For all the musicians out there...

[ThisIsNotMe]

I was just curious as to how many musicians are out there in the dance community, because (to me) music and dance are inextricably bound together, and I know that if I did one without the other, neither would hold as much meaning.

On a different note, those of you that are musicians as well as dancers (I have been a musician for far, far longer, having played the piano since I was very small, and being qualified to teach that, as compared to two years of dance), when did the 'emotion' of the music click for you? It only happened for me after I had been dancing for a year or so. I think it's because I love dancing so much more than my piano now - because it is one thing to make the music, on an instrument, but another altogether to be the music, which is what dance is for me.

So I suppose I'm asking:
If you're a musician
-What do you play?
-For how long?
-Have you been dancing or playing longer?
-When did the 'emotion' of the music fall into place for you?

 

[fascination]

fwiw, I play a smattering of piano and used to play oboe and cello in school...but I am also a professionally trained vocalist...I think there is some merit, at least in my own case, to the notion that artistic folks tend to gravitate toward artistic endeavors...as I also enjoy painting and writing, and even gardening for very creative reasons...but as for the music itself, whether I am listening to it playing it or singing it, it fills me like nothing else does...I have only been dancing for 2 1/2 -3 years now ....for quite a while I lost the music in it while focusing on so many of the techinical aspects, but always with the notion that I could have the music back once I learned how to use it....in the past few weeks, I am starting to feel it more and it is wonderful

 

[SlowDancer]

I've played the piano since childhood and majored in piano performance in college. I've been dancing for 9 years. If I understand your question, it took about two years to start feeling the music while dancing. During the first two years, I was much too worried about technique to pay a lot of attention to the music, although the feeling of moving my body to music was what attracted me to dance in the first place.

I'm still not terribly accomplished technically, largely because of the sporadic nature of my lessons over the years. But feeling the emotion of the music is now second nature. Even when I am working on technical issues, which means all the time, I don't separate the technique from the emotional, performance aspects of what I am doing.

 

[anp73ga31]

I took piano for 10 years until I just couldnt do it anymore because of high school involvements. I played mostly classical music and loved it, which is probably why my favorite dances now are the ever so elegant smooth/standard dances. I loved playing the piano when it was just me practicing, but I played in churches for many years as a second job and found it very stressful (everyone watching....trying not to hit a wrong note....people who cant sing OR read music trying to lead you...keep in mind this was in a small town in the mountains). Also, when playing as accompaniment(sp?), I find myself concentrating too hard on doing it right to be able to enjoy the music. When it started to become more stress and frustration than enjoyment, I totally quit (except for to play for myself when at my mom's house). Anyway, the draw with dancing for me I think was partially that I would be able to move TO the music instead of being the one MAKING the music. Like the previous poster said, for the first two years I have been concentrating so much that I have not been able to get into the music as much as I wanted to. Especially since I was not blessed with natural movement(stiff and tense, that's always been me). Have noticed, though, these past few months(been dancing for 2 years and 2 months now, btw) that I am able to "let go" a lot more and experience/express the music, which is just simply wonderful. I can't do it all the time yet, since I am still working to solidify my technique and my lessons are sporadic right now, but its coming to me now, and I am so glad. It's such a feeling....

On a less serious note, I have noticed myself making faces/expressions that correspond with what a particular move makes me feel or do. Have been getting some good chuckles over that...I caught wooh's DH making a face the other night too at a social while we were doing chacha and had to kid him about it. Sounds silly, I know, but when you've previously been concentrating too hard to do anything but frown or stare blankly into space, faces/expressions are quite an accomplishment!

 

[SPratt74]

I played the drums, and was given a music scholarship to do so in college. I had also taken piano lessons and I was trained in college to play the piano as well. I just didn't enjoy the piano as much as I enjoyed banging on the drums more lol. I can play almost all of the instruments though as I was taught how to in high school. The only one that I cannot play is the trumpet. I can't get my mouth to do what it needs for some reason. The drums and the piano were the ones that I concentrated on until I got tired of it all. The others I just learned the basic scales and that was it. I didn't care for them any.

 

[DWise1]

I'm not actually a musician, but rather have studied music to a point. In college while trying to learn how to dance I studied theory in an attempt to figure out this "rhythm" thing that they kept talking about in dancing but could never explain (ie, "just listen to the music, follow the rhythm, and do what it tells you to do"). I never could correlate music theory's definition of rhythm with the dancers' non-definition, so the dancers, led by my then-girlfriend/now-ex-wife, just branded me devoid of rhythm and incapable of ever learning to dance until I rebelled against it 25 years later. In the meantime, I knew how to sight-read and I knew my way around a keyboard so I come at least plink out a melody and sound a chord and I knew how to count out the [musical] rhythm.

