Focus on the music FIRST!!by Edie "The Salsa Freak&quot

[sagitta]

"Musicality in Salsa is still in its infancy." I wish she would have elaborated because musicality existed way before Edie. Perhaps she is talking about its potential. If you look at the old footage of Palladium dancers you saw a lot of musical interpretation of the music. What about Cuba?

"Musicality brings us back to dancing and interpreting the song the way the artist originally intended it" Again this sounds like the pre-text for another marketing pitch. Dancers feel and interpret music differently when they go by their true feelings and not some contrived routine laid out in a commercial DVD or bootcamp. Do or did salsa artists make music for dancers to dance a certain way to their music? If the song is about a particular dance, that may be true but this is another case of over generalization and oversimplification.

"Because they have memorized all the songs, and know every hit and break in the music." This is not musicality; this is choreography, and this is an important point that Edie is missing. Timing and musicality are not mutually exclusive. The notion that you have to memorize a song is ridiculous. If you know the structure of music as many mamberos do, you will have a sense of the ebbs and flows in the music.

In general its good that people are talking about this issue :lol:

Like all this.

 

[borikenSalsero]

"Musicality in Salsa is still in its infancy."

She might mean in today's crop of dancers. I happen to agree. Musicality has always been around, it's just it's hardly used now-a-days.

I believe that many-a-instructors miss the point on musicality, and as you mentioned believe that technique is ways to musicality.

 

[KP-salsa]

Well, you can't really criticise Edie for seeing a niche and trying to exploit it. However, I do think it's a bit rich for her to comment on dancers forgetting about musicality and focusing too much on routines when she has about a dozen dvds out detailing just those routines.

I also believe that musicality isn't something that can be "taught". You can be given a few hints and tricks but mostly it's about watching really good dancers, see how they dance, and try to incorporate it into your dancing in a way that suits your personality. Just throwing in someone else's "musicality breaks" could be just like choreography.

 

[sweavo]

I also believe that musicality isn't something that can be "taught". You can be given a few hints and tricks but mostly it's about watching really good dancers, see how they dance, and try to incorporate it into your dancing in a way that suits your personality. Just throwing in someone else's "musicality breaks" could be just like choreography.

I'm inclined to agree. I think choreography can be musical - but it's the choreographer not the dancer who is exhibiting skills in musicality. When improvising, the dancer is the choreographer and it's being done on the fly.

I would like to see a separation of musicality and dancing. I don't think you need to dance a move to be musical. To teach "this shine by Edie TSF goes great to standard salsa break #4 from Rebeca Mauleon's Salsa Guidebook", while better than treating the music as simply a source of timing, falls a long way short of what I'd like to see:

1) The Music goes in at the ears and torso, and goes into the heart.
2) The heart comes out through the body.

To get to this stage does not need lessons in repertoire.

Sure, if you want the result to look like salsa, you need to have a repertoire of movements that look like salsa, and you need to have evolved a taste for what you feel good doing or what movements project the persona you like to inhabit. Also, if you want to get to (2) then you really will benefit from technique, since you don't want to have to interrupt the heart's expression to untangle an arm or apologize for bending a wrist.

For (1), "all" you need is to listen. In order for the sounds to mean anything to you, you need to understand something of the language of the music... but it's really important in my opinion not to allow your world to become one of "right" and "wrong" ways to interpret music. This exercise is all about increasing the power of the music to make suggestions to you. Over-rationalization and rote learning are the enemies of this. It's all about authentically feeling the music for yourself.

I think I went somewhat further than my actual belief of what's possible or ideal there... 'standard breaks' in music and pre-defined shines do have a valuable role to play too... but I would hate for people to stop there and not to aspire to the greater freedom that lies beyond!

 

[KP-salsa]

1) The Music goes in at the ears and torso, and goes into the heart.
2) The heart comes out through the body.

I really like that phrase: although (2) could be both a bit messy and would make the dancefloor slippy. :lol:

To get to this stage does not need lessons in repertoire.

No, it needs you to free yourself from inhibitions. In my case, I needed a certain amount of salsa repertoire to feel relaxed enough to be able to let myself really feel the music. Not being a dancer before learning to salsa, I had to have the structure within which I could let myself go. At the moment, a couple of years later, I feel that I'm not retaining in memory enough from the classes I do, I'm just using it as "lead practice time" - but instead I'm trying to interpret the moves I learn rather than just remember them like a very large featherless parrot.

 

[sagitta]

I also believe that musicality isn't something that can be "taught". You can be given a few hints and tricks but mostly it's about watching really good dancers, see how they dance, and try to incorporate it into your dancing in a way that suits your personality. Just throwing in someone else's "musicality breaks" could be just like choreography.

I'm inclined to agree. I think choreography can be musical - but it's the choreographer not the dancer who is exhibiting skills in musicality. When improvising, the dancer is the choreographer and it's being done on the fly.

I would like to see a separation of musicality and dancing. I don't think you need to dance a move to be musical. To teach "this shine by Edie TSF goes great to standard salsa break #4 from Rebeca Mauleon's Salsa Guidebook", while better than treating the music as simply a source of timing, falls a long way short of what I'd like to see:

1) The Music goes in at the ears and torso, and goes into the heart.
2) The heart comes out through the body.

