SwingDJs

I can't find any good websites when I Google search...I want to get a decent collection of music for other partner dances. Especially music that's distinctly foxtrot (as opposed to something you could foxtrot to) that's not Sinatra/Martin/Darrin--that's a really tough one to find decent recommendations for. I mean, if you know, please make suggestions about the music here...

But otherwise, does anybody know of good resources for finding out what to play? Serious recommendation lists & reviews, or even discussion boards?

cha cha, foxtrot, mambo, rhumba, samba, bolero, etc.

There is an YahooGroup called Allswingdjs that has a lot of WCS, Shag DJ song recomendations on it.

The slogan is that all forms of swing djs are welcome. But, most of those DJs are of the WCS, Shag variety, a small number of Lindy DJs are on it though.

It has been a good resource for finding music for the WCS crowd.

Actually, not interested in west coast. I can dig some stuff up pretty quickly for that--it's the more specialized music I have trouble with.

You're going to find that alot of "Foxtrot music" can also be considered "Lindy Hop music" or "Balboa music", same thing with "Quick Step music" (it's just faster). People can and will lindy hop to a song that other people will foxtrot to, it's all a matter of preference. I'd say your best bet is to stay with moderate tempo big band jazz, however just like with lindy hop, people will dance to what they want/like. There's an old guy around here who always comes up and asks for a foxtrot, and won't do it until I say, "ok, here's your foxtrot", even if I've just played 5 or 6 songs in a row that are appropriate style, tempo and texture for foxtrot.

I say check into local specialized dance clubs to get an idea of what's good for a particular genre. However, stay away from asking a general ballroom club. They are notorious for having some of the worst music in terms of selection. If you wanna know good salsa, ask salsa dancers- ditto for the rest. That said, you're going to find alot of latin music on the same cds by the same bands. What you need to do is learn to identify the rhythm that works the best for a certain dance. Then you know what to play when someone comes up and asks for a samba (that's like salsa with a hiccup) or whatever.

kitkat wrote:Actually, not interested in west coast. I can dig some stuff up pretty quickly for that--it's the more specialized music I have trouble with.

Actually, I'm interested in finding some West Coast sites... was actually going to post that this morning.

Can you name a few of the sites you peruse?

Thanks,
Tina

Yeah, all the dances I mentioned, I know how their rhythm works...the problem is just where to start looking. I can go through a million Latin pieces, and all I hear is salsa music. It's really hard to find something with a cha-cha beat or a samba beat...and I sure as heck can't tell what distinguishes a mambo beat from a salsa beat, considering the footwork is really really similar. For that I figure "If it comes from Cuba, I'll tell them it's a mambo tune."

I'm looking for these for a swing club's "ballroom nights" (the two weeks before our school's big ballroom dance), where I plan to teach them basics of other dances. I guess what I want to do is have music that I can play as ear training for them to learn how to decide what dance to do in response to the music, since in the past at that ballroom dance, everyone just does two-step backnforth with a bunch of east coast swing "moves."

Thanks for the suggestions--I'll go down the street to the ballroom studio and see if they can give me any suggestions on where to find specialists in the rarer/more exotic dances (i.e. not swing, salsa, or tango).

kitkat wrote:
But otherwise, does anybody know of good resources for finding out what to play? Serious recommendation lists & reviews, or even discussion boards?

cha cha, foxtrot, mambo, rhumba, samba, bolero, etc.

My friend who is a ballroom dancer recommends www.dancevision.com and www.ballroomdancer.com.

Hope that helps.
Tina

A few more suggestions from my ballroom dancin' friend...

www.danceplus.com
www.danceallday.com
www.bdsweb.ballroom.com

Tina

gatorgal wrote:Actually, I'm interested in finding some West Coast sites... was actually going to post that this morning.

Can you name a few of the sites you peruse?

Check out the West Coast music thread already started.

Jesse

Try http://duke.usask.ca/uofsbdc/music/index.html, that's what the largest local ballroom club (1400+ members) uses for classes.

It's not all great (to say the slower mambo's suck is being polite) but there's a lot of good sutff for beginners that's not some sort of midi generated noise. It also hasn't been updated in the 4 years I've been in the club ... probably a lot longer so at least somebody thinks it's good.