Fast-forward 25 years to about a year after I started learning to dance. After intermediate salsa, followed by beginning salsa and beginning east coast swing and a taste of country dances and beginning west coast swing -- during all of which I relied very heavily on the instructor counting it out -- , I started intermediate west coast (WCS). At the same time, I was taking beginning piano at the local junior college; indeed, for two semesters I would leave my WCS class and drive straight to piano class. The WCS would explain about the dance rhythm, which I would count to myself as we went through the dance moves, and then I would count the music rhythm in piano class. It was during that time that I finally was able to find and follow the beat with a fair amount of confidence. I tend to think that working with the music and the structure of the music helped to reinforce and complement what I was hearing and learning in dance.


A few new/side topics:
1. I was in a conversation with another dancer in which she expressed bewilderment and even outrage at non-dancers who would sit motionless while listening to a band playing dance music that only a stone would be unable to move to [expression used to describe a céilidh], so that she felt that they weren't even listening. Since I had been one such listener, I explained that they were listening a lot more intently than she was, because a listener listens to all parts of the music and to how those parts interact, as well as listening to the lyrics and how they relate to the rest of the music. Though I did find that once I had started dancing my appreciation of the rhythmic elements became greater.

In part because of that conversation, I came to realize why I was having so much trouble finding and following the dance beat. I was listening to everything when instead I was needed to pick out a element of the music, but because I was listening to everything I could hear what I needed to hear. And it took a lot of work to finally get to where I could pick it out and follow it throughout the song.

2. There was a thread a few months back in the swing section in which a musician was complaining about the dance's count contradicting the music's count. The vocabularies of music and of dance are very similar, but they are also different. It only took me a few decades to finally figure that one out.

 

[Peaches]

Not a musician, but grew up with music being a huge part of my life (mother was a musician, played piano on and off for ~15 years), DH is a musician (sort of), and it's very important to me. Which is to say, I've got a bit of a musician's ear for music, if not the technical ability and detailed know-how. That said...

With AT, I started feeling the music and it's relation to the dance very very quickly. Somewhere around hour 5 into the endeavor. For that, I have my first teacher to thank. He often had me dance with my eyes closed, with the instruction to do nothing but listen to the music and feel the lead. And I discovered pretty quickly that if I wasn't really paying attention to the music how hard it became to follow. Even at first, before I really got into AT music, when it was just driving me up a wall, I could "feel" it in my "dancing." (In quotes because that early on, "dancing" was a very relative term.)

With ballroom...eesh. I can feel the character of the dance that the music imposes. A swing feels inherently different than a waltz feels inherently different than a foxtrot. But I cannot feel the music in the dancing. Could be just that I'm at such a beginner level that I don't know enough steps or technique to make it happen, could be that it just doesn't call me the way AT does. *shrug*

 

[Peaches]

I was in a conversation with another dancer in which she expressed bewilderment and even outrage at non-dancers who would sit motionless while listening to a band playing dance music that only a stone would be unable to move to

LOL. This is SO familiar to me. I've heard the same things many times from my mother. She doesn't dance, but nonetheless absolutely cannot sit still to good music. She could never understand how I could sit still, although she didn't accuse me of not listening. I never explained that I was just too shy/self-conscious to actually move. (And, I finally got up the nerve to start dancing b/c I got to the point where I couldn't sit still any more.)

In part because of that conversation, I came to realize why I was having so much trouble finding and following the dance beat. I was listening to everything when instead I was needed to pick out a element of the music, but because I was listening to everything I could hear what I needed to hear. And it took a lot of work to finally get to where I could pick it out and follow it throughout the song.

This is interesting to me, because in her quest to make sure my brother and I understood music, being able to pick out the beat and determine the time signature was something my mom was very "insistent" on. Probably because she'd wanted to be a conductor. Conducting in the car was something that was always going on--if it wasn't picking out the different instruments in whatever was playing.

 

[anp73ga31]

In part because of that conversation, I came to realize why I was having so much trouble finding and following the dance beat. I was listening to everything when instead I was needed to pick out a element of the music, but because I was listening to everything I could hear what I needed to hear. And it took a lot of work to finally get to where I could pick it out and follow it throughout the song.

DWise: That's me with alot of salsa songs. I hear so many different rhythms and beats in it that sometimes I just can't "find" the right beat no matter how hard I try. Very frustrating to someone who can count out and play anything! Never happens on any of the other ballroom/latin dances, just salsa. Which is kind of funny being that my dad is 100% spanish/italian. Of course, I dont like sausage, flan or garbanzo bean soup either, so I think I only got half of the half of the gene!! lol!

could be that it just doesn't call me the way AT does.