To get to this stage does not need lessons in repertoire.

Sure, if you want the result to look like salsa, you need to have a repertoire of movements that look like salsa, and you need to have evolved a taste for what you feel good doing or what movements project the persona you like to inhabit. Also, if you want to get to (2) then you really will benefit from technique, since you don't want to have to interrupt the heart's expression to untangle an arm or apologize for bending a wrist.

For (1), "all" you need is to listen. In order for the sounds to mean anything to you, you need to understand something of the language of the music... but it's really important in my opinion not to allow your world to become one of "right" and "wrong" ways to interpret music. This exercise is all about increasing the power of the music to make suggestions to you. Over-rationalization and rote learning are the enemies of this. It's all about authentically feeling the music for yourself.

I think I went somewhat further than my actual belief of what's possible or ideal there... 'standard breaks' in music and pre-defined shines do have a valuable role to play too... but I would hate for people to stop there and not to aspire to the greater freedom that lies beyond!

I like this a lot. This is why I have learnt every dance by listening to the music. When someone compliments me on dancing and asks me how I learnt I say listen to the music. It si one of the easiest ways to get a helping hand in dancing. I know that I probably take it a little too far in my emphasis, but I think it is ebcasue of the preponderance of the move mentaility that I see around me. Probably trying to compensate for that.

 

[Flujo]

To get to this stage does not need lessons in repertoire.

No, it needs you to free yourself from inhibitions. In my case, I needed a certain amount of salsa repertoire to feel relaxed enough to be able to let myself really feel the music. Not being a dancer before learning to salsa, I had to have the structure within which I could let myself go. At the moment, a couple of years later, I feel that I'm not retaining in memory enough from the classes I do, I'm just using it as "lead practice time" - but instead I'm trying to interpret the moves I learn rather than just remember them like a very large featherless parrot.

Ditto....and LOL at the large featherless parrot bit.
Been dancing since childhood to all kinds of music so relaxing into Salsa (musicality) has come a bit quicker for me. What you said about remembering things; there is something in Psychology about the depth at which things are learned being related to the ability to retain the knowledge. So what your doing by interpreting the moves (processing them at a deeper level) is helping you to remember them a lot easier. I've found this too.
By doing that you can put back learning moves that are based on ones you already know and learn something your body has no memory of. Ask yourself "Why does the hold end up left over right after she turns...?" and deconstruct it until you understand "Why?". By doing that it becomes part of your move/muscle memory and brain has more time to get creative.

That's what your talking about right?

 

[sagitta]

Yesterday night I was dancing with someone and she said oh...I cannot really feel the beat. She is a pretty advanced dancer and can follow really well. Anyway...we chatted a bit and she agreed with me that it was better to have variety than the same regurgigated songs. After the song she said thanks...I relied on you to improvise as that song was tough for me. There are many small things that one can do when one improvises and a lot can be made easier by connecting with your partner. It definitely helps not having to think about certain things such as how to do a basic cbl...but a lot can be communicated in raising an eyebrow, facial expressioons, trurning partly from your partner and back again, clicking your fingers...clapping...ONce a move is learnt it should be different depending on the song and partner. If it is the same for a slow romatica and for a fast hard driving salsa dura apart from being speeded up there is nothing in that. If it is a fast hard driving salsa dura with two very different people than is the move different to each of them. I ask myself do I talk the same with everyone? No. So, then the same way my dance should be different with different people.

Yesterday night I danced with a beginner than I asked her friend and she told hthsi enw prospective dance with him and he will spin you around a lot. It just so happened that this song was very different and this new person and I had a diferent connection so I didn't do much of that...more rumba like dancing...but she enjoyed it the same...though she did blush a little. :twisted:

 

[chrisk]

"Musicality in Salsa is still in its infancy." I wish she would have elaborated because musicality existed way before Edie. Perhaps she is talking about its potential. If you look at the old footage of Palladium dancers you saw a lot of musical interpretation of the music. What about Cuba?

You might want to send an e-Mail to Edie and ask her directly and get her opinion. But I think that Edie is not taking about the past and the old days of the Palladium, but about our current time. So I tend to concur with her.

"Musicality brings us back to dancing and interpreting the song the way the artist originally intended it" Again this sounds like the pre-text for another marketing pitch. Dancers feel and interpret music differently when they go by their true feelings and not some contrived routine laid out in a commercial DVD or bootcamp.

Well, since she has produced a DVD about musicality there's definitely going to be some marketing language included in her postings. But while everybody will feel and therefor interpret the music different, there will also be some things in common. In case of a salsa romantica, I would expect everybody to interpret the music in a more romantic way then for a fast and hard salsa dura. So there are also some common feelings about the music that most dancers will share, but surely their interpretation will vary.

 

[peachexploration]

"Musicality in Salsa is still in its infancy."

She might mean in today's crop of dancers. I happen to agree. Musicality has always been around, it's just it's hardly used now-a-days.

I believe that many-a-instructors miss the point on musicality, and as you mentioned believe that technique is ways to musicality.

Hi Boriken! Good to "see" you!