By Sara Willcutt

Musicality is important for every dancer. I am always surprised when I work with a teenage dancer that has not learned to count to music or follow the beat.

Objective: to learn basic music vocabulary and how it relates to dance.

A beat is a strong repetitive sound like the heart beat of the music.

The tempo is the speed of the music

A measure is most commonly 4 beats, but can vary with the style of music.

A phrase is like a sentence in the music. In most songs the phrase is counted in 8 beats, which is 2 measures.

Rhythmic patterns are similar to syllables in words

Exercise in Understanding:  Get together a variety of music from different styles, jazz, lyrical, ballet, hip hop etc. Choreograph combination or use on from dance class.

Find the Beat: play a song and find the beat. Clap you hands to it. Count it out, step side to side to the beat.

Explore Tempo: Dance your combination to the beat, keeping in time with the tempo-speed of the music. Try this with several different songs.

Find the Measure: Count with the music, while walking in one direction. Every 4 counts change direction.

Understand a Phrase: dance your combination while counting 1-8. Assign each movement a number. Dance and continue to count, using the counts and tempo to make your movements go with the music.

Overview

1)      Keeping with the beat of the music keeps all the dancers together and with the flow of the music.

2)      Always listen to the beat and the tempo of music in class or auditions. Be prepared to perform your movements in time to the music given.

3)      Beats are like the alphabet, measures are the words, and phrases are the sentences.