Thread: t-t-timing
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Old 14th-December-2002, 07:37 PM   #4 (permalink)
TheTramp
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I also think that listening to a lot of music in general; listening to the ebb and flow of songs, you can almost predict where songs are going, even if you have never heard them before.
This is sooooo true. Very few songs have 'random' breaks - where the music just stops suddenly without any warning.

Most of the breaks come at the end of phrases of music, which are often the same number of bars length throughout the song - an easy example of this would be 12 bar blues, where every phrase is, wait for it, 12 bars long.

Usually, just before a break, there is a clue that it's coming - the music gets louder - or quieter or speeds up slightly - or slows down, are obvious clues - although there are other more subtle ones.

Robert Cordoba (that chap again) put us through an exercise when we did his musicality class in September where he played a bit of American music that none of us had heard, and got us to raise our hands when we heard a break coming. After about 1/2 of the song, most people were raising their hands at the right point (although, it could be that those who didn't know were just raising their hands at the same time as those who did know ).

If you start to listen closely to the music, instead of just concentrating on the moves you are doing (in most cases I see, this is usually (although not exclusively) the reason I think most breaks are missed). When it comes down to it, the actual moves are far less important than what the music is doing anyhow. What David said earlier is a good idea. I would also suggest that you take a track you know well that has a lot of breaks in it, and do lots of simple things - travelling returns, step under etc. that are short moves, easily led, and then see if you can hit all the breaks in that track (you might want to get a partner who you know, and explain what you're doing, else she might get bored and never dance with you again).

Hope this helps
Steve
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