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Hey everyone, I've been kept up late at nights with this darn question. I thought I would turn it over to the forums and see how they chew on it, bury it, play with it, set it on fire.......
If you were attending a workshop for musicality, what would you like to learn about? What would make it successful? What is most important to you, right now?
I'm very curious about everyone's input. Thanks!
A very relevant topic! I've been to Tuesday classes on several occasions where the teacher says "Ok, I've got no lesson. What does everybody want to learn?" and the answer is usually something like "I wish I had more musicality." and the teacher is like "Oh, uh, yeah, good luck with that..."
Not in so many words. I'm probably exaggerating a bit. But the point remains that musicality is something that (a) people want to learn, and (b) is more than usually hard to improvise a lesson on.
Some things that are kind of musical, or can contribute to musicality, or are often associated and/or confused with musicality:
Great comment! Uh.....What do you mean by measured movement?
You wanna learn musicality???? Start listening to the music... a lot of people hear it... but very few listen.. Educate yourself on the music become more technical with your movement and make the music rhythms second nature and your basic swing rhythms and patterns autonomus.. When you have mastered all that... forget about it all and just feel the music... forget about set patterns and positions and feel the music.. Dancing and music is a constant changing thing, a good musical dancer dances in the moment... yadda yadda yadda.. Man I could go forver on this.. But that's the general idea.. At least one way to go about it.. There are many others I'm sure... musicality is so hard to get.. Its never ending.. I'm still learning and probably always will be... it's a lot of fun though. good luck with that
frutyspice:What do you mean by measured movement?
Good question. I think I stole the phrase from Vergil (sp?), and what I mean by it may not be the same anymore as what he ever meant by it. But darn if you can't make a class about it, 'cause he did. At least one, and seems like two. Which was kinda the idea I was going for in my list-- tools to help increase musicality that are concrete enough to make a lesson out of.
So yes, back to explaining what I mean by "measured movement"; the phrase floats around my head representing a gaggle of related ideas, some of which I will attempt to summarize here:
Hmm. I'll begin by citing dictionary.com's definition #4 for "measured": "deliberate and restrained; careful; carefully weighed or considered". Actually, that explains a lot of it right there. I will add that lack of measured movement leads (in some more gratuitous instances) to rushing the beat-- i.e. the dancer hits the beat before the music does. The first smattering of the principle of measured movement should fix this, and as measured movement develops further, you begin filling the beat. In four counts of music, you might take a single step-- one weight change-- and have every moment of that four counts be different from the one before and the one after, a one-of-a-kind snowflake of movement with more meaning in its tiny self than in the whole grey smudge that passes for a triple step these days. When you display measured movement, you know exactly where you're going, how far away it is, and when you plan to be there. Then you can bust out the plans for what's going to happen along the way!
Hot Chocolate:You wanna learn musicality!!!
Well, yes. But also to teach it, which is a horse of a different color.
Foehg:A very relevant topic! I've been to Tuesday classes on several occasions where the teacher says "Ok, I've got no lesson. What does everybody want to learn?" and the answer is usually something like "I wish I had more musicality." and the teacher is like "Oh, uh, yeah, good luck with that..."
Oh dear [Emoticon not found] That's sad.
Hey Tiffy, here's the thread I mentioned on the phone the other night.
I appreciate everyone's comments. They all add very nicely to planning a type of curriculum/lesson plan. However, I don't know if anyone has yet answered what they, personally, would like to learn about musicality. Foegh seems to have come the closest to answering this question.
I've heard quite a few comments about what other people should learn and how to teach it, but so far I haven't heard anything new. Come on guys, challenge me!!! Hot Chocolate made a fantastic comment about how learning musicality is never ending. I certainly know that applies to me, as it does all of us...... or are you satisfied that your musicality is at an adequate level that it doesn't need further education?
Come on, imagine the perfect class on musicality.... by ANY TEACHER..... what would they teach?........ Moves? Give me a break.......
How can I more fully let the music show me how to dance?
Coming up with curriculum is hard. You may find it advantageous to squeeze all the musicality you can out of existing lesson plans. Take your favorite lesson to teach, and ask yourself "How does this relate to musicality?" because you can bet it relates to musicality.
I would like to learn more about musical structuring. Really, all I understand is that it's in counts of 8 and that there are phrases which consist of 32 counts of 8 though some songs have 40. I know there's so much more to it than that.
I don't think you can teach individual creativity or musicality. What you can do is show examples to get people to open their minds up, but it really comes down to knowing how the music works and knowing technique. And having soul. Loving it. The spirit of swing. Then, forget everything you know and let the music move you. The best dances I've ever had are when I wasn't thinking about dancing. I was just enjoying my partner and the flippin' sweet music. Those are also the dances where over and over again I kept thining "holy cow! what did I just do! What did I just do? How do I do that again?!"
i say study the music. listen to the music. a lot. listen to the different parts of a song and how they work together. read about it's history and structure. talk to people who know what they're talking about. the more you study jazz (or whatever type of music you're dancing to), the more you'll understand what makes jazz jazz, or blues blues, etc. and what you learn will come through in your dancing. even though you may have never heard a song before, you can still pick out where the song intensifies, or suddenly stops, because you're familiar with that genre of music.
as far as teaching a lesson goes, you could pick a few songs that seem very different, but have very similar qualities, and ask how they are the same. i've also been to a class where the teacher asked everyone to close their eyes and then (while sitting), move your hand to a part of the music. pick the bass line, or the sax, or the vocals, and move your hand to match that part. it was pretty weird, but it really gets people to listen to the different parts of the music and how those parts correspond with movement.
