Educating about swing rhythms and schemes?
Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2008 6:09 am
Hi,
At some point, dancers should receive some education about Swing music, the rhythms and patterns etc. for their musicality. Of course many will develop an intuitive understanding, but some benefit from having a "theoretical" class I figure.
There are a couple of common excercises to do with people, e.g. giving them the task to raise their arm on beats 5 and 7 every eight etc.
But especially visual thinkers might need to get some visual explanations of what happens in the music. Some people can read sheet music and might actually benefit from seeing some patterns spelled out.
Stuff that I'd like to explain is:
- down beat vs. back beat (well, at least most learn rather early to clap on 2, not on 1...)
- straight time vs. swing time (aka: the difference between 1-and-2-and-3 vs. 1-a-2-a-3)
- (light) swing vs. medium swing vs. hard swing (and that this means you should use the same swing as the song, not some fixed rhythm you learned in a particular class)
- 32 bar form, 12 bar blues scheme, rhythm changes.
Do you have any:
- ideas/concepts around this subject
- recommendations for international teachers that are experts on that, whom we could ask to do a class when they are around
- song recommendations to explain these things
- material to explain such things, especially for visual-thinkers I'd like to give them some good printouts
When it comes to material, I'm trying to get hold of the "in the mood" line from a sheet. I figure it's a good example on having the theme not start on 1, but being "ahead" of the plain rhythm. I'd like to use that excerpt to explain people why it's not sufficient to be able to count 1 to 8...
But it might be a particularly hard one, so maybe too difficult for the average musicality class.
The flamewars are opened, go ahead!
P.S. Thanks for all the insights into DJing here. Just had my first DJ set last week (as last minute drop-in...), and it went quite well. I had the floor packed most of the time (interestingly, Cab Calloways "Are you hep to the jive" was one of the songs that didn't work), and some of the advanced dancers asked me about some of the songs I played, so I figure it wasn't bad.
At some point, dancers should receive some education about Swing music, the rhythms and patterns etc. for their musicality. Of course many will develop an intuitive understanding, but some benefit from having a "theoretical" class I figure.
There are a couple of common excercises to do with people, e.g. giving them the task to raise their arm on beats 5 and 7 every eight etc.
But especially visual thinkers might need to get some visual explanations of what happens in the music. Some people can read sheet music and might actually benefit from seeing some patterns spelled out.
Stuff that I'd like to explain is:
- down beat vs. back beat (well, at least most learn rather early to clap on 2, not on 1...)
- straight time vs. swing time (aka: the difference between 1-and-2-and-3 vs. 1-a-2-a-3)
- (light) swing vs. medium swing vs. hard swing (and that this means you should use the same swing as the song, not some fixed rhythm you learned in a particular class)
- 32 bar form, 12 bar blues scheme, rhythm changes.
Do you have any:
- ideas/concepts around this subject
- recommendations for international teachers that are experts on that, whom we could ask to do a class when they are around
- song recommendations to explain these things
- material to explain such things, especially for visual-thinkers I'd like to give them some good printouts
When it comes to material, I'm trying to get hold of the "in the mood" line from a sheet. I figure it's a good example on having the theme not start on 1, but being "ahead" of the plain rhythm. I'd like to use that excerpt to explain people why it's not sufficient to be able to count 1 to 8...
But it might be a particularly hard one, so maybe too difficult for the average musicality class.
The flamewars are opened, go ahead!
P.S. Thanks for all the insights into DJing here. Just had my first DJ set last week (as last minute drop-in...), and it went quite well. I had the floor packed most of the time (interestingly, Cab Calloways "Are you hep to the jive" was one of the songs that didn't work), and some of the advanced dancers asked me about some of the songs I played, so I figure it wasn't bad.