How to fit things to music/musicality

S

smiling28

Moderator
Hi,

I have done some good musicality workshops/dvds plus moves/shines dvds but rarely do I ever see What to fit where. Like when you buy some clothes, no one ever gives you a 'this will match that and not that' set of instructions and neither with dancing.

I guess some people are naturals. Sometimes I get it right in dancing, sometimes I leave the house wearing white shoes, blue pants, green shirt and a yellow polkadot hat ha ha

(i.e I have some good moves, shines/body movements now) but how do I improve when I bring them out and combine them?

Magna did a great job in her Ladies styling class of explaining why she chose movements ie. 2 sharp beats then a slow movement hence her body movement matched the same, but how can I extend this to know which body movements match which beats?

(I know the musicality aspect is predicting the breaks/repetitions in the music and feel I am going ok in this regard and much further advanced than my ability to fit moves to music which is what I am working on)

Hope that makes sense

Thanks
 
SOAK yourself in music, and when you watch dancers, DRINK in the movement. When you watch people dancing, FEEL yourself doing the movements. You basically condition yourself to associate sounds and movements. Then, small stylistic cues in the music will just inspire you to move in certain ways, without all that cumbersome "learning" stuff getting in the way!
 
There is no ABC of musicality and no end of workshops and lessons can teach it. Lessons and workshops can only point out a few common characteristics of music in the salsa genre and make suggestions for appropriate adjustments to your body movements, which for me amounts to little more than styling tips.
Anyone claiming to be able to teach you musicality is a fake and a fraud or an idiot. It's a feeling, an instinct, and, to some extent, and inherited talent - it's about not just hearing the music, but feeling it.
Yes, it is possible to train musicality by giving a person some pointers for what to listen for. Ultimately though I don't think there's an substitute for good old submergence. By that I mean ...

1. Listen to lots of music.
2. Dance a lot.
3. Learn to play that instrument you were planning on learning.
4. Listen to lots of music.
5. Dance a lot.
6. Listen to lots of music.
7. All the time.
8. And don't forget to listen to music and dance a lot.
 
sweavo said:
SOAK yourself in music, and when you watch dancers, DRINK in the movement. When you watch people dancing, FEEL yourself doing the movements. You basically condition yourself to associate sounds and movements. Then, small stylistic cues in the music will just inspire you to move in certain ways, without all that cumbersome "learning" stuff getting in the way!
Click to expand...

I guess I could have said "I agree with everything that nice chap from York says" but I thought I'd rabbit on a bit myself. :D
 
miércoles said:
There is no ABC of musicality and no end of workshops and lessons can teach it. Lessons and workshops can only point out a few common characteristics of music in the salsa genre and make suggestions for appropriate adjustments to your body movements, which for me amounts to little more than styling tips.
Anyone claiming to be able to teach you musicality is a fake and a fraud or an idiot. It's a feeling, an instinct, and, to some extent, and inherited talent - it's about not just hearing the music, but feeling it.
Yes, it is possible to train musicality by giving a person some pointers for what to listen for. Ultimately though I don't think there's an substitute for good old submergence. By that I mean ...

1. Listen to lots of music.
2. Dance a lot.
3. Learn to play that instrument you were planning on learning.
4. Listen to lots of music.
5. Dance a lot.
6. Listen to lots of music.
7. All the time.
8. And don't forget to listen to music and dance a lot.
Click to expand...

Surely if you were to work on any "styling" you want to do for particular moments and breaks, and moves to get ready for a certain point in the music, you could teach yourself the underlying structure of music and per se that might help out?
The tunes you know you can adapt to and learn where are breaks etc, just as a DJ might learn the certain points of the music for the instrumental, vocals, chorus, peaks and troughs etc visually for mixing.
Once you've got round to having a better predictive rate on new tunes, then you can start preempting them with a setup for whatever you want to do on the upcoming musical feature, no?

I'd imagine dancing a lot and listening to lots of music would help both, but I can't shake a nagging feeling that with a focus on specific points as you listen, and dance, you might be able to learn musicality quicker. Kind of a difference between active and passive listening - there are all sorts of exercises you can do. Admittedly a workshop or lesson could cover only some of these, but it's self-directed learning - you've got to spend time listening, getting those muscles and neurons involved.

