What kind of dance are they playing?

[pygmalion]

Here's an intresting article which describes how to recognize various types of dance music. This should be a good reference for new folks. Have a look. Does anyone else have tips on how they learned to differentiate one dance from another?

http://www.adamsdance.com/article_.htm

[jon]

If that's the guy I'm thinking of, I heard him play the Blue Moon demos some years ago at a dance camp. Quite a tour de force. But I'm surprised the page doesn't discuss tempo at all. And his description of WCS rhythms doesn't account for the wide variety of music that is played for the dance today.

Does anyone else have tips on how they learned to differentiate one dance from another?

My musical education has been almost completely informal. Listen to lots and lots of music and try to dance to it. Watch what better dancers do. Get familiar with the standards. Experiment.

Much ballroom dance music is profoundly bad, and I am convinced many ballroom DJs do not actually understand music and just read the labels other similarly clueless people have prepared for them; for example, at the local ballroom dance I most frequently attend, their "Foxtrots" are often much better WCS music than the "WCS" and their "Quicksteps" are often better ECS music than their "ECS".

[d nice]

Personally I'm not a fan of announcing songs as one type of a dance or another. I prefer the dj to just play the music and let people dance as they choose.

I guess its the street dancer in me.

[pygmalion]

Yeah. I know what you mean, d nice. On the other hand, a lot of the ballroom newbies I know are absolutely terrified to dance the "wrong" dance, so they won't start until somebody tells them what to do. No problem for me, by the way. :twisted: :lol:

Did I ever tell you about the time one of my "crazy friends who can't dance," led me into a hustle for an entire samba song? :shock: :lol: I didn't have the heart to tell him, poor guy. :lol: :D

[Swing Kitten]

knowing very little about both hustle and samba I have to ask... did it work? If it wasn't off beat could it be 'wrong' ...????


D nice-- like the new signature btw ;) oh too true!! :lol:

[pygmalion]

Well, I hate to say he was WRONG, but in this case, I'd have to say it was pretty distracting. The dances are written in different time signatures, the accents are in different places, and the syncopations are totally different. Oh yeah, and the tempi are different. Obviously, it can be done, since we did it, but YIKES! :shock: I wouldn't recommend it.

[Swing Kitten]

gotcha!

[Spitfire]

I was pretty much able to pick up on identifying the song for the dance just from my teachers playing them at all my lessons and classes; didn't take long at all as I recall.