Uh, I thought you were being pretty clear, Tiff, but maybe not. Let's reread the question.
frutyspice:If you were attending a workshop for musicality, what would you like to learn about? What would make it successful? What is most important to you, right now?
I'm very curious about everyone's input. Thanks!
spicy:I appreciate everyone's comments. They all add very nicely to planning a type of curriculum/lesson plan. However, I don't know if anyone has yet answered what they, personally, would like to learn about musicality. Foegh seems to have come the closest to answering this question.
I'd be excited to understand more about the foundation of jazz/blues solos, melodies, and harmonies and how that could expand my dancing and interpretation of the music.
Here's an example of what I'd like to learn. I'd like to work on this and then talk about how to fit it into different musical phrases/structures -- jazz vs. blues, AABA or whatever.
traci:i've also been to a class where the teacher asked everyone to close their eyes and then (while sitting), move your hand to a part of the music. pick the bass line, or the sax, or the vocals, and move your hand to match that part. it was pretty weird, but it really gets people to listen to the different parts of the music and how those parts correspond with movement.
I've done this before a few times in a class setting, but I thought it was baby stuff. I already do this. I want to get to the next level of musicallity, but I can't describe what I want. It's beyond my ability to imagine and articulate. I know it when I see it. Max seems to embody it right now though.
t_roach:I know it when I see it. Max seems to embody it right now though.
Couldn't help but noticing again (noticed it there too). Max had already done several cool things before anyone else even started swinging out (one other couple was swinging out early too). I have no doubt that all the judges eyes were on him.
Alright! Now THAT'S the stuff! Everyone's comments are fantastic! Oh yeah, that is so satisfying to hear! Keep 'em coming! Whew! I'm thirsty......
I have no further comments on this topic
What?!?!? You suck.
Just kidding. I appreciate your earlier comment.
Sweet!!! I suck In Utah!!! That's the best compliment ever!! Thanks SpicyMeatball
Hey, I really like the comments about Max's dancing. It's inspired me to ask a further question:
Who is the most musical dancer out there? And why?
Be sure that we don't just narrow this down to leads only. Yes, when it comes to this dance, they are driving. But what about follows that are musical?
frutyspice:Who is the most musical dancer out there? And why?
Be sure that we don't just narrow this down to leads only. Yes, when it comes to this dance, they are driving. But what about follows that are musical?
I have no answer for you yet, but your question reminds me of part of the "haptic feedback and Lindy Hop as a finite state machine" article that was linked to over in the scholarly research thread. One of the experiments they did was to give the leads and follows headphones with different music: beats in the same places, but different phrasing and styles. They discovered (as I recall) that the follows could consistently tell when the lead was hearing a different song, but that the lead (in most instances) had a much harder time of it. They attributed this to the fact that when the follow disagreed with the lead's interpretation of the music (because he was hearing different music) she usually just followed him at the expense of her own musicality.
The most music follow I've ever danced with is Virginie. She made me more musical during those 3 minutes of wonder.
Foehg:They discovered (as I recall) that the follows could consistently tell when the lead was hearing a different song, but that the lead (in most instances) had a much harder time of it. They attributed this to the fact that when the follow disagreed with the lead's interpretation of the music (because he was hearing different music) she usually just followed him at the expense of her own musicality.
That's very interesting. I can really relate to that. I find that I often have to turn my ears off to dance with certain guys. I notice, though, the better they are the less I have to do that. I remember dancing with Manu Smith and Mike Faltesek (at different times) and I was the most aware of the music I had ever been (and it was stuff I hadn't heard before). It's kind of like I can tell if I'm dancing with a high quality dancer when my attention is brought more to the music and less on them.
Jocelyn is awesome!! So was Naomi Waller.. One of Frankie Manning's partners
Jocelyn is awesome!! So was Naomi Waller.. One of Frankie Manning's partners
if she's the jocelyn i'm thinking of, then yeah.
Re: turning off your ears.
I think that's a good quality for follows to have. There are times I get off the beat for whatever reason, and I am fully aware of it, and would get back very shortly, but the dance goes to crap because the follow can't turn her ears off. I have to stop dancing altogether in order to get back on. If the follow woulda turned her ears off I would have been back on the beat within 4 counts.
bobthecow:if she's the jocelyn i'm thinking of, then yeah.
Yeah, she is. She's also in a quasi-famous picture with Thomas. She's also really fun to dance with.
I still haven't figured out exactly what we were doing in that pic. I know it was lead, 'cause we're both doing it... I just have no idea what it was. It was probably cool though. Heh.
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