PREDICTABLE PATTERNS
Sometimes when musicians improvise or make an arrangement, they reproduce musical phrases they have heard before and liked and these snippets come out while they are playing. Musicians also seek melodic or rhythmic formulas that enthral listeners or dancers with a sense of familiarity.
One of the most universal predictable patterns is "shave and a haircut, two bits". This pattern is found in most cultures (unusual because patterns are usually linked to a culture). We can hear it in many songs as well.
When you listen to a lot of music you realize that there are numerous patterns that are repeated over and over again and that we have become quite familiar with them. When we hear the first part we can know how it will be the second. This makes them predictable.
Sometimes it is a melody (melodic patterns); other times, even more often, it is the rhythmic base that reminds us of something we have heard before (rhythmic patterns).
Dancers who are able to recognise these patterns will more easily be able to predict what will happen in the piece and, consequently, they can be more musical.
In fact, if we analyse the concept of predictable patterns from a more general point of view, we realise that there are several aspects of swing music that follow established routines and so we can also consider them predictable patterns. As we saw on the page structure of swing music, the composition of the phrases and the harmonic structure of songs follow different recognisable patterns that we can use to anticipate what is going to happen in the song and better adapt our dance (structural patterns).
Predictable patterns are typical of each society, culture and moment. You need to be immersed in this context so that the pattern is predictable for the listener.
Undoubtedly, as in most aspects related to interpretation and musicality, listening to a lot of music will aid this process of pattern recognition enormously (especially if you pay close attention and try to understand the music you are listening to). However we have tried to make this process a little easier by creating a short catalogue of examples that we hope will better help you understand what we mean when we talk about predictable patterns and make recognition much easier.
Let's analize first the structural patterns.