March 18, 2008

The Exhilaration of Nailing the Rhythms of Dance Music

I continue to work with Don Baarns of The Unlikely Salsero to learn how to hear the rhythms in different types of dance music. (Don, by the way, just posted his 100th article!)

Don is a wizard. Don has been teaching me since about the beginning of January and we've been communicating through weekly phone calls and emails. In just over two months, my ability to hear the rhythm and understand the structure of dance music has improved significantly. Don said that when we started I had about an average ability to hear the beat in dance music.

Yesterday was one of those aha moments for me. I was listening to some Salsa songs I bought on iTunes a few months ago. When I first listened to them, I couldn't hear the "1" count (the first beat of a measure) for my life. But when I tried yesterday, I was able to find the "1" in many cases without too much work. On top of that, I was able to count through the "breaks" (more or less pauses) in the songs and know exactly when the musicians would come back in full force. There's nothing like the feeling of being in perfect time with the music -- especially when you're on the dance floor.

As Don writes in his Saturday post about the process we're following, we haven't even delved into the specifics of Salsa or Argentine Tango music. Since the beginning of January, I've been tango dancing (classes and practices) pretty much non-stop. And my ability to hear the beat while dancing has improved dramatically. There are three types of dances (and music) in Argentine Tango (Tango, Milonga and Vals). The only one that's giving me real trouble is the Milonga rhythm -- I still haven't figured out how to dance to it.

The reason why listening to Salsa and Tango music is becoming easier for me is because Don is providing me with the basic tools to develop a solid understanding of the structure and characteristics of dance music. I'm learning how to:

- Count the beats in each measure and throughout an entire song.
- Pick-up the rhythmic patterns in the middle of a song
- Analyze the structure of a song (e.g., 8-bar intro...)
- Identify specific instruments and voices
- Document the lyrics, and
- Identify changes in tempo

This process does require a lot of work on my part. I've listened to some songs we've worked with many, many times in order to understand how the tune works.

Don is excellent at helping me develop my listening skills in an incremental manner. We start with basic songs where the rhythm and other characteristics are easy to identify and then work with more complicated tunes once I have a good foundation.

Some Salsa music students start by learning the patterns of specific instruments such as the clave. Maybe this approach works for some. But it definitely doesn't work for me. Just being able to hear the most common sounds and patterns of instruments used in Salsa music is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. The main objective, I think, is to develop general music listening skills in a structured manner along the lines of what I described above. Then, once this structure is in place, it makes sense to study the specifics of each genre of dance music.

So I'm delighted. One of the reasons why I didn't pursue Salsa dancing a few years back was because I was very frustrated that I couldn't hear the rhythm. I asked dance teachers and others to help, but none of the guidance I was given made any sense to me.

Now I'm certain that by working with Don for a few more months, I'll have no trouble hearing the rhythm in Tango, Salsa or any other dance music.

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