Peaches: I think that may totally be it. It seems to me that different things move us emotionally....for me it is a beautiful slow waltz or foxtrot, whereas someone else may think, "oh thats pretty" and thats it, while I may be moved to tears by the beauty of the music and the movement combined. Guess it may have something to do with our likes/dislikes, personalities, childhood experiences....I dunno...would like to know more about it psychologically; would be quite interesting!

What I DO know(IMO) is that dancing to the music FAR outshines creating/playing the music...

 

[danceronice]

In part because of that conversation, I came to realize why I was having so much trouble finding and following the dance beat. I was listening to everything when instead I was needed to pick out a element of the music, but because I was listening to everything I could hear what I needed to hear. And it took a lot of work to finally get to where I could pick it out and follow it throughout the song.

Yeah, I'm having much the same problem--not that I ever viewed music really analyically--I was just used to ensemble playing where I was listening for different parts because knowing what everyone else was doing was easier than trying to count the beat--ie, if the trumpets are playing X I should be on Y. I played flute (also piccolo, plus some pennywhistle, Bb military fife, and I took a crack at bagpipe chanter once) from age 11 to age 21 and I never really learned theory or anything--just how the music was supposed to sound in group. I tried to learn piano, as it seems silly to have a Steinway in the living room with only Mom who can play it, but I was never able to learn to read bass cleff or to get my fingers coordinated enough to play.

I'm one of those that can't sit still to music. While I'm not nearly, remotely advanced enough to do my own choreogrpahy or explain to someone else what I see when I hear music, I do 'see' it more--music sounds like movements to me. I've found myself explaining/asking questions where I'll say things like "Where the music bounces up and down" or "where it kind of curves." I'd a thousand times rather be dancing or making up skating choreography than sitting there playing the music myself--to me playing the instrument is just a mechanical exercise.

 

[Peaches]

Peaches: I think that may totally be it. It seems to me that different things move us emotionally....for me it is a beautiful slow waltz or foxtrot, whereas someone else may think, "oh thats pretty" and thats it, while I may be moved to tears by the beauty of the music and the movement combined.

Possibly, but I can be moved by non-AT music just plenty. I just feel like...dunno...there's very little relation between the music and the movement aside from the basic beat and overall feeling of the song. I can only compare it to AT, where everything in the music is fair game for dancing to, so you've got to be listening to it all. And how with AT the dancing (with a good leader, that is) the dancing becomes a physical expression of the sound. I've just never really seen--much less felt--ballroom be able to do that.

What I DO know(IMO) is that dancing to the music FAR outshines creating/playing the music

Hear! Hear!

 

[Peaches]

I do 'see' it more--music sounds like movements to me. I've found myself explaining/asking questions where I'll say things like "Where the music bounces up and down" or "where it kind of curves."

Oh, interesting. I "see" music, too. Not in terms of movements, though. I see images and feelings--usually it ends up telling a story of some sort, even if it's not meant to be programmatic.

 

[danceronice]

I might sometimes have a story to it, but mostly I see music as motions. I have programs in my head for skaters, some general, some for a particular skater, where I just...I listen to the music and it says 'here is a 3 lutz/3 toe', 'spin here,' 'this is an outside-edge spreadeagle', etc. It's what I see in my head when I listen to the music. Or dancing--I'm getting to know enough about ballroom at least to see how you could dance to some things.

 

[anp73ga31]

Possibly, but I can be moved by non-AT music just plenty.

Oh I know...and I can be moved by non-ballroom, too. What I meant was, not just moved while watching it, but moved with the longing to do it yourself more than anything because you really FEEL it, to express yourself like that and feeling just, well....RIGHT when you do it, even if you dont do it all that well.

And how with AT the dancing becomes a physical expression of the sound.

That what I mean....I feel exactly the same about ballroom. I think its so strange and so cool that different dancers who love different styles and types of dances can feel the same thing, but about different dances. It the beauty of the music, I guess. It speaks to us all, but in different ways. (sigh) That sounded pretty corny..I'm not too good at trying to say what I mean, so I hope that made sense. Maybe one day when I can actually express the music inside me I can also express the thoughts inside me.

 

[SPratt74]

Oh, interesting. I "see" music, too. Not in terms of movements, though. I see images and feelings--usually it ends up telling a story of some sort, even if it's not meant to be programmatic.

That's me too. But when I was in music school, our instructor would ask us all of the time what we were feeling and seeing before we started a new piece of music. So, I think it was all his fault that I started thinking that way lol. And this has probably geared me towards liking choreography as well. It didn't matter what the music was, but it was interesting to hear the responses (especially from the guys who sounded like romantics with the slow music lol)!

I am thankful to have played the drums though. I think that this has helped me tremendously when it comes to dance. What was interesting though is that my instructor asked me if I played an instrument. I think he thought he would have to explain everything to me, but was very surprised that I played the drums. So, it all worked out really well for me.