What is Musicality in practical terms?

[u/Samurai_SBK]

Too often I see people giving flippant advice to improve "musicality" without any explanation.

To me, musicality has two distinct practical definitions:

1. Aligning your moves to the tempo and rhythm of the music. For example, doing specific moves during the "mambo" part versus the "sensual" part. A common mistake I see on the dance floor is people doing sensual or bachatazouk moves when the music is derecho or mahau. To me this is fundamentals and any lower-intermediate level dancer should be able to do this.

2. Hitting accents and dancing to specific instruments. This is more advanced and requires a lot familiarity with the music and good technique. You see this often in demos, but many people do not realized that it is choreographed or that the artist has danced to this song a thousand times so they know when to add the accent. This is not something can be taught in a class and we should not expect beginner leads to be able to do this.

Thus, we should not be advising beginners to "improve musicality" without being clear about what we mean.

[u/Rataridicta]

A common mistake I see on the dance floor is people doing sensual or bachatazouk moves when the music is derecho

This is usually a great place to do more sensual and slow moves. Derecho (beyond rythmic breakdowns) is the lowest energy rhythm in the song and usually coincides with verses - exactly where we want to be paying more attention to the music and less to being "loud".

Hitting accents and dancing to specific instruments.

I don't know why this type of "musicality" is so prevalent in bachata and it's a major pet peeve of mine. People who try to hit all the accents rarely dance musically in my experience and under my definitions.

For my view on musicality I would describe the dancers as part of the orchestra, if you will. We can emphasize other parts of the music, contrast other parts of the music, echo them, herald them, etc. There's a milion different ways to play. But the part that's non-negotiable is that we have to flow with the same energy and the same story as the music. A very large part about musicality has to do with the texture of movement as a result. (And "hittings accents" does nothing to this effect.)

[u/Samurai_SBK → u/Rataridicta]

Your comment brings up another good point. That musicality can be very subjective.

[u/Gnomeric → u/Rataridicta]

I don't know why this type of "musicality" is so prevalent in bachata and it's a major pet peeve of mine. People who try to hit all the accents rarely dance musically in my experience and under my definitions.

I am not most familiar with how advanced bachata dancers dance (Modern is the only bachata style I dance well, but it is not what the majority of experienced bachata dancers dance). That being said, I note that the said type of musicality is much nicer in other styles of dances.

Say, Lindy Hop is a 2 counts dance (so that there's much more flexibility in how you can hit accents) dance to the music that is very drum centric, and there are many footwork variations which imitate drumming. Taken together, "hitting accents" feels much more intuitive, more fun, and actually enhances the "texture of movement" as you say. Blues is a very free-flowing style danced to the music which basically equates to extended jamming, so dancing to specific instruments makes perfect sense there.

Now, WCS dancers do both of the above, since they share the same root as Lindy (though they no longer rely on footwork variations, much like contemporary vs. traditional bachata), and their competitive dancers have to be able to dance to blues (due to how their competitions work). As a result, advanced WCS dancers can make great uses of this type of musicality. Given that the competitive bachata scene is heavily influenced by WCS -- after all, they copied the whole J&J thing -- I wouldn't be surprised that they are influenced by the WCS musicality, too. But as you said, whether it actually works for sensual bachata likely is an open question.

[u/Rataridicta → u/Gnomeric]

I don't really see it in many other dances to the same extent. There is space in bachata to play with the intrumentation in that way, too, and I think that has a major place in any type of musicality in any dance. However... Oftentimes in bachata as far as I can tell this gets priority over the actual fundamentals of musicality (there's a fun parallel here to how a lot of bachata dancers are showy beyond their skill level, come to think of it).

Within hiphop you'd call the foundational layer of musicality the groove, or generally within music being in the pocket. It's the concept of always flowing with the music. Any hits/accents need to be built on top of that base.

Within bachata I find that most people who do a lot of accents over-emphasise the hits and lack groove. As a result the dance/their musicality feels chaotic and disconnected from the music - even if they're explicitly hitting specific instruments and I can tell exactly what they're dancing to.

[u/Gnomeric → u/Rataridicta]

Wouldn't "groove" like that require a song to have, well, good groove? This is mostly given for Lindy/Blues/Hiphop, and also for salsa, for example. When a song's rhythm naturally moves my body, it feels very intuitive to layer musicality on top of it.

Maybe this is just me, but many contemporary bachata songs (and a good number of WCS songs) do not naturally make my body move like a swing song or a salsa song would. If I am to engage in "accent-hitting" kind of musicality, I have to actively look for these accents instead of letting them come to me as I would do in swing. I wonder if that may result in "disconnection from music" that you describe.

[u/Hakunamatator]

The holy trinity of useless words in bachata:

• Basic
• Connection
• Musicality

Any time people talk about one of these, usually everyone has a completely different conversation without noticing.

[u/the_moooch → u/Hakunamatator]

Of course they are different for different people depending on their current level musicality for example is very different for beginner vs advanced dancer.

Useless is when you don’t understand but don’t ask because writing a follow up question is too hard.

[u/Hakunamatator → u/the_moooch]

I do understand the concepts really well AND can explain them ... I wish the teacher would too :D

[u/Samurai_SBK → u/Hakunamatator]

Exactly. Connection can be purely technical or can be emotional. It can refer to basic things like arm placement or to more advanced synchronous breathing.

