Songs for teaching / beginners classes

[Eyeball]

And the music evolved into Bebop losing much of the dancability. So much of the Neo/Revival stuff is actually much more danceable than what you'll find on compilations called "Swing music", just because the dancers and the music lovers can disagree a lot about their naming.

More......

You have some fairly indefensible positions and opinions, but they all seem to say that you are going to do what you want to do based upon your experience, as limited as it may be.

Most everything you've read here by experienced dancers and DJs speaks against the 'Spiderman Strategy', yet that is what you choose to go with.

(shrug)

[Mr Awesomer]

Same holds for the clips, too. Showing people without any previous dancing knowledge Hellzapoppin doesn't work too well. To them it will just be an old movie with crazy people hopping around in an uncoordinated way (unless they've been dancing themselves a lot). At most they'll laught at it, but it won't make them want to start dancing usually. If you want to get new people in, stuff like this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_GkyZ3uKW_8
will work much better. "Spiderman" is totally overplayed for me, and the video isn't very typical for lindy hop in my opinion either. But it works very well for attracting people that were not exposed to Swing before.

Can't pull up that link at work, but is that that completely retarded ALHC routine where some douche danced in a cheap Spider-man outfit attempts to dance to the old Spider-man theme? Cause dear Lord if it is, that would only serve to scare people away from the dance we do and only perpetuate the dorky/lame stigma it's already got, and furthermore Lord help us all if that actually encourages someone to take up this dance.

[fredo]

Some people here still try to read "never ever use 30s swing for teaching". Again: Nobody said that. Just that there are some newer songs that work very well for teaching, *too* (not exclusively new stuff!).

Not it!

Though by "newer songs" I think of modern swing with swing era styling (Campus 5, boilermakers, Mora's, etc, etc), rather than the neo-variety that lacks the "swing" feeling. I just have a hard time imagining teaching people triple steps to a pop-rock-swing beat.

This response was somewhat of a non sequitor:

fredo wrote:
The dancing was born from the music

mr. e wrote:
And the music evolved into Bebop losing much of the dancability. So much of the Neo/Revival stuff is actually much more danceable than what you'll find on compilations called "Swing music", just because the dancers and the music lovers can disagree a lot about their naming.

uh, sure, neo-swing is more dancable than bebop. not sure how this ties in though.

I agree with the point about how learning to dance today is quite different than learning to dance in the swing era. When people get frustrated with dance classes its nice to remember that when the dance was being done, there weren't 5-week class series' and workshops, just a dance floor with a band playing swing music.

As for the clips, I agree that Hellzapoppin' may not build any bridges between newbies and lindy hoppers, but it's still worth showing them with a simple explanation that it's a choreographed routine for a Hollywood movie. Showing them clips of social dancing and mid-tempo contests and routines is a more effective bridge. (Dave--my students responded well to Skye/Frida 24 robbers also)

Giving them a solid mix (which can include aforementioned Candyman, although I'd not use that for a beginners class) of old and new stuff is best because it actually will take them from a place they know (modern music) to the original stuff, instead of making them feel on mars. Don't try to enforce your musical taste on them with a crowbar, but just expose them and make them learn to love it themselves.

Who said anything about forcing them? I'll paraphrase a thought from Mark Kihara here: When I want to eat Italian food, I go to an Italian restaurant, and I'm expecting to see Italian food on the menu. Even if I'm used to eating peanut butter sandwiches at home, I still expect to eat Italian food at an Italian restaurant -- and I'm hoping it wont be Chef Boyardee.

[Eyeball]

Can't pull up that link at work, but is that that completely retarded ALHC routine where some douche danced in a cheap Spider-man outfit attempts to dance to the old Spider-man theme? Cause dear Lord if it is, that would only serve to scare people away from the dance we do and only perpetuate the dorky/lame stigma it's already got, and furthermore Lord help us all if that actually encourages someone to take up this dance.

miles and tessa- west coast swing champs.

no costumes, just street clothing.

[fredo]

Same holds for the clips, too. Showing people without any previous dancing knowledge Hellzapoppin doesn't work too well. To them it will just be an old movie with crazy people hopping around in an uncoordinated way (unless they've been dancing themselves a lot). At most they'll laught at it, but it won't make them want to start dancing usually. If you want to get new people in, stuff like this:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=_GkyZ3uKW_8
will work much better. "Spiderman" is totally overplayed for me, and the video isn't very typical for lindy hop in my opinion either. But it works very well for attracting people that were not exposed to Swing before.

