swung eighth notes and being able to transition between the two. Are you a dance teacher or studio owner? I highly suggest having a visual aid of a rhythm tree present in your studio! You can draw your own or you can easily get one via Hillary-Marie’s iTapOnline (a fabulous resource!).ĭo you teach or perform tap, jazz, lindy hop, or other forms of social or vernacular dances? If so, it’s also incredibly important to know the difference between notes or a phrase that is straight vs. Does a triplet sound foreign? If you’ve ever done balances across the floor in ballet, danced or heard a waltz, or listened to a song in ¾ time such as “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys, then you’ve felt a triplet! Being able to identify musical subdivisions and count them out loud will be an incredibly helpful tool in gaining musicality. A triplet is three even beats over the span of one quarter note (1 and a, 2 and a, 3 and a). And here’s the math: your quarter note can be divided into 8 eighth notes (1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and), which can then be divided into 16 sixteenth notes (1 ee and a, 2 ee and a, 3 ee and a, 4 ee and a). Whenever we count to 4 or 8, or we are referring to the ‘down-beat’, that’s the quarter note.
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Most of the music we listen to is in 4/4 time, meaning that a measure or bar has four quarter notes.
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We want to be able to identify and transition between musical subdivisions at any given tempo*. All of that can certainly sound a little intimidating, but just like anything, with practice comes comfort, understanding, and confidence.īaseline knowledge of music theory involves knowing your rhythm tree - whole notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, triplets, and sixteenth notes. I hope to offer some insight into how we can develop musicality, whether for yourself or your students, through tips and exercises that can be applied to all genres of dance.įirst, in order to work on musicality we need to have a basic understanding of music theory and phrasing, and the way there involves math, metronomes, counting, and using our voices while dancing (yes - dancers CAN use their voices!). So how do we actually achieve musicality as a skill? Is it just something that people ‘have’ naturally or can we work on it? Answer: we can definitely work on it, but it takes lots of practice. Dancers who are great improvisers in any style often, if not always, have wonderful musicality which directly aids in their ability to improvise and captivate audiences. When we refer to an individual dancer having great musicality, we are generally referring to their ability to keep time while moving, and/or their ability to quickly absorb or perform specific rhythms and display so through movement.
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What is musicality? The term itself is pretty broad, it refers to having an innate understanding of music or a sensitivity to or knowledge of music.