leading into one, not on one
So basically I start leading normally on 'one'.
But I've noticed in salsa and in jive that beat one may be the start of my pattern but it can be a cresendo in the music.
So I think to myself if I could start the pattern on five then by the time the music hits beat one, she'll be mid way through a turn, which will of course better express the music.
This is not so much of a problem in the middle of tracks I might add. Normally at the begining and sometimes the middle when your coming back up from a quite section i'm often starting as it's peaking.
Any thoughts on this type of idea. I think there might already be a thread?
Re: leading into one, not on one
Welcome to the wonderful world of phrasing! :flower:
The short answer to your question is that there's more-or-less two methods of making that phrase change, and if you're interested in it at all the one you'd probably want to use will depend on the music.
The first approach is starting on the "starting on the one" in a phrase. It's most appropriate when the new phrase has a definite feel of starting fresh. From what I gather from your post this is most likely what you're doing already.
The second approach is the "big hit" method, and I'd go out on a limb and say that it's the more useful one if you're dancing to modern pop music and the like. This happens when the previous phrase has that build up you mention and finally reaches it's peak at the beginning of the next phrase before continuing in a more normal fashion. Luckily it's also the most intuitive for most of us :D
The trick with those big hits is to either set up something dramatic if you can hear it coming from far enough away to do so, or to figure out how you can modify whatever move you're doing on the fly to make something out of it if it sneaks up on you. In my experience, setting stuff up is easier but learning to make something up in the moment is more rewarding in the long term.
It sounds to me like you're on the right track already. Yay! :clap:
Re: leading into one, not on one
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jim
So basically I start leading normally on 'one'.
Technically you start leading before the one. You need the lady's weight to settle bang on the one so you need to start her moving before the one, but after the eight. Think of it as pulsing between the beats. In workshops I call these the "ers" or the "ahs" or even the "a"s.
Some teachers talk about quavers as they are half a beat or one eighth of a note. But I don't use much musical terminology when teaching dance because it makes people think I know what I'm talking about and they ask me questions which prove they were mistaken :whistle:
My advice regarding musicality is to start listening to music and listening for the patterns that you can use in your dancing. A great track to start with is King of the Road as it has nice breaks. And these breaks are every 8 bars or every 4 of our dancing eight counts.
Re: leading into one, not on one
'king of the road' good example. Now imagine your dancing all in eights but instead of starting your phrase on 'one' you start it on five.
Because with that track unless you know it, you'll dance through all the pauses because they happen 5678. And normally you'll start the pattern 1234, then lead her 5678.
But what if your rearranged your dancing. so you lead her 5678 (during the break) and then started the pattern 1234 so she's spinning as it picks up.
It this the same as dancing 'on 2', similar or different?
And why are there so many six count dance patterns in eight count music?
Re: leading into one, not on one
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jim
'king of the road' good example. Now imagine your dancing all in eights but instead of starting your phrase on 'one' you start it on five.
Because with that track unless you know it, you'll dance through all the pauses because they happen 5678. And normally you'll start the pattern 1234, then lead her 5678.
But what if your rearranged your dancing. so you lead her 5678 (during the break) and then started the pattern 1234 so she's spinning as it picks up.
It this the same as dancing 'on 2', similar or different?
And why are there so many six count dance patterns in eight count music?
Some dances have steps which are very tightly tied to the structure of a particular style of music. Provided you start dancing at the right point in the music you'll always be phrased, because you have no choice.
MJ isn't tied to the structure of any particular style of music. That means that if we want to do something cool to match whatever the music is doing we need to work a little harder and can't rely on the fact that, for example, we'll always hit the Cha Cha Cha with a triple that'll accent them nicely if we were dancing the Cha Cha Cha.
"On 2" means something specific to some of those (mostly Latin I think) dances that are tied with a specific music style. It just means that the footwork patterns are designed so that if you make your first step on the 2 then everything will line up nicely for the rest of the dance.
If you're dancing MJ only in 8 beat moves, then you've put yourself in a bit of a straight jacket when it comes to playing with the music. If you start on the 1 for instance you'll wind up with the problem you mention in your original post. If you start on the 5 instead you might be doing something cooler at the phrase change.... but you'll just end up dancing right through it and although it'll feel better to you it won't look like you're hitting the music to an observer.
Some dances (notably swing dances, although there are probably others) use a combination of 6 and 8 beat patterns. If you mix these patterns up you can potentially make phrase changes on any odd beat in any pattern*.
Being "unphrased" makes marking phrase changes in these dances harder to do initially, because you need to learn to either break or modify any pattern at those points, or to change what you're doing with your own body without changing the pattern to mark the change.
The unphrased nature of these does give you a huge number of possibilities to work with though, and in my opinion helps to keep things spontaneous and interesting. I think it's a more-than-worthwhile trade off, but then I'm heavily biased.
MJ isn't based around 6 or 8 beat moves in the same sense that the swing dances are, but the principle that they don't naturally phrase to the music and that you have to change them to suit the music** is just the same.
*Technically you can hit any 1 at any odd beat of any pattern, and any 5 on any odd beat of any pattern..... and so on and so forth. You get the idea of where I'm heading though I hope :flower:
**Or plan ahead really well with patterns you do know will fit I suppose, but that seems like too much hard work to me now.
Re: leading into one, not on one
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jim
But what if your rearranged your dancing. so you lead her 5678 (during the break) and then started the pattern 1234 so she's spinning as it picks up.It this the same as dancing 'on 2', similar or different?
I think it is the same principle, in that you start your pattern so that you feature the designated step at the end of that pattern on the beat you want, generally the 1 beat but in your case the 5 beat.