Can't pull up that link at work, but is that that completely retarded ALHC routine where some douche danced in a cheap Spider-man outfit attempts to dance to the old Spider-man theme? Cause dear Lord if it is, that would only serve to scare people away from the dance we do and only perpetuate the dorky/lame stigma it's already got, and furthermore Lord help us all if that actually encourages someone to take up this dance.

hahaha, I gotta find that routine somewhere -- it sounds amazingly awful.

no, the clip he has is a couple dancing to a pop-jazzy version of the spiderman song that sounds like what you'd get if Michael Buble did sing, sing, sing with a zoot suit on.

[Mr Awesomer]

hahaha, I gotta find that routine somewhere -- it sounds amazingly awful.

no, the clip he has is a couple dancing to a pop-jazzy version of the spiderman song that sounds like what you'd get if Michael Buble did sing, sing, sing with a zoot suit on.

Haha, that sounds almost as bad as the ALHC routine. I'll have to check it out when I get home. The ALHC routine is on YouTube I think, someone sent me the link a few months back, so I'm sure it would come up in a search.

[Toon Town Dave]

And the music evolved into Bebop losing much of the dancability. So much of the Neo/Revival stuff is actually much more danceable than what you'll find on compilations called "Swing music", just because the dancers and the music lovers can disagree a lot about their naming.

More......

Most everything you've read here by experienced dancers and DJs speaks against the 'Spiderman Strategy', yet that is what you choose to go with.

(shrug)

That may be the source of disagreement in strategy.

If you're relying on the local record store and compilations and bands with the keyword "swing" in the name or title, you will fail to find swing music 8 times out of 10. Former instructor/DJ Paul Overton used to have a list of albums he recommended. The first point was that if it had swing in the title, it probably wasn't. For nearly every CD produced from the mid-90's to mid-00's, this is true.

With respect to the Miles and Tessa clip, if you read the description of the video, they were performing a demo at a Salsa event. I can't see that it has had any impact on the Lindy Hop scene from my numerous visits to Vancouver.

Mark is awesome, that's a great quote. He is another example of a teacher that successfully uses classic music and that shows in the Seattle scene. A big factor is that he is passionate about the dance, the music and teaching. That combination is a recipe for success. If you are passionate about the music, your students will likely connect with that passion.

To be honest, in my travels, I haven't seen an unsuccessful scene where leaders (teachers, organizers, etc.) are passionate about classic music and it is common place. The scenes I've been to that have been struggling (including my own several years ago) lacked focus and trying to accomodate all music tastes. The way I look at it is you can build a scene that is really good for fans of a particular type of music (be it classic or neo or something else) or you can build a mediocre scene trying to accomodate a bit of everyone's taste.

The contention for a mix of music assumes everyone either likes or has a neutral opinion of a particular style of music. One also has to consider that people may actually dislike a certain style of music. If you play 50% stuff they like and 50% stuff they don't like, that doesn't sound like a very entertaining time. Or to borrow from Mark's quote, just because some people like Chef Boy R Dee, doesn't mean I'll accept that mushy goo mixed in with my al dente spaghetti and meatball marinara.

mr. e, I also want to say that even though I may be coming off as a Nazi, I used to share your viewpoint. If you look up some of my first posts on swing DJs back when it was still a naive newbie, you can see how my view at one time was similar to yours. Here's a few embarrassing nuggets from 2002:

• Me on how Lee Aaron is great for Lindy Hop
  Me on not liking big band music because I didn't have time to lead a dip at the end
  My recommendations for fast music (watch me get flamed! swing djs is a kinder gentler place these days)

Largely what changed my opinions was finding great music thanks to swingdjs and they yehoodi radio show.

[fredo]

Mark is awesome, that's a great quote. He is another example of a teacher that successfully uses classic music and that shows in the Seattle scene. A big factor is that he is passionate about the dance, the music and teaching. That combination is a recipe for success. If you are passionate about the music, your students will likely connect with that passion.

Mark is awesome, and for exactly the reasons you point out. Though to be more accurate with the paraphrasing, I think he involves a taco somewhere in the analogy. haha

[Mr Awesomer]

hahaha, I gotta find that routine somewhere -- it sounds amazingly awful.

no, the clip he has is a couple dancing to a pop-jazzy version of the spiderman song that sounds like what you'd get if Michael Buble did sing, sing, sing with a zoot suit on.

Haha, that sounds almost as bad as the ALHC routine. I'll have to check it out when I get home. The ALHC routine is on YouTube I think, someone sent me the link a few months back, so I'm sure it would come up in a search.

