Help I'm new and can't find the beat

C

chico1st

New Member
Hi I need your help. Im newish to dance but I have taken lessons and I have gotten decent at the steps/moves for many different ballroom dances. However I have a big problem. I cant ever figure out/follow the beat of a song. Any partner I'm ever with gets so frustrated with me since I cant follow the music.

I've tried listening to the music but I can always count 3,4,6 or 8 beats and once i dance start dancing i cant stick to the beat. Also i have to stand listening to the music for a minute (at least) to figure out the beats. What do i do?

I know how to play music but i cant seem to listen to it and decifer it.

Thank you so much
 
Practice. Listen to music when you aren't dancing and, when you hear the beat, move to it. Tap your feet or, at stop lights in the car, your fingers on the steering wheel. At home, practice the basic steps over and over to music. Stick to a basic step so that you can focus on the music without having to think about the step itself. At first, pay most attention to the 1 beat, rather than trying to count them all.

Are you a leader? If so, keep your dancing simple for a while, so you can focus on the beat. It sounds like you might have learned lots of steps, but if they aren't automatic yet, you might be needing to think so much about the steps that you can't hear the music.

If you are a follower, life is much simpler--just match your timing to your leader's.
 
welcome to DF chico1st!

Hopefully one of our musical types will be along to help you (and there are some past threads in our archives that you can probably look at on counting music).

I have always been able to find the 1 in the music naturally - probably from listening to so much music. I'm not quite sure exactly what it is in the music, but it's probably the percussion rhythm section that normally cues me in (i.e. in pop/rock 4/4 music it would normally be the bass guitar, bass drum - usually on 1 & 3 - and snare drum - usually on 2 & 4). Also the phrasing of the vocals or melody line helps identify where you are also.

Once I've got the beat, I normally have a semi to sub-conscious counting going on in my head during the dance.

Hopefully somebody with more musical knowledge will be along soon!
 
waltzgirl said:
Practice. Listen to music when you aren't dancing and, when you hear the beat, move to it. Tap your feet or, at stop lights in the car, your fingers on the steering wheel. At home, practice the basic steps over and over to music. Stick to a basic step so that you can focus on the music without having to think about the step itself. At first, pay most attention to the 1 beat, rather than trying to count them all.
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I always suggest my beginners to start their timing training in the car. After you have gotten used to tapping to the beat then start making sounds to the beat. My teachers called it "singing the beat". He would use sounds to count all the times (like tja, tja or ti ta ta or any other sound that comes easy to you). Then go to one corner of the floor and do "closet dancing" practice. You basically stay in one spot and dance all your steps by stomping the feet in time to the music. You can even do "the closet dancing" in the shower as long as you have music around.

I am sure you are going to get it soon. I have always hear that people (initiators) that sing all the time are better at dancing in time to music.

Dancepro
 
dancepro said:
...
I am sure you are going to get it soon. I have always hear that people (initiators) that sing all the time are better at dancing in time to music.
Dancepro
Click to expand...

Yes, following the beat, provided the music has simple rhythm (70% of ballroom songs), is really easy and can be learned by almost anybody. Be sure that you will master that.

As said, songs with more complex rhythms, including ones with pauses and other "violations" of continuously running beat, can be mastered by:

1) Finding the down beat; and

2) Internal or loud continuous singing, or even counting, so that the dancer will continue dancing to his (internally) sung song.

That song or counting will be re-matched with playing music by the dancer when the rhythm of the music becomes clear enough. This is also learnable.

Although being correctable, dancing large portion of a dance off beat makes the partner feel unhappy. It looks very bad to observers, worse than forward-bent bodies, stiff knees or lack of frame.
 
chico1st said:
Hi I need your help. Im newish to dance but I have taken lessons and I have gotten decent at the steps/moves for many different ballroom dances. However I have a big problem. I cant ever figure out/follow the beat of a song. Any partner I'm ever with gets so frustrated with me since I cant follow the music.

I've tried listening to the music but I can always count 3,4,6 or 8 beats and once i dance start dancing i cant stick to the beat. Also i have to stand listening to the music for a minute (at least) to figure out the beats. What do i do?
Click to expand...

Practice listening to music off the dance floor.

Choose music that has easy answers. That probably means beginning with 4/4 time, and a steady tempo. You might go so far as to try for a specific tempo - for swing dancers, I would recommend 120 bpm, because that's a nice stead beat-every-half-second. There might be a better answer for ballroom.

Choose music with easy answers that counts in. A song that has nothing but a beat at the beginning gives you a running start when the melody line comes in. Stay with it as long as you can, then go back to the beginning and start over. (Listening to the same 5 seconds of music over and over and over... is a normal thing for people who are working on musicality.)

[ I tend to recommend rock/pop music for this sort of thing. Heartache Tonight by The Eagles. Back in Black by AC/DC. Heart of Rock and Roll by Huey Lewis. Once you "get it", I think the skill transfers easily. It might just be that I enjoy that music more.]

Find somebody sympathetic, with more skill, to identify what you are following instead of the beat.

Something that may make a difference - when you are counting to yourself, do you see the numbers, or hear the numbers?


Oh yeah, just to point out one thing that isn't your fault - everybody sucks when they have to think about what they are doing.
 
it might also help to practice without the music first. once your know the steps cold, you can focus on the music more when you dance with it.
 
When I started I had difficulties finding the beat. So I went to dance parties just to watch the dancers. While sitting at my table I looked at their feet and I stomped at the same rythm than they were, first without trying to listen to the music, and later I listened to the music too and tried to stomp and I compared with the stomping of the dancers and after some weeks I became able to step on the music.
 
dancepro said:
I have always hear that people (initiators) that sing all the time are better at dancing in time to music.
Click to expand...

I have never heard that, but it could very well be true. I am always singing along to songs and do a bit of singing at karaoke and I have a very easy time finding the beat of the music.

I agree about practicing listening in the car or anywhere else a radio is playing. Listen to the music and think about what dance could be applied to a song. You will find that some songs call for a specific dance, while others can accomodate a few different dances.

Different people have different strongpoints. Some get the steps easily; some have better musicality, etc.
 
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