Dancing with music

[HopefulNaiive]

I came to a realization recently that it's not uncommon for many competitive am/am dancers to dance off music. I don't usually watch a lot of am/am couples to compete on, let's say, pre-novice and novice levels, but recently spent few hours at a local competition doing just that (Standard couples mostly). I was amazed that only minority of the dancers were on music. And I am not talking about minor accents, I am talking about being completely off, VW was especially bad. I made that comment to a pro standing nearby and he said: yeah, what else new, it's always bad. It was a shock to me, how can anyone compete and be off music? Is it common? I just read on another thread that some judges are willing to give high marks just for being on music, forget about technique and all. Is it common?

 

[Joe]

You'd better be perfectly on-time and musical yourself, since you're casting the first stone!

But yes, there are people who I see dance that are constantly off time. Very rarely pros or very high-level amateurs, though.

 

[Peaches]

Perhaps it's not so much being "off time," so much as rubato? Stretching and compressing the timing of the movements/steps to fit the feel of the music or figure? Perhaps body movements and steps utilize slightly different timings? (I don't know if it's possible, but it works in my imagination.) Perhaps high level dancing has a slightly different concept of correct timing?

 

[White Chacha]

I can assure you that when I was a bronze syllabus dancer, I wasn't using rubato. It was more like a combination of sensory overload and an inability to control my movement due to lack of experience and strength.

But I do see people off time in more advanced syllabus levels, but more rarely by pre-champ.

Bear in mind that judges often don't see you for long enough to notice whether you're off time; sometimes they just get a glance before having to move on to someone else.

 

[danceronice]

Depending on speed I'll sometimes find myself 'running' to catch up with Viennese.

OTOH, I'm the girl. I'm following, so I can only do so much. (And Joe, I wouldn't be too sure...a LARGE percentage of pros in pro/am apparently can't count mambo.)

 

[Mengu]

It happens. One time at a comp, they were playing a hard to hear waltz at a silver semifinal, and half the couples clearly couldn't hear it in the first 8 measures or so. I honestly am not sure if I would have been able to, had I been on the comp floor rather than in the audience. I've seen/heard coaches/piers yelling at their students/friends from a side line in rumba "4-1, 2, 3" which to me is one of the easiest beats to hear. Mambo is probably the hardest of them all for me, I don't always hear it right (though I don't compete rhythm). And a couple times, I have seen RS pros who were off time in VW.

Lack of rehearsal (too much thinking) can be a cause for falling behind music, and adrenaline, crowded floors, wardrobe malfunctions, panic, can tend to rushing. It's not unusual to see a couple dancing perfectly on time during practice, get off time in competition.

While it's very important for the gentleman to be able to hear the beat (and dance to it), I think the ladies can help or hinder the process too, so I don't think it's always the guy's fault when a couple gets off time, though 90% of the time, it probably is.

 

[Warren J. Dew]

Perhaps it's not so much being "off time," so much as rubato? Stretching and compressing the timing of the movements/steps to fit the feel of the music or figure? Perhaps body movements and steps utilize slightly different timings? (I don't know if it's possible, but it works in my imagination.) Perhaps high level dancing has a slightly different concept of correct timing?

All true, but unlikely to be the reason for syllabus level dancers to be off time.

Bear in mind that judges often don't see you for long enough to notice whether you're off time; sometimes they just get a glance before having to move on to someone else.

It takes at most one bar to see it, and often just one beat. I think most experienced judges look for that long.

Many experienced judges have difficulty seeing the actual dancing if the couple is off time. Granted, for couples whose dancing is sufficiently atrocious, that could be an advantage.

It happens. One time at a comp, they were playing a hard to hear waltz at a silver semifinal, and half the couples clearly couldn't hear it in the first 8 measures or so.

I remember one time at an open competition where only one couple was dancing for the entire first phrase, presumably because none of the other couples had found the beat yet. You can collect a lot of marks when you're the only one on the floor dancing.

 

[jump'n'jive]

i'm a pro and i struggle with mambo. one time at a comp after a few heats while i was dancing pro/am, the emcee says to the entire ballroom, "isnt it sad that mambo has 4 beats but we only get to start on 1 of them". he was my friend and i knew he was talking to me lol.

 

[tanya_the_dancer]

You can collect a lot of marks when you're the only one on the floor dancing.

Or you can collect a lot of negative marks if you're the kind of competitor whose dancing gets better as it goes.

 

[danceronice]

i'm a pro and i struggle with mambo. one time at a comp after a few heats while i was dancing pro/am, the emcee says to the entire ballroom, "isnt it sad that mambo has 4 beats but we only get to start on 1 of them". he was my friend and i knew he was talking to me lol.

I was watching Rhythm at Ohio after my heats and my pro came over at one point. I asked him "Is it just me or about seventy percent of the leads out there dancing it on one?" "It's not you." Though admittedly it does help when they play MAMBO music where you can actually hear the two.

 

[jump'n'jive]

yeah i blame it on them always playing a salsa

 

[New in NY]

I don't compete, but my dp/dh often struggless to stay in time with the music, even with (American style) waltz, where the downbeat is so defined. He has pretty much been able to conquer this in AT by dedicating a lot of time listening to the music, and simply walking in beat with the music by himself.

 

[Paul NC]

(my noviciate 2 cents)
I have noticed several that the apparent phrasing of the routine in is in 8 bar phrases but they wait until the middle of the musical phrase to start dancing. This seems to put the dancing phrasing off by 4 bars.

There have been times where it seemd like the dancing phrase was intended to extend over the end of the musical phrase which worked well. (intrumentalists, particularly jazz players, do this ).

I don't mind slowing down a figure or speeding up a figure much as a singer might (up phrasing or back phrasing) as long as they come back to find "1" again.

Of course somethimes there are unavoidable circumstances that necessitate the dance phrase being out of sunc with the musical phrase.

Then there is the difference between dancing with an altered rhythm or phrasing as opposed to dancing without musicality

(I am finished rambling now)

 

[Josh]

I don't compete, but my dp/dh often struggless to stay in time with the music, even with (American style) waltz, where the downbeat is so defined. He has pretty much been able to conquer this in AT by dedicating a lot of time listening to the music, and simply walking in beat with the music by himself.

But given that AT usually doesn't have a strict tempo, doesn't the interpretive nature of the music (meaning, most anything goes from what I see) make it so that you can't be "off time" unless it's totally random?

 

[Peaches]

Generally speaking, yes. There are different styles of timing (feet and body arrive together, on the beat, versus feet arriving slightly ahead of the beat with the body arriving on), and pretty much anything goes.

However, you might be surprised at how many leaders (and possibly followers, but since I don't lead I can't speak about them) still can't find any beat to step on, or anything in the music to correlate to their dancing. There are some who don't seem to be able to find the beat with two hands, a compass, a map and a bloody neon sign marking it. Totally random is not so unusual...and wrong any way you look at it.