So I found the ALHC clip and it's the exact same horrid song, hahaha.

[remysun]

I always thought it was a matter of priorities. To grow a scene, you have to get people who aren't dancing to try it out. This is best done by showing that it isn't a dead dance done to dead music. The music should be changed often, highlight the variety of genres the dance can cover, and above all, be a catchy mid-tempo tune.

I don't think anybody has kept stats on beginners who like the dancing, but just aren't purists when it comes to the music, and it's the self-proclaimed experts that unintentionally chase them off. Why treat it like a religion when some people don't want to go to church?

Above all, it's supposed to be fun. Leave the in-fighting for after the newbies get addicted.

Other notes:

If a Neo-swing song happens to be hot, it's a good choice, although you'll probably want to save it for open dancing. Otherwise, it dates itself more readily than a timeless classic.

I think there should be a pool of songs, nothing set in stone, and it'd be neat to try to marry the students' tastes with the music. If their tastes are too fast (say they wanted to learn more after checking out a Brian Setzer concert), Use that fast song as the opening demonstration, then slow it down, with the promise that you can get the classs up to speed. A quick survey of the lesson group helps with planning curriculum and playlists, so I don't know why more people don't try to do that.

Stuff like Glenn Miller "String of Pearls", Nat King Cole, and Indigo Swing work really well for the first lesson. Django doesn't-- his guitar riffs make things complicated and distracting for the beginner. Top 40 and Motown later on in the lesson help highlight the dynamic possibilities of swing dancing. Just don't try to push a liberal definition of dance music, and don't test the audiences' ears. Good recordings are a must.

And especially if it's the same teacher or DJ week after week, it's important to mix it up for the beginners. If they get sick of the music, you've lost them. Plus, it prevents a teaching rut that can often lead to an oversight of one of the fundamentals-- like, lets say, a follower who's leading the moves because she knows exactly how the lesson unravels.

[penguin]

Wow this thread's gotten complicated.

I've been doing some workshops this weekend with some out of town teachers (well out of the county in fact) and it dawned on me:

How do you tell when you're really playing the right stuff for classes?

The same way when you're dj'ing an event - people come up to you afterwards and want to know what it was you played.

That pretty much satisfies everything - they had fun, are interested in the music and the music wasn't too hard for them to dance to.

[lipi]

How do you tell when you're really playing the right stuff for classes?

The same way when you're dj'ing an event - people come up to you afterwards and want to know what it was you played.

maybe they'd just like to know what to avoid at the record shop.

a much better indicator is: do people seem like they are enjoying themselves? you can tell whether they smile or groan when the music comes on.

[Eyeball]

How do you tell when you're really playing the right stuff for classes?

The same way when you're dj'ing an event - people come up to you afterwards and want to know what it was you played.

Ummmmm - I don't think that that is an indictor that you have played
'the right stuff'.

Just because they liked it doesn't mean it was good for them.

You're asking for the approval of people who don't know anything about the music or the dance they are trying to absorb.

[Surreal]

Just because they liked it doesn't mean it was good for them.

And just because the dj/teacher likes it doesn't mean it's good for the dancers either.

[mr. e]

a much better indicator is: do people seem like they are enjoying themselves? you can tell whether they smile or groan when the music comes on.

Or just ask one of the dancers. Ideally, you should know someone there anyway. They often know each other, talk about the music, and will often be able to tell you when it's not working right.
But I've even seen DJs not noticing the fact that when they play certain songs, most people get off the floor.

Of course there is also some personal taste involved. For example, I really love when David from London DJs, because he will also play a lot of the slower, bluesy stuff. I was surprised to her from one dancer that she didn't like his DJing as much.

But we're not talking regular DJing here (there are tons of threads about that), but about beginners classes. In my opinion this is quite different.

Think back about when you started dancing. Weren't you also struggling hard to coordinate your feet with your mind first? Leads also trying to get their hands right, too? Then at some point most people get their feet doing the basic on their own, and start actually working with their whole body? And later on, they further isolate these, taking the feet from "automatic basic step" mode to "styling"?
At the beginning many people struggle hard to hit a beat, and many have problems of actually hearing the 1 in the music. Then at some point they'll start hitting them automatically. Start predicting stops and breaks. And even later on they might start using sub- and super-rhythms for fancier footwork etc.

In my opinion, music used in teaching should help people on that way. you should start with music where it's easy to hit the 1, then at some point introduce them to using stops and breaks and to adding slip-slops and other fun styling to use other patterns in the music. Of course you should challenge them, but you also need to provide them with music they are confident in dancing to.