Is there any 6-count music fit for 6-count dances? Country Two-Step, Foxtrot, 6-count Swing...

Johannson

Johannson

Active Member
I know 6/4 equals 4/4+2/4, which, when displayed that was is I think called Compound Meter.
I know 6/4 can sound like 2 sets of 3/4, which is not what we want (but without a primary beat at the half-way point.

I know 6/4 music exists - Synchronicity 1 by The Police, a lesser-known Radiohead song, some say Devo's Whip It, some say Hozier's Take Me to Church.

None of the 6/4 or some-say-6/4 music feels like QQSS.

I know there's a song called Quick Quick Slow Slow, by Dale Watson - but it's 4/4.

Why can't I find music where the 1 of each dance bar matches the 1 of each music bar? (For 6-count dances.) Ideally counts 4 and 6 would have a soft / high beat, or perhaps no beat, so we feel 3-4 and 5-6 as slow slow.
 
Johannson said:
Why can't I find music where the 1 of each dance bar matches the 1 of each music bar? (For 6-count dances.)
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Two reasons; one musical, one dance-related.

The musical reason is that phrases of six are almost always going to be subdivided into words of either 2x3 or 3x2. AKA, Viennese Waltz or Slow Waltz. The human brain loves symmetry too much to allow any other subdivision to be more than a novelty.

The dance reason is that six-beat dance patterns provide the opportunity to place highlights on different steps, in order to fit the musical phrasing. This is a feature, not a bug.
 
If people sing the base line of Stand By Me, they are singing the rhythm
Quick Quick Slow-and-a-half Slow-and-a-half,
Quick Quick Slow-and-a-half Slow-and-a-half,
...
It would help if there was a well-known tune with the rhythm
QQSS
QQSS
That way, without music playing, they could practice and feel the music.
Lots of music has so much happening that it's hard for students to feel the QQSS rhythm, unless they mostly ignore the music.
I guess I'll create a song.
If anyone else does, I'd love to hear yours. I kind of think I could create one spontaneously, but I've got a whole lot of unrelated work requiring virtually all my focus, so it may be a while before I post anything here, but I will.
 
fiesta0618 said:
..The dance reason is that six-beat dance patterns provide the opportunity to place highlights on different steps... a feature, not a bug.
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Only want to add that 6-count steps in swing (Lindy Hop) are not meant totally binary. The triple steps are not quicks but variations of triplets. The swing feeling arises from the rivalry of 3 against 4 (cross rhythm). You find traces of this idea even in binary felt dances like Fox Trot or Tango.

tango-beat.blogspot.com

Music Workshop: Thinking in Six

J.S. Bach: Handing over a minuet to Anibal Troilo to add the cruzado . See the smirk on his face? Today's workshop is on the vals. ...
tango-beat.blogspot.com tango-beat.blogspot.com
 
opendoor said:
The swing feeling arises from the rivalry of 3 against 4 (cross rhythm). You find traces of this idea even in binary felt dances like Fox Trot or Tango.
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I want to paint that on my wall.

I've never noticed any swing music that plays the 2nd of the 3-set, but certainly the 3rd of the 3-set is a swung (off-center) "&". The degree that that [beat] is swung can vary, but I'd say it typically sounds exactly like this:
I had never felt a waltz within swing, and I probably shouldn't, but I'm delighted by this, in part because I kept hearing people talk about how lindy hop came from polyrhythmic roots, and I rarely heard anything that qualified as true polyrhythms. (I studied polyrhythmic percussion / singing and dancing for a two-week intensive (just two hours per day) and loved it, and nothing I could find in swing music had those same qualities.)

The article you posted talks about tango vals, aka vals criollo, where the criollo is Spanish for creole, which means (I think) African (at least that's how it's used in New Orleans). Do you know if the cruzado / cross-rhythm principles also applies to more standard tango, not only tango vals?

I know Foxtrot was danced to swing music. (Most swing records were labeled foxtrot, for most of the 1930s.) I know Foxtrot has SSQQ or other variations of two speeds, but I'm not yet aware of cross-rhythms underlying foxtrots. I'll keep my ears and felt rhythmic senses open.
 
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Johannson said:
..Do you know if the ..cross-rhythm principles also applies to more standard tango, not only tango vals?
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Standard tango is a dance form, not an independent musical form. This is different in Argentine tango, which is first of all a style of music. So it depends more on the composer whether he uses such rhythmic patterns. Horacio Salgan and Ástor Piazzolla pushed the boundaries of the genre. They used stylistic elements from North American jazz, but also from Argentina's exterminated African-Creole culture. (Of course there is a lively discussion in the scene if these productions are danceable, at al) Unfortunately, I can't give you any specific pieces right now, sorry. Furthermore, there is a very widespread rhythmic element in tango that has Cuban roots, the 3:3:2 motif. But one can not really speak of cross-rhythm here.
Johannson said:
..I'm not yet aware of cross-rhythms underlying foxtrots..
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Foxtrot is a white variant of ragtime, while Charleston is its black brother. Either dance style underwent changes, and developments. I collect shellacs so I know that typical swing music was labelled Foxtrot for a long time. The swung patterns were first recognized as stylistic phrasings, not as an entirely different style of music.
 
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Speaking of the origin of fox trot...

"Betty Lee credits Vernon Castle and then in the next sentence says that he had
seen the Foxtrot danced in a "colored club." The credit can be given to the dancers in the
club with Vernon getting only the credit for popularizing the Foxtrot. "

A COMPILATION AND ANALYSIS OF THE ORIGINS OF THE
FOXTROT IN WHITE MAINSTREAM AMERICA
by
Christina M. Hawkins
A thesis submitted to the faculty of
Brigham Young University
page 24

Here's text from Dancing, all the latest steps, by Betty Lee 1927

"While I have heard many versions of its origin, have listened to many of its self-styled originators, I have credited Captain Vernon Castle as its originator and preceptor. The story has it that on one of his quests for in- novations his attention was called to a cer- tain exclusive colored; club. At the time he attended, the members were dancing the Fox Trot, even at that time so-called, and he be- came enthusiastic over it and determined to bring it out for a little fun for a few, hardly realizing that the dance was to win for itself a high place in the favor of the many." p 40, 41
 
Steve Pastor said:
..origin of fox trot...
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These sources always regard a dance as a specific entity whose source can be traced back. We know this attitude from popular Darwinism. Darwin himself always understood development in terms of a continuum of individuals with different characteristics (panmixia, random mating populations). Accordingly, we also should to see single dances in relation to that continuum, i.e. the dance dance scene.
Of course, Foxtrot has steps that One-step and Two-step did not have. However, I am convinced that the dancers who first used chasses and triplesteps still called themselves Two-step stylists. Our thinking and knowledge about dances is far too influenced by the self-portrayal and self-justification of the dance school movement and its early heroes and inventors.
 
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Aa previously observed a lot of the US dance paterns are s ix count and the music is 4 count. I haven't found that a problems with Progressive 2 step. For wCS I can mix in some 8 count patterns and/or hold an anchor to sync with the music. Take some musicallity classes to learn how music is constructed and phrased.
 
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