move with the phrase and do something different as each of those musical effects comes through. Emphasis in the music should come in the dance, de-emphasis too.
In social dancing much of this is lost in the general uniformity of the genres that are played - even quietness is avoided. I've heard a DJ turns the volume of Night Air up to full so everyone can hear the virtually silent suggestions of a beat in the middle section - to help keep people in time (presumably).
The worst crime against dancing I heard last year was a competition where all the songs were faded out. Leaving the most musical dancers high and dry without a harmonic resolution or cadence to dance. The end of a song is THE time to test a competitors musical sensibility AND many will pull something out of the bag at the end of a track with a dramatic ending. Why would you do such a cruel thing, so disrespectful of the dancer's connection to their material and frankly like slamming the brakes for the spectator...
By the way this is all without considering the lyrics. This is all before one might listen to the words which will add another layer to the options for dancing. All of this requires thought and hard listening but when one does it for a few tracks I think it becomes easier for reaction to new tracks.
What I see, though, is dancers particular leads who stand still when they execute moves in competition when the music is begging them to stylise the dance. There is no ebb and flow in their dancing to the phrase - there body shows no sign they are listening to much except the beat and perhaps the odd body roll suggests they've spotted the end of a phrase. The dullest thing in the world now is watching dancers who - if one were to turn the music off - would do nothing different. The straight legged leads who merely use their arms to direct and their legs to step. At least two of these have won first place in competitions this year when those dancing with their whole bodies to the music have enjoyed less success. So I wonder just how important musicality really is in competition sometimes...the nightmare scenario - played out on a couple of occasions last year where dancing becomes a musicality-less phenomenon - a metronome (or a track by Robin Thicke) would have done to keep the proceedings to time.
My sense is there is an appetite for something different, this present either spectating and competing - have seen good dancers tested by music which is hard to dance to because of its musical content and challenge and on the whole I think - they love it. And this is why the DJs who present real musical challenge and not a track list of personal favourites from their weeknight locker - get such a positive response in competition.
I think I'd like to see how judges work this all out and that's part of my next blog on reputation.
Judges say musicality is important for competition dancers. I have spent most of my adult lift striving to study and understand music - and it is one of the most important things in my life - not the kind of music I hear at dancing. So I decided to write about music and dancing and competitions here. I promised a blog on musicality because here I see a disjunction between what judges see as important and what is presented to them and to the rest of us on the dance floor.
For me the best dances 'dance the music' - they don't dance to it, they embody it. It flows through them like electricity. I see some dancers fighting that, I feel it when I lead them - it's sad to me when that happens. Music works at a very deep level in our brains and accessing them I'm sure improves and enriches our lives at all sorts of levelsI'd say for social dancing let the music do all the heavy lifting in your dancing. When you are with the music (which is more than being with the beat) much of the rest will come easily to you and your partner. Competition dancing - I suspect - requires a bit more discipline - but there are many dancers in competition dancers who are technically adept who combine the discipline required to pull off their moves technically and remain absorbed in and embodying the music.
But when judges say musicality - I think some competition dancers haven't a clue what they mean. And these dancers haven't much idea how their dancing measures up musically in a competition culture which is focusing on the technical. If no one tells you your musicality needs work how would you know? And if no one tells you what musicality is, then how would you begin to reflect on what you are doing or how you might change it.
Unlike connection, I think it's easier to change musicality. You just have to listen very hard to the music. What are you listening for - well here's my list:
The beat: I watched a couple who have had plenty of accolades dancing recently - they were in time with each other, but they weren't in time with the music - both were (like the bass player in Fleetwood Mac) slightly ahead of the beat. The beat is the simplest bit of music - you can keep it even if all you have a fingers to click or hands to clap. But get a group of social dancers together and there will always be some who don't get the beat which predominates - but nowadays there are even competition dancers who aren't on the beat. I saw a semifinal last year where in one track 3 (or arguably 4) couples of the 7 on the floor weren't on the beat. A judges nightmare I suspect - but some of them got through to the next round!
Not that there is always one beat - sometimes there are several. Not that they are always fixed (the beat changes in the music). And not the musicians in the recording studio always find the same beat! BUT if you can't hear the same beat as your partner and you can't both be on the beat - it will show.
Next up is the paucity of response to phrasing. A musical phrase comes in many shapes and forms - the tune of the song is often the easiest to follow.
But a musical phrase does lots of things and I think a competition dancer should be alert to all of these - hearing them even if they don't know precisely what's going on:
Accelerando and Ritardando (quickening and slowing)
Crescendo and Diminuendo (louder and quieter)
Long pauses and short ones
'Flow' of the notes e.g. staccato (pointed articulation) legato (flowing phrasing), ostinato (bass patterns)
Counterpoint (one tune mixed with another)
Syncopation (emphasis off the beat)
Cadence and false cadence (endings and pretend endings)
Harmonic tension, (when they music moves away from its familiar key)
Modulation (when the music changes key)
Modality (when the music only uses certain notes e.g. Chinese, Indian influences)
Timbre (the sound different instruments or combinations of instruments make) and
Texture (the effect the combination or shift in timbre make stop the way the music feels)
More on these here on Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_musical_terminology
I would say the very best dancers in competition should be able to move with the phrase and do something different as each of those musical effects comes through. Emphasis in the music should come in the dance, de-emphasis too.
In social dancing much of this is lost in the general uniformity of the genres that are played - even quietness is avoided. I've heard a DJ turns the volume of Night Air up to full so everyone can hear the virtually silent suggestions of a beat in the middle section - to help keep people in time (presumably).
The worst crime against dancing I heard last year was a competition where all the songs were faded out. Leaving the most musical dancers high and dry without a harmonic resolution or cadence to dance. The end of a song is THE time to test a competitors musical sensibility AND many will pull something out of the bag at the end of a track with a dramatic ending. Why would you do such a cruel thing, so disrespectful of the dancer's connection to their material and frankly like slamming the brakes for the spectator...
By the way this is all without considering the lyrics. This is all before one might listen to the words which will add another layer to the options for dancing. All of this requires thought and hard listening but when one does it for a few tracks I think it becomes easier for reaction to new tracks.
What I see, though, is dancers particular leads who stand still when they execute moves in competition when the music is begging them to stylise the dance. There is no ebb and flow in their dancing to the phrase - there body shows no sign they are listening to much except the beat and perhaps the odd body roll suggests they've spotted the end of a phrase. The dullest thing in the world now is watching dancers who - if one were to turn the music off - would do nothing different. The straight legged leads who merely use their arms to direct and their legs to step. At least two of these have won first place in competitions this year when those dancing with their whole bodies to the music have enjoyed less success. So I wonder just how important musicality really is in competition sometimes...the nightmare scenario - played out on a couple of occasions last year where dancing becomes a musicality-less phenomenon - a metronome (or a track by Robin Thicke) would have done to keep the proceedings to time.
My sense is there is an appetite for something different, this present either spectating and competing - have seen good dancers tested by music which is hard to dance to because of its musical content and challenge and on the whole I think - they love it. And this is why the DJs who present real musical challenge and not a track list of personal favourites from their weeknight locker - get such a positive response in competition.
I think I'd like to see how judges work this all out and that's part of my next blog on reputation.
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