Help Categorizing Songs

[JJanetC]

I'm taking dance lessons with my husband. I've looked on a ton of websites to find what music in my current collection that I can use to practice with. Some music I've been told I can dance to but I can't figure out what style by listening to them. Any help categorizing would be totally awesome.

I would have provided links to song clips but the system does not allow me to. All the songs have clips in the iTunes music store, I bet Amazon also has clips for these songs too.

Title - Artist
Don't Know Why - Norah Jones

Can't Get You Out of My Head - Kylie Minogue

Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry

You Are the Sunshine of My Life - Stevie Wonder

How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) - James Taylor

Move You Feet - Junior Senior

Ojos Asi - Shakira

Accidentally In Love - Counting Crows

You're Still The One - Shania Twain

In The Mood - Glenn Miller

Little Brown Jug - Glenn Miller

Pennsylvania 6-5000 - Glenn Miller

Chatanooga Choo-Choo - Glenn Miller

Kalamazoo - Glenn Miller


Thanks again for any help that you guys can provide.

[fascination]

how sweet it is is a swing IMO...east coast...and you are the sunshine of my life wold be rhythm rumba IMO...the slow glenn miller numbers are foxy's or slow foxtrots and the faster ones are swings or quicksteps....you might also want to look at our music gallery for tips...see top of page...and welcome to DF

[mamboqueen]

Can't Get you out of my Head = Hustle
How Sweet it Is = Swing
Play that Funky Music = I would freestyle for this

[HothouseSalsero]

Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry

Uhm, funk? ;) I guess you could do WCS to it.

You Are the Sunshine of My Life - Stevie Wonder

I'm not sure how ballroom dancers would handle this, but I hear samba as the underlying rhythm.

In The Mood - Glenn Miller

Definitely swing (or some specific variant of it)

Chatanooga Choo-Choo - Glenn Miller

Swing.

[Phil Owl]

How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) - James Taylor FOXTROT or WC SWING

[fascination]

I like it for east coast...slow, but for a beginner, a good thing IMO

[reb]

Play that Funky Music = I would freestyle for this
What could Igor Litvinov and Julia Ivleva do with this song?

[wooh]

Play that funky music, I've done hustle to it many times.
Can't get you out of my head- I think when I've heard it I've thought cha cha would be good for it. But I'll cha cha to just about anything, hehe!

[mamboqueen]

Accidentally in Love = swing (just played it on my kid's MP3).

Yeah...I agree on doing WCS on James Taylor...

[mamboqueen]

What could Igor Litvinov and Julia Ivleva do with this song?

Did they do something with it? I suppose good dancers can figure out creative ways to dance to songs that aren't obvious to someone with my rather limited experience.

[tangotime]

My first q. to you is-- what dances are you trying to practice ?, the choice of music will affect your interpretation of the dance . Rough guide,if doing latin , stay with more authentic music ( thousands of choices ) for f/t/-- Sinatra is hard to beat , and as far as swing goes, endless music dependant upon style of dance ( e or w/c ) speed-- single or triple, and-- your personal taste in music, so, more info. needed .

[JJanetC]

So far, we're practicing Foxtrot and Cha-Cha. The tough part about music is that my husband is really picky about buying music. I have a lot of Glenn Miller from my high school jazz band days. I agree that we *should* stick with music with a straight beat but having more popular music will get my husband to practice.

We're taking a class that goes over the basics of one dance every week so at the end I hope we'll be ok at a variety of dances.

Thanks for the help everyone.

[tangotime]

I think my first suggestion ( sinatra ) would be great choice for your f/t --( unless he doesnt like frank ! ) Big bands are not really the way to go at this time. Most pop singers of the same era, martin, etc. will work . watch for speed of music, can vary greatly. As far as cha goes--traditional songs in latin are purely a matter of taste .Being a teacher, I,m more inclined to use authentic rhythms--but-- you may find songs that are more of a pop nature ( anything to keep him going ! right ? ) Telemark dance records have large selections for all your needs .

[HothouseSalsero]

I think my first suggestion ( sinatra ) would be great choice for your f/t --( unless he doesnt like frank ! ) Big bands are not really the way to go at this time.

I second the Frank Sinatra recommendation. I don't really like Frank Sinatra very much, but to my surprise he makes great dance music--at least if you are dancing fox trot. (One of these days. . . One of the days I really do want to get back to fox trot.) Songs for Swingin' Lovers has a lot of great fox trot material on it, but probably so do his other albums on Capitol from around the same time period.

I have had trouble finding lots of good cha cha cha all on one disc. I was going to make myself a cha cha cha practice compilation, but there's no urgency at the moment since I'm not praciticing it these days.