Castellano Català

PLAYING WITH CALLS & RESPONSES AND QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

Jazz is a musical style that arose from the interaction of different musics and cultures. One of the contributions came from the work songs and the religious songs of slaves from Africa.

These songs are characterised by a dialogue between singers. The procedure is very simple: one member of the group starts an idea and the others respond. Take a look at this example of a jail song, a variation of work songs:

This dialogue takes place in many musical styles, even in classical music, but especially in the music that emerged during the first half of the 20th century as a result of the influence of black Americans. That's why we find it in soul, gospel, blues, rhythm & blues, rock & roll or swing music (and jazz music in general).

The dialogue -more or less obvious, repetitive or sporadic- is present in almost all the swing music we usually dance to. The kind of conversation that is established can be interpreted in many ways, and all are perfectly valid. Some people will understand it as a game that always consists of a question and an answer. But for us it seems more practical, especially because it gives us more resources to express this aspect in our dance, to understand that there are two forms of dialogue.

Call and Response

This consists in one person saying something and another person responding with a reaffirmation or repetition. In the prison song of the previous video we saw how one of the prisoners explains something and all the others reaffirm the statement with the "yay yeah". Another example would be the song Shake That Thing that has its origin in American folk music:

This call and response also appears in its instrumental variant, which adapts the same procedure as if it was still the text. Take a look at this video which highlights several examples of this type of dialogue, the echo effect Rex Stewart generates in a song like Little Sir Echo. In this case the answer is an identical repetition of the call.

You can hear other examples in this play list.

Question and Answer

This consists of someone questioning something and someone else responding. One example would be the song Are You All Reet by Cab Calloway:

Notice how in the instrumental piece Wings and Things, by Duke Ellington, it seems that the band constantly asks the question (which basically works as a riff) and the soloist gives different answers each time:

Another very common question and answer variant is where the leader makes a musical statement and then the group (the choir or the band) completes the phrase. This variant is called Leader and Chorus and a good example is Stop Pretending by Buddy Johnson. In this case it is the choir who answers.

But at other times this dialogue is between the singer and the band as is the case of Southern Echoes, also by Buddy Johnson.

You can listen to other examples on this play list.

How can we bring all these things into our dance?

If these elements are so common in swing music, it is logical that dancers will use them as a source of inspiration or as a game in our dance. There are many ways to express this feature. Let's look at just a few of them:

• Music marks the dialogue and the two members of the couple, together, express what music says; the music is translated into movements.
• Music makes the dialogue and each of the members of the couple translates one part of the dialogue (one dances the question and the other dances the answer).
• Music marks the dialogue and each member of the couple suggests movements or steps to which the other member must answer or copy.
• Music only asks the question and the dancers (individually or both members of the couple together) put in the answer with their dance.

We would like to illustrate each of these possibilities with videos, but even though when talking about the theme in forums on musicality it seems that there are many people who use this resource, but the truth is that when looking for examples from social dances, Jack & Jill competitions or choreographies on the web, it's very hard to find them.

We can show you two. The first is a well known video in which we could say that most of the time the dance is basically limited to reproducing the question and answer of the music.

In the next video (in which and by no means setting a precedent and forced by the fact that we could not find better videos, the authors of this website appear; but dancing separately please note) you can see how, from minute 0.27, the dancers in the foreground are exchanging the role of initiators of the dialogue.

Note also that the singers alternate the lyrics:

Inspired by this music, dancers in the video start a game in which the first sets out an idea (in the form of movements) and the second one copies one part but adds another modification (makes a contribution).

The truth is that in social dancing it is quite difficult to set up this game. It requires both members of the couple knowing to recognize that the music is questioning and answering, and then having the ability and resources to agree and reflect this in their dance. But when all this comes together, it is marvellous!

On the other hand there is another question and answer game that is much easier to start. In this case it is unrelated to the music and consists of the fact that when you see your dance partner make a variation that you can copy or complete, you also do it in the next eight. Look at an example below and let us know how it goes!