I discovered something interesting about my dancing and the
way I respond to music. At Scandimoot, I did the first couple of dance
workshops without trouble. In fact, they were great, learned much about using
various bits of my body, interaction with partners, etc.
In the third workshop, it all started to go wrong. I just
couldn't find the rhythm of the dance in the music. The fiddle player seemed to
be running up and down esoteric scales fairly randomly. Looking around, the
other dancers seemed to coping OK.
After struggling for some time, I talked to
the teacher. She understood straight away “Ah, that's Rättvik music!” (It's a
place in Sweden). I also talked to the fiddler and verified what my ears had
been telling me – the melody sometimes smeared the notes over the beat. Or
completely off the beat, or missing altogether! Watching the fiddler play, he tapped his foot in the usual
1_(no 2)_3 rhythm of Swedish Polska but the melody was usually somewhere else.
Other participants tried to help. Suggestions included:
- Following the fiddlers feet instead of his fiddle.
- Running a metronome in my head
None of these really work for me.
This experience illuminated some discussions I've had from
time to time about what's “good” dance music. I dance to the melody. It's not
enough that there's a “good beat”. If I was tone deaf it would be a different story.
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