Just Dancing Around

From: Jack Martin, Ph.D., Former Vice President and Music Director of Balboa Park Club Ballroom Dancers (The Club)

To: The Club's Board of Directors, Dance Instructors, Club DJs

Regarding:  How to Select and Maintain 'Better' Quality Ballroom Dance Music

Maintaining better quality ballroom dance music depends primarily on  a.) the sound system that we use to dispense the music, b.)  the acoustics of the dance ballroom, and c.) the quality of the sound track music.

Since items a.) and b.) are constant, the following discussion centers on c.), how to provide a better quality of sound track dance music.

What constitutes better quality sound track dance music?  To answer that question lets first consider our audience.  Our average club member is middle age, or perhaps a bit older.  More students dance in the intermediate dance class than in either the beginning or advanced classes.  We should keep in mind that we teach dance but not music listening skills.  I think it's safe to assume that most of our members don't have the same music interpretation skills as do our instructors and DJ's.  We also must keep in mind that our members are 'older' and our hearing is not likely what it used to be (hearing is the 3rd thing that we lose when we get older? :-)).  A fine ear for the music rhythm should not be required for our members to have a good dance experience.

How can you tell when the DJ is playing good music?  Well, you see people dancing, smiling, and saying stuff like "the music is very good tonight".  What you don't see is an empty dance floor, or people standing on the dance floor hoping for the song intro to end and the rhythm to kick in, or dance partners standing with blank stares, telepathically, asking each other "where is the rhythm?" or "so much for this 3 minute romance", or dancers are thinking "when is this song going to end", or the DJ saying '123, 123' or 'quick quick slow', or you notice that the dancer's are all dancing to different timing.

So we ask again, what makes for better quality dance music?  Clearly, the clarity of the rhythm is very important.  Hence, when selecting our dance music let's first focus our attention on the two main elements of rhythm, tempo and meter.

Each ballroom dance genre can be danced over a range of tempo (see Table 1).  For instance, we can perform a standard waltz over a tempo range of 84-93 beats per minute (bpm).  A mid-range tempo of 89 bpm, in most cases, will provide the most comfort for the dancers.  At slower tempos, and this is true for all smooth dances, it is harder to maintain body flight and balance, and at the faster tempos technique, style, and form become less well defined, and overall grace diminishes.  Similar problems arise for Latin and nightclub dances.  For instance, hip movement in Latin dancing will be most difficult to effect at high tempo. At faster tempos, for all ballroom dances (smooth, Latin, nightclub), dancers will tend to work harder to accomplish less.

A distinct meter within the music will also make for a better dance song.  I always dance better (more relaxed) when I hear a well defined difference between the downbeat (weak beat) of count 1 and the upbeat (strong beat) of count 2 as well as the downbeat of count 3 and the upbeat of count 4 (of  a 4/4 measure).  Similarly for a standard waltz, I like to hear a clearly distinct downbeat of count 1 followed by a clearly distinct 2 and 3 beat.  Not only should each downbeat be distinctly separated in tone from it's neighboring upbeat but all tones should be in a clearly audible range.  Keep in mind again that we're older and what is clearly audible to some young DJ whippersnapper is not necessarily audible to the older dancer (me).

An added plus for better music quality also occurs when the music phrases end with a well defined bit of music dynamics.

In addition to the problems that arise out of bad tempo and bad meter, a good dance rhythm can also be obscured by other music elements such as melody, harmony, lyrics, and dynamics.  The result can be dissonance or friction and tension within the music which cannot help but translate to similar problems for the dance partners.  Under such conditions, we can once again find ourselves thinking "this is not a fun 3 minute romance".

Other things to watch out for when selecting music for our play list are: change in tempo  as the song progresses; songs that are too long or too short in overall length; songs that are too slow or too fast in tempo; songs that lack bass; music that is donated by friends or club members (don't assume that it's good dance music)

So, when selecting music for our play list, lets keep it simple.  Pick music with clear meter and middle of the road tempo, avoid dissonance, avoid the faint tone, keep the length of the song to 2.5-3.5 minutes.  Song lengths and tempo (pitch) can be adjusted with any free or inexpensive bit of music editing software.  Tip:  edit pitch before editing song length.  Listen to the entire song, and dance to the song before adding it to your play list.  And finally, think about our members.  Will they enjoy dancing to this song?

No matter how hard we try, bias to our own music preference will at times cloud our judgment regarding what is or is not good dance music.  What sounds really good one day might not sound so good the next (that was particularly true for me back in the 70's [and 80's and 90's] :-).  Hence, no matter how hard we try we'll always end up, at least occasionally, with a dance challenge which, of course, is just part of our dance adventure.

Table 1* The following tabulated data arises from various unreferenced Internet sources, and from my own experience and calculations.  Hence, there may be some inaccuracies.  Also, note that the listed tempos (tempi) are for social dancing rather than any specific type of competition. Email me at justdancingaround@gmail.com, with corrections or references to a more reliable data source. Last updated on October 5, 2013.

* For a fairly comprehensive list of competitive dance tempi see http://dance.plussed.net/guides/Dance_Tempi_Guide_31.pdf

Back to Balboa Park Ballroom Dancer's advanced dance lesson videos and syllabi for 2011

Some extracurricular advanced smooth ballroom dance technique instruction

Some Alignment Acronyms and Definitions

Are you ready for our advanced dance class?

How to create better dance music playlists.

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