Less is more.
Stopping on every break will lose it's effect.
Hey all, a few posts on the Blackpool competition thread got me thinking about breaks:
Does everyone have to freeze everytime a break comes along? Or to put it better: is it a Good Idea Musicality-Wise to freeze on every break?
I was recently dancing with a follower at a T-dance (interesting, interpretative music galore), who stopped moving at every break, despite what I had in mind. Not a bad thing, necessarily, I'd just never come across a dance like it before.
Personally, I don't like statements such as "when the music stops", because the music doesn't generally stop (unless you're dancing to Make Me Smile...). Something stops, the bass falls away, or the drums go silent for a bar or two, but the music tends to keep going, in some form or another. To me, it makes sense to keep dancing, in some form or another. Obviously don't ignore it, but keep the body moving (e.g. slow return or whatever).
Maybe freezing on a break is just a way to show: look at me, I can identify breaks, AND hit them with a stylish pose? Or perhaps it's just become so common that people stop questioning whether other options exist (like the follower above).
Any thoughts?
Dan
Less is more.
Stopping on every break will lose it's effect.
Breaks should normally be marked, but no, it doesn't need to be with a freeze. It's a good place to start though.
Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story
Great comment about the music never stopping and so you shouldn`t....it was interesting watching the cerocX final from last year i think it was when they were dancing to spooky......the line from the song is.......... and then i stop! almost all the dancers froze on the spot except the winners!! who highlighted the break but didn`t stop dancing......the analogy i like is that some people dance alongside the music and some dance within it!
It's definitely somewhere to start, & by acknowledging breaks we can feel very successful at the start of our journey into musicality. However I won't forget Robert C & Deborah S's Southport workshop where they were adamant that we should be dancers & not statues - every time we froze on a break they told us we were 'road-kill' Just by introducing a body ripple, hip roll or something simple after we have stopped at the cruicial moment, we can look better & be more able to keep connection & get back into the fluidity of the dance. A freeze can also be a sign of a very late realisation that a break is coming with no time to set up something more sophisticated.
Freezing is the easiest way of marking a break, which is why it's so common. Most dancers go through a stage where it's all they can do to address the situation musically and I guess that's as far as some pople ever get.
As SmileySue just mentioned, there should be something in even a freeze that keeps the dance going though as standing like a statue is not often a good look on the dancefloor.
There is nothing wrong with dancing through a break, although you'll find that the best dancers will always acknowledge that it was there in some way while doing so. In fact, there are certain songs (Sweat, Wade in the Water, Heat Attack and Vine off the top of my head) where hitting every break would make for quite a disjointed or repetive feeling dance.
Just Follow The Music, Let It lead You
If it feels right, then it was right... dancing thankfully isn't an exact science. So there isn't a right