Just listening enough to be on the 1/2/other
Feeling the rhythm
Listening for a specific instrument
Counting 4x 8 counts, sussing out the underlying song structure
Predicting breaks and verse/chorus changes/other song features
Listening to the lyrics

You can say its a feeling, instinct, but it's as likely to come down to immersion, repitition, feedback, practise. And that practise can be focused, maximised, evaluated etc.

What do folks think?
 
I did a lot of study a few years back of world-class dancers who were known to be musical and tried to come up with a framework to learn and teach musicality. Here are some of my thoughts of the stages a dancer can go through (either consciously or sub-consciously to highly reflect the music):

1. Recognise: Ok so the first stage is to train yourself (by intense listening and comparison with other known tracks) to instantly *Recognise* the musical elements that are playing in the song right now and when the changes (breaks, phrases) come. This also means recognising the different instruments that are playing (base, several kinds of drums, piano (montuno), cymbals, trumpets etc). Being able to seperate them in your head and focus on one of those.

There are a lot of patterns and repeats of patterns (with changes) in salsa music. Listen for the patterns and percussion nuances (e.g. a drum roll just before a big change like a break or phrase change) and this eventually leads towards predicting the musical changes.

Phrasal sections example could be: Mambo, Montuno, Son Montuno, Cha cha, Boogalu, Rumba (Guaguanco etc), Folkloric (Orishas) etc (depends on the genre of Salsa music being played, the particular band and song).


2. Synchronise: next select what element of the music (an instrument, phrase or change) that you want to synchronise to and bring your focus and body into alignment with the music. i.e. Prepare yourself for what you do next.


3. Interpret: Choose what your interpretation of that musical element is going to be. Keep it simple. Try to sense how that part of the music makes you feel and choose a movement that both matches the feeling and intensity of the musical element. No single movement should look louder than musical note playing at that moment.

One way to think of this is to create your own themes. Examples:

- A colour for the mood of the phrase of the song. red, blue, gold.
- Imagine an emotion attached to this part of the song. Excited or sad or romantic or elegant or playful. Feeling the theme (rather than thinking I have to do this thing here and this here) will change the whole way your body reacts to subtle things in the music, how it feels to your partner and how it looks from outside.
- Selective repetition: Repeat the same move 3 times when the music repeats 3 times. If the music goes bah bah bah, hop 3 times.
- Variations on a theme. An inside turn and CBL 360, then a double inside turn CBL 360, then an inside turn CBL 360 and stop (dramatically).
- Contrast: Try to create high contrast between different parts of your dance.


There are many common things that are done by many of the best dancers but in a slightly different way. This could be a change from dramatic fast moves to more elegant basics, slide or a kick, body movement, hop, a change of move, a spin for the girl or yourself, a hand/arm flick, whatever you want. The way you learn these different things you can do is to watch good musical dancers.

A lot of body movement in Salsa is either contra-body motion, or some other dance form (like Afro-Cuban Rumba, Son, Tango, Swing etc) that someone has mixed in. So expand your repertoire by learning that and integrate it into your dancing at select points.

Tip: Don't try to throw in everything you know at once. Be selective and experiment with different things. Find what works and feels right for you. Over time you will probably grow into doing new movements.


4. Reflect: Reflect the music with the physical movement (perform your interpretation). Try to nail (land) the movement so that you're in synchronisation with the music (for best effect). The simplest things done in perfect time with the music can look awesome. The dramatic move done out of sync with the music looks just ok.


5. Improvise: Once you've practice a lot of different movements and added them to your mental and physical toolbox, they're in muscle memory. You can do them any-time you want. Now try improvising something to the music based on one of the things you've already learnt to do. Creatively add to it and experiment. Some things work others don't. Throw away the stuff that doesn't and keep what does. Try to repeat and master it. This is the way you develop your own style.

6. Predict: At this stage you've mastered certain movements of your own choosing and can reflect the music when you hear it. Now try to predict what the music is going to do and plan ahead of time (a second or 30 seconds ahead) what theme you're going to reflect when the music changes. Play!


