MUSICALITY GENERAL CONCEPTS
Music generates strong emotions and even makes us dance. We understand musicality as the ability to use our dance to express what the music says and makes us feel, based on the filter of our state of mind and our own personality. In fact, if you take a minute to observe your dance floor colleagues, you will realise that his and her way of dancing clearly expresses his and her way of being. There are even studies that prove it! In other words: we can know what a person is like simply by watching how they express themselves on the dance floor!
This therefore also means that, as no dancer is the same as another, each has their very own way of expressing themselves (musicality). In addition, having a wealth of steps or being very careful technically has nothing whatsoever to do with musicality. Having many steps in your repertoire may be useful when expressing what music tells you, when dancing, but it is not necessary and not even essential. A person may have an enormous vocabulary pronounce all the words very well, but that does not necessarily mean that they are able to recite a poem that conveys their innermost feelings.
Expressing what music conveys to us in our dancing can be something quite simple (or complex, it depends on how you look at it) as to make a small, gentle soft swing out when the music expresses peace and quiet, rising and lowering your arm to the rhythm marked by an an instrument, jumping when the music transmits a lot of energy, link moves together so that they better adapt to the music, delay some entries, lengthen or highlight parts of the step or generate nuances that make the dance more in harmony with the music. There are even dancers who are capable of creating new steps, new movements, new interactions while dancing just based on they feel (not just what they hear, but also from any type of internal or external perception). Certainly being creative is another way of being musical. Creative dancers may possibly be more musical. Even so, creativity, in our view, must not necessarily be linked to musicality. I can create new movements, new steps, new gestures, but if they are not inspired by the music I am hearing or the emotions generated by this music, then it has nothing to do with musicality (you can read interesting ideas about musicality and creativity on the web Musicality Is Overrated).
Being musical while dancing is really a complex process that requires simultaneously being receptive (sensitive to the music) and creative (able to transform the information and emotions transmitted to you by the music into movements).
Take a look an the example we have taken from a video about musicality in hip hop we found on the Pickupdance website. We have selected this particular step because it is very simple, always the same, and easily allows us to see the effect of musicality.
We superposed two moments of the video. First, when the hip hop instructor does the basic step, without musicality, and then when he does the same step but expressing in his dance what music suggests to him.
Conceptually, musicality is a complex process because it includes listening to, feeling, and expressing music. That is why some of the things we think can help you to be more musical are:
- perceive what the music expresses;
- understand what the music expresses;
- anticipate what music will express;
- react to what music expresses;
- perceive what your partner is doing or wants to do;
- know and perceive our body;
- have a certain amount of control over the expression and harmony of our body;
- modify the expression of your body and/or the kind of steps in connection with the music and your dance partner;
- keep a balance between the three elements involved in the dance (the music, you, and your partner).
As we have already mentioned in other sections of this website, there are dancers who have always been musical; they have these abilities in a natural way. Others have acquired them over time, listening to a lot of music and paying attention to how other dancers solve specific musical approaches. There are also dancers who, even though they have tried to work and improve, find it hard to progress in this field.
Whatever the inborn skills each of us has, evidence shows that everybody can become more musical. All of us have the necessary resources to be musical. Practice, especially if it is conscious, helps improve, makes us combine resources. It is during this learning process that we can get ideas about how other people express specific things, but what works best of all is to let our body react to what we feel as we feel it, not just like others do it. Each body, each person, each coordinative capacity, each way of exteriorising feelings is different. Therefore, it makes no sense -in our opinion - to try imitating what another person does, if what we are talking about is how to express what you feel when you listen to that music, if what we are talking about is musicality.
Obviously the basis of musicality is to listen to a lot of music and, when dancing, to get enthralled and seduced by the music and the connection with our partner. People even say that if musicality comes out of your head (rules and strategies to understand music) instead of the heart (sensations generated by the music that lead you to making movements or expressions, to react) your musicality will be very limited.
Even though we agree with this statement, we think that putting a certain amount of rationality into this process -as a means, not as an end- could of considerable help. It is not, therefore, a question of teaching people to be musical, but rather to show them which tools can be used to improve their natural musicality. Once you know the tools, once you are familiar with how it works, you will have more possibilities to progress in this field.
If your brain is busy thinking it becomes much more difficult to listen to or express music. Therefore, you have to learn to feel where the 1 is but not by counting. You have to learn to notice what will happen, not understand what will happen. But in order to reach a natural, spontaneous, almost unconscious process of understanding music some dancers need (or rely on) a process of rationalisation and internalisation which, in combination with practice, helps them become more musical.
It goes without saying that musicality is not an absolute goal to achieve in our dancing, and, for some dancers, musicality is not only at all an important aspect in their dance. But at the other extreme are dancers who consider it an essential element to be able to communicate with their partner and enjoy the dance. Some may even take it too seriously (and this website could be an example). There are people who claim that musicality in dance cannot be taught, that it is a concept and skill that can only be acquired naturally. Perhaps this is why musicality is not often taught as part of regular dance training. Even if this is true and it is only possible to develop musicality on our own, we would like to think that the thoughts, ideas and tools on this website could help you make the path just a bit clearer and allow you to discover and merge the resources you already have and halp you become just a little more musical.
If you want to learn more about musicality, you may be interested in visiting: