More into the music less into the moves

S

sababa

I have noticed that recently i have been undergoing a change in the way i appreciate my salsa dancing.
Most of my "salsa time" used to be spent on learning new moves, improving my technique and basic steps. Now, i have become much more fascinated with the music and with adapting my dance to the music by choosing the right moves that will suit the way i feel the music and adapting body movement to the music. When i dance i am less concerned with using a more diverse set of moves; instead i am more focused on the music and trying to get my partner feel the same way i do about the music. I have noticed this has a very positive effect on my partners, and i too have become much more relaxed and perhaps even more spiritual when i dance.
Has anyone else gone through such a change (or only phase)?
Ladies, who would you prefer dancing with, someone who puts more emphasis on the music and less on move diversity or the other side of the spectrum?
 
Totally! For me it came as I started concentrating on the music with the goal of learning to play timbales. If it's a phase, it's been a long one (about 2 years now!). Although I get anxious that I'm losing my repertoire, I don't think I'll ever go back to a regular 8 counts now that those syncopations have got under my skin!
 
I've spent maybe 70 % of my "salsa time" to learn the music, 20 % on solo dancing and 10 % on couples dancing, i.e. moves*. Immediately in the beginning I used to concentrate only on the moves, then I had a music phase and now I'm actually quite lazy with listening to new music and have now a afro/Son phase (which although provides some rhythmical training mostly provides body movements). Now I'd almost rather dance alone to a nice Son-piece than dance salsa with a follower that only wants to dance on 1. In a night out dancing, I also want to dance on 2 or on 3, and there are many women who also want/agree to dance on these alternative rhythms.

* figures contain rounding, so the sum is not necessarily 100 %.
 
Welcome to the next level! I am also going through this phase right now and did not quite realize what was going on until I started seeing all the threads about Musicality popping up all over the place. I suppose it's just a natural progression in one's evolution as a dancer 8)

It's interesting the effect it has on the follow. I've had some follows just stop in the middle of the dance and watch me because it was (word-for-word) "so entertaining to watch". I've also had many other salseras also come up to me after the dance and tell me how much fun it is to watch me dance. Personally, my favorite is when the groove becomes infectious and my partner can't help but put on a big smile and follow my groove. :D

--T
 
I feel I am entering that phase as well, with little to no role models in my small community it has been hard to expand in any direction except this one. I do agree with sweavo, that I am worried that I am forgetting moves as I don't use as many. Followers are giving me feedback that the moves don't matter though :)
 
About half a year ago, I started to work more on my musicality instead of just learning new moves. I've noticed that this has changed my way of dancing and so far nobody complained. ;) While I've noticed that musicality is very important, I've not given up on learning new moves. I still like to learn some new moves to be able to better adapt my dancing to the music.
 
i feel ya ... i jus listen to the song and it tells me what to do ....i tell the girl ..as long as your smiling whether youre having fun following or just watching me ...thats all i want....

moves will come in time through classes and practice..but once the music come on ....its just you and your partner and the music...let it come from within .. =)
 
I'm going through this change right now. I'm a competent salsero - I know a lot of moves and I'm a pretty clear lead. But I'm not interpreting the music like I want to. It's not that I don't recognize changes in the music (I'm a musician), but rather it's dancing to those changes that I'm struggling with.

Ironically, I'm adapting musicality technique from WCS and Hand Dance ( a six count swing variant) that I've been learning for about a year. Instructors in both those styles of dance focus a lot more on musicality than any of the dozen or so salsa instructors that I've had. Sad but true. :roll:
 
OK here goes.... Probably the most fundamental yet the hardest subject to tackle....

Either you feel it or you don't, and that depends partly on what else your mind is on. If you still have to think about the next move, or leading moves, or handling a partner that's hard to drive, you can't expect to give as much attention to the music as you'd like. But like most things, I think you can train yourself better to feel it, and simplifying down to moves you can do automatically is the first step so that you can give more attention to the music.

Making sure that your rhythm and timing, arms and footwork, match the music well, bar by bar, quick and slow, is probably the next step. Best to stick to pure salsa tracks here I think. Make the most of those pauses (the 4 and the 8, if On1) to slow down at the end of a move, then accelerate into the next one. Take a bar or two out to go slow, now and again; or take four bars to complete a move instead of two. This gives you more time to feel the music - and it is also a good test that the follower is following your feeling....

It helps to know a track well beforehand, so listening to tracks until you know them, their breaks, change steps etc. is essential if you are trying to train yourself.

Thinking about choreography for parts of these tracks is also useful beforehand: what moves would seem to go well with the music right there...

The more you develop techniques for tracks you know well, the easier it will get to generalise to tracks you know less well, and finally to tracks you never heard before.

You have to pick the right sort of salsa for the right sort of track, should go without saying. IMHO there are far too many reggaeton or other tracks that are really not salsa, and you can see that people dancing salsa to them, especially if trying to do cross-body stuff, can look a bit contrived.

And this journey never ends! But that's what I've learned so far.
 
sababa said:
Ladies, who would you prefer dancing with, someone who puts more emphasis on the music and less on move diversity or the other side of the spectrum?
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The former. At times it's fun to dance with someone who leads different moves non-stop, learning new stuff is never bad and it makes you feel such a survivor if you manage to follow them all. But in terms of having an enjoyable dance and a nice emotional connection with your partner, the former, hands down.

It can be just small things, really, that make the difference. The first and maybe easiest step would be to learn to react to a break in music. As Flex said, it helps if you know the track beforehand, but after a while that's not necessary either. If you happen to be in the middle of some crazy pretzel move when a break comes, there isn't much you can do about it, bad luck, but generally noticing these things in a song and not just dancing through them lifts a leader to a whole new level in my eyes.
 
Flex said:
It helps to know a track well beforehand, so listening to tracks until you know them, their breaks, change steps etc. is essential if you are trying to train yourself.
Click to expand...

Try to listen to as much salsa music as possible. Try to listen to tracks you don't know on internet radio and either dance to it or at least think what moves you would be dancing while hearing it. Also try to get familiar with the different parts of a salsa song and notice them in different (know and unknown) tracks.

Flex said:
Thinking about choreography for parts of these tracks is also useful beforehand: what moves would seem to go well with the music right there...
Click to expand...

Just be careful that you don't end up having choreograpies for various songs that you always dance when you hear that song. ;) Try to think about variations or different moves that might fit to a certain part. Personally I've noticed that with the same song but different partners, the moves will be different, but I still try to keep the musicality (and work on it ;).

Flex said:
And this journey never ends! But that's what I've learned so far.
Click to expand...

So true, especially about salsa at all. :)
 
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