Once you become practiced at this you just hear the music and reflect it, with a barely conscious thought about how you might want to interpret it. Learning new skills is the hard part or breaking away from your habitual routines.
 
what azzey said...but there's more...

miércoles said:
There is no ABC of musicality and no end of workshops and lessons can teach it......................

................... It's a feeling, an instinct, and, to some extent, and inherited talent - it's about not just hearing the music, but feeling it.
Yes, it is possible to train musicality by giving a person some pointers for what to listen for. Ultimately though I don't think there's an substitute for good old submergence. By that I mean ...
Click to expand...

Basically you can't teach decision making. What you can show/teach are possibilities and what other people can do, and like to do and why they did it. The way you interprit that and take it to your dance is entirely up to you and is an art form. Leave the technicalities for your brain, but leave your soul on the dance floor.

In classes I'm notorious for not doing the basic while people are waiting around for instructions when to start shine routines. I'm listening to the music, spinning on accents, sliding on accents, doing a small shine on accents and going right back into the basic with the lot. That's just as much practice for me as anything else and I keep myself interested.

I watch videos technically, constantly looking for what makes a move easier to pull off and what is the crux of it all. When I see someone pull of some nice styling, or something romanticized, it wakes me up from that mindset and say "wow that's pretty cool, I'll try that sometime." And so I do. Remembering what's possible, and making **** up is all the more fun, and shines and musicality is truly an art form and is what brings salsa it's energy and passion.

Another thing you might want to do, is just go into your bedroom. Look at a mirror and play a few songs. Dance and just like that and try to hit accents anyway you feel. Don't think, just react to the music and do what's natural. If you don't like what you see, change it next time around. Keep trying anything and everything, and always be playful. Lastly, when in partner work, try to incorporate moments where she can also hit breaks and accents. I always loved watching the video of Ismael Otero and Shani Talmor dancing to Y Hubo Alguien, because he sets her up a couple of times perfectly to hit accents and it really gave me an example of things I didn't do enough of.
 
Just a side-thought - is there a normal spread of the learning styles within salsa?
Going back to it, the OP being what to go where - with the question being what might fit best assuming you can hear the musical elements and predict them? There's a question or two on the Peter Fige DVD quiz on his website, asking about what you might fit to a particular piece of music - it seems up to personal preference, but the questions seemed to imply there were certain things that fitted to a certain part of music better.
 
smiling28 said:
Magna did a great job in her Ladies styling class of explaining why she chose movements ie. 2 sharp beats then a slow movement hence her body movement matched the same, but how can I extend this to know which body movements match which beats?
Click to expand...

If you know that the music is going to go DAH DAH DAH BOOM CHA - silent - in a few seconds time, then it's totally your choice.

You could decide to stop the girl, turn away from her and move her arms over your head in sync with the DAH DAH DAH then bum bump the girl away on the BOOM CHA.

or

decide to break away from the girl a few seconds before the beats ready to shine...
then you've just gotta choose a shine which fits with the notes. A lot of this is trial and error but any three steps followed by a sharp break would do. Many many shines will fit to the same music. You just have to adapt it on the fly by making slight timing changes to the steps to get it to fit to the music. You don't always have to be on time when you're shining as long as you fit the music.

Moves are different, you have to be on time. Learn the rules before you break the rules.
 
opm1s6 said:
In classes I'm notorious for not doing the basic while people are waiting around for instructions when to start shine routines. I'm listening to the music, spinning on accents, sliding on accents, doing a small shine on accents and going right back into the basic with the lot. That's just as much practice for me as anything else and I keep myself interested.
Click to expand...

Yeah I used to do that a lot in classes. Whenever we were dancing a pattern in the class the first time I would do it vanilla. With the second girl I'd improvise something to reflect the music. So by the time the music has ended and we'd gone round all the partners I've come up with several different musical interpretations using the same pattern as a basis.

Obviously you need to be at a certain level of self-control and leading ability to do this. Your primary job is to lead and as long as you nail that you play as much as you want. Until your partner gives you the stern-adult-to-child-what-are-you-doing-look. hehe. Some people are no fun!
 
azzey said:
Here are some of my thoughts of the stages a dancer can go through...
Click to expand...

:applause: Wow! I'd nominate this for the "post of the year" award...


Just a bit of additional suggestion: if you are a leader, try to follow! World looks very different from the follow's perspective.

Following helps to understand a bit, which type of freedom enables your follower to react to the music on her own as well. Give her as much room as possible - she wants to be creative, as well.
 
Simple answer? You don't. Because if there was one way of using each movement then everyone would dance the same.

One of my favorite things I've seen myself do is to take a song that has a series of staccato beat and do a body roll, breaking at each beat. (I say seen myself do as you don't notice it so much when you're actually doing it).

In simplest terms...you're making a sound a visual. I know a guy who when he choreographs music he draws it out in a line. You just need to see how it connects to you.

*shrugs* Probably not all that helpful, but it's my viewpoint.
 
INCREDIBLE responses everyone - WOW!!!!!!!!!!

So good,

I love so much of it.

Azzey - GOLD!!! Pure gold - 1st learn the rules, then master the rules then break the rules (paraphrased from Bruce Lee, quoted by Magna and now quoted by you. I love it!)

I also love how Lola reminded me that its not just WHAT you do to the music but HOW you do it.

Everyone's posts were great though and helped a LOT. I believe my hearing of the music is going ok but very different when on the dancefloor (decision making like OPM said). I could choreograph a musical piece but when dancing, I get excited in the moment and just go with what feels natural (usually a limited emotion/musical interpretation). So I will take what you say and just practice interpretations to different pieces of music.

I will keep everyone updated :)

thanks again!
 
smiling28 said:
Azzey - GOLD!!! Pure gold - 1st learn the rules, then master the rules then break the rules (paraphrased from Bruce Lee, quoted by Magna and now quoted by you. I love it!)
Click to expand...

Hey thanks! :D I am humbled to be quoted in such illustrious company. :D
 
azzey said:
I did a lot of study a few years back of world-class dancers who were known to be musical and tried to come up with a framework to learn and teach musicality. Here are some of my thoughts of the stages a dancer can go through (either consciously or sub-consciously to highly reflect the music):

1. Recognise: Ok so the first stage is to train yourself (by intense listening and comparison with other known tracks) to instantly *Recognise* the musical elements that are playing in the song right now and when the changes (breaks, phrases) come. This also means recognising the different instruments that are playing (base, several kinds of drums, piano (montuno), cymbals, trumpets etc). Being able to seperate them in your head and focus on one of those.

Phrasal sections example could be: Mambo, Montuno, Son Montuno, Cha cha, Boogalu, Rumba (Guaguanco etc), Folkloric (Orishas) etc (depends on the genre of Salsa music being played, the particular band and song).
Click to expand...

First off, azzey can you run off a list of a few songs that you'd group together, or at least go into a little more detail on what your criteria is for a comparison. I was thinking about going through a few hundred songs and categorize them, first by whether the musical breaks change the count or whether they don't. The next was to categorize them by type of break (e.g. for instance a break preceded by four bars where final accents in each bar increases by one until it reaches the break, so first bar ends in one accent, second bar two accents..etc). That's how I thought about it, but this was just idle thought and I really felt like I needed some guidance from someone with more experience in musical structure and in particular the terminology, because while I hear, what I hear, I don't know how to describe it and explain it to someone else in detail.

If you remember we had a thread that went through the break down of a few songs to show how if you pay attention to the pattern you could predict the future! We had promised to do more songs, but I think I failed to keep my word, mostly because I felt like I had an inadequate set of tools to describe what I heard. I basically need a lesson in latin music theory :P
 
I just downloaded roughly 800 salsa songs (5 GB for the computer savvy), (most, if not all of them are vintage 80's and before), and it is quite intimidating to attempt musicality when the DJ can play any variation of the many.


At this point, it's musicality to specific patterns in the song, than anything.

I wish I knew Spanish, then it would be like dancing to Staying Alive by the bee gees or Hit the road jack... familiar/understandable songs = MUCH easier to perform musically.

In this case Jazzy, limited lyrics songs are what I favour, because they can be interpretted in any way :)
 
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