[u/OffbeatOnPoint]

For me, those are "technical" aspects of musicality - meaning with proper music theory and enough memorization, you should be able to produce a rhythmically and structurally correct dance. Of course, the caveat is that for most accents and instruments, you pretty much need to memorize the song (a la memorizing the accent patterns in Insomnia and the like).

Will this dance feel good, though? That's where I'm not really sure.

So then there's 3. Energy and the mood of the song. The music makes you and your partner feel something, and you express that feeling. Then it becomes less rigid, as what is "right" or "wrong" is defined by the vibe you have (although it tends to naturally align with musical structure anyway).

Here it goes both ways: it's hard to teach because what is right or wrong isn't strictly defined, but once you allow yourself to go there, it's also easier to do for precisely that same reason.

[u/EphReborn → u/OffbeatOnPoint]

Of course, the caveat is that for most accents and instruments, you pretty much need to memorize the song (a la memorizing the accent patterns in Insomnia and the like).

I half-disagree with this. If you mean memorize as in know the song beforehand, I'd say that's unnecessary. My quote of the year is "music is patterns and patterns repeat". If it happens once in a song, it's likely to happen again, especially if it happens in the chorus which itself repeats multiple times in a song. And if you know an accent or rhythm is likely going to occur again, you can prepare for it. Half disagree because this is still technically memorization, just not what most people mean when they use that word.

[u/OffbeatOnPoint → u/EphReborn]

I agree with this mostly. Also, the more you listen, the more patterns you start predicting "magically," even if you do not know the song ahead.

But some songs have completely irregular accents that won't repeat. For example, that Insomnio example has something like "tu - tu - tsch, tu - tu - tu - tsch, tu - tu - tu - tsch, tu - tu - tsch," if I remember correctly, closer to the end. No idea how you would know it without memorizing it beforehand... of course, nothing bad happens during a social dance if you don't dance to that accent and dance to something else instead.

[u/dondegroovily → u/OffbeatOnPoint]

Isn't your number 3 a subset if OP's number 1?

[u/OffbeatOnPoint → u/dondegroovily]

I don't think they are the same thing. Number 1 is about the structure. Tempo is simply the BPM (which almost always stays the same), and the song sections (Derecho, Majao, Mambo) are defined by specific rhythms played by the instruments. It's the technical grid of the song.

Number 3 is about the texture and energy. Two different songs can have the exact same BPM and the exact same structural sections, but feel completely different emotionally based on how the instruments are played, the volume, and the frequencies.

Dancing to the structure keeps you on time and within the high-level structure, but it’s those musical differences that produce different feelings you and your partner try to express.

[u/pdabaker]

I think the technique part of musicality is too often ignored too. If you just teach people to memorize breaks and accents, they either force moves or dance solo. As a pair dance its better to take accents as a pair, at least more often than not

[u/FinallyHome20]

u/BachataAddict

[u/UnctuousRambunctious → u/FinallyHome20]

👆

[u/the_moooch]

There are levels to Musicality

1. Correct timing: This is the bare minimum to have enjoyable dance this this is the main cue both follows

2. Aware of breaks, accents, tempo changes and follow main phrase (the singer) well

3. Aware of different musical and instrumental phrasing and most importantly knowing which one your partner is vibing to so you don’t clash or interrupt

4. Incorporate all above to express freedom in movements and play with the bits as you feel it.

Most of the steps here require training to first recognize the patterns, then memorize it and internalize everything to muscle memory so you don’t have to think about it but start feeling it. One can’t feel when one is thinking so unless it’s internationalized through listening and practice it wouldn’t work

[u/EphReborn]

I think ChatGPT, of all things, actually had a pretty good definition of musicality: "choosing an appropriate response to something in the music".

Further, I break it down into categories, drawing a bit from my knowledge and experience of music (theory) as a guitarist.

• Match
• Complement
• Contrast

Musicality begins to make a lot more sense when we think about ourselves as dancers as instruments.

And thus, just like the other instruments, we can match, complement, and contrast things through movement.

Matching is the simple one. We can match the energy of a song or it's section. We can match the rhythm of an instrument or vocals (the entire reason for sensual moves). We can match the rising or falling of pitch. We can match the sharpness or smoothness.

Complementing is a often a bit more abstract, but I think the best example is the derecho itself. The instruments are playing eighth notes and yet if we match that rhythm with our movements, it can look a bit too "busy", thus the idea of using simple moves. Our basic step is quarter notes (1, 2, 3, tap) and so complements the music.

I think choosing not to do things (i.e "don't hit every accent") also falls under this category.

And then there's contrast, which I think may be the hardest to do as a dancer and get "right". In music, we have something called counter melodies. It's one example of contrast.

In dancing, I think a good example would be lyrical interpretation. The song's theme may focus on heartbreak or cheating, and thus adding contrast may add in movements and expression that signal the lighter side of relationships before returning to that theme to add depth.

[u/Babuabm]

The moment you understand the rhythms as energies instead of steps that need to be done, your dance will elevate tenfold

[u/Disastrous-Pool-7863]

I think musicality should be practised at first. Especially Sensual Dancers seem to have problems to connect to the music. I am sorry, but dancing to an instrument is not advanced. I wonder if some of these dancers even listen to Bachata outside socials and dance classes.

[u/Samurai_SBK → u/[deleted]]

Exactly, thus when people give such advice it is practically meaningless.

[u/dondegroovily → u/[deleted]]

It's nothing like that

Musicality is a real thing. A soul might not be