However the dances I know that start "on 2" (chachacha, Rumba and some forms of Salsa) generally have various 4 beat patterns and when those patterns last longer than 4 beats still bring you back to the 4 beat patterns so you are continually using the principle above throughout the track.
Based upon what you are suggesting there is no reason why you cannot do any 4 beat pattern on 1234 and start the pattern you have in mind on the 5 (which I assume is an 8 beat pattern - "But what if your rearranged your dancing. so you lead her 5678 (during the break) and then started the pattern 1234 so she's spinning as it picks up."). Then carry on how you want for the rest of the track as I assume you do not want to keep up the pattern you suggested or other 4 or 8 beat patterns throughout the track and/or feature a spin on each pause between beat 4 and 5?
It seems to me therefore that you have identified various tracks where you would like to feature a spin (or feature something else?) at certain points in those tracks. I think what is needed is to know where in the track these certain points are, find an identifiable part of the track just before that point, know the beats in between and have a sequence in mind to fill those beats. If the point you have identified happens in every 8 beat phrase or is otherwise regularly phrased, you will need to know some 4 beat sequences to bring you onto the 5 beat at the relevant time and maybe some different sequences that will allow you to feature the spin at the point you want. As MJ is not so rigid in structure to phrasing you can then use that idea whenever you want within the track or as the phrasing of the music in the track allows.
This is not so different to what I has been suggested to me in AT, which normally has 8 beat phrases and you lead a sequence that ends part way through a phrase or you may lead walking steps for 1 to say 6 beats and you then want to end the phrase with a sequence, so you design various sequences of differing beat counts for yourself that fill in from that point to the end of the phrase, which hopefully also fits with the music, in order to be able to recognise the end of the phrase with a pause.
Or in triple step dances, which is what I think you were alluding to when mentioning 6 count dance patterns and you design a series of patterns to end on the over-arching phrases (generally 32 (or 64?) beat endings) or some 2 or 4 beat counts for smaller patterns to end on a phrase.
Re: leading into one, not on one
For salsa, I know Mike Bello and a few others go into on1 dancing, on2 - how you can be dancing to the clave or otherwise. Most salsa folk are taught (on1) start there mambo on the 1 (hitting the ground with left foot for 1 count in example of lead)- rather than 5.
However, there are clave changes within salsa music - thus needing a 4 beat step if you want to get back in line with the clave pattern. Sneaky, and fun to watch folks reacting to a track with this in (you'd be surprised the number of instructors who teach beginners/intermediates with tracks with clave changes in yet don't point them out). A nice 4 step chord step can do it, or a syncopated wiggle, lots to try.
Do you have a track or two in mind jim?
Re: leading into one, not on one
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ant
Or in triple step dances, which is what I think you were alluding to when mentioning 6 count dance patterns and you design a series of patterns to end on the over-arching phrases (generally 32 (or 64?) beat endings) or some 2 or 4 beat counts for smaller patterns to end on a phrase.
I think that most pop is 32 beat patterns of 8 bars. The other common one is found in 12 bar blues - 12x4=48. I don't know enough about music to know if there's any phrasing with 64 beats.
One of the reasons why modern jive is so easy to learn is that, because the moves are variable in length, you really don't need to hear anything but the down and up beats when you're a beginner. The lady needs to be sure she's stepping right on the down-beats and left on the ups and the guy needs to be leading turns, returns and spins with this in mind. It all works in the lesson because the teacher uses and 8 count to start everyone dancing on the 1.
But the thing that makes MJ so interesting in the long term is the use of the phrasing in the music to make the dance more interesting.
However, some beginners have a long way to go before they reach the point where they need to worry about 8 or 12 bar patterns - last night there were a few guys in the lesson who were getting a move wrong where you raised the right hand and kept the left hand low - so I did a quick experiment, said, 'guys, stand on the same side as me facing the car park, your right hand is the one nearest to the stage, now raise your right hand" two guys where were getting the move wrong raised their left hands with total confidence :tears:
Re: leading into one, not on one
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Andy McGregor
However, some beginners have a long way to go before they reach the point where they need to worry about 8 or 12 bar patterns - last night there were a few guys in the lesson who were getting a move wrong where you raised the right hand and kept the left hand low - so I did a quick experiment, said, 'guys, stand on the same side as me facing the car park, your right hand is the one nearest to the stage, now raise your right hand" two guys where were getting the move wrong raised their left hands with total confidence :tears:
2 cases of "the other left"? Mirroring, or converting a mirrored/non-mirrored movement can take a bit for beginners :)
(the easiest perspective to a beginner would presumably seeing 1st person Point of View - but it's something very rarely used in general or DVD instruction in dance it seems).
In some ways, did having a pattern of 4 moves maybe help with hitting a break/musicality? If pop songs have a natural common bar denominator in terms of their structure (e.g. 4 bar denominator - musical intro of 4 bars, singing intro for 4, into main song for 4 bars, chorus, montuno, back to main song etc) - then presumably if you're learning patterns in (4 moves, each 8 beat) chunks, then you could naturally be aligning the end of the patterns onto likely breaks/musicality opportunities?
Re: leading into one, not on one
No specific tracks tomtom.
Ant that's a good point about using fours and two's to switch your phrasing round. I already do it to hit breaks but I hadn't thought about the effect it could have on my overall phrasing.
Re: leading into one, not on one
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jim
No specific tracks tomtom.
Ant that's a good point about using fours and two's to switch your phrasing round. I already do it to hit breaks but I hadn't thought about the effect it could have on my overall phrasing.
Or two six beat moves :-)
SpinDr
Re: leading into one, not on one
That would also do it.
I tried dancing on five last night in Salsa.
It was interesting seeing a cross-body lead inside turn go 567, 123 for a change. Especially since there was a sound I wanted to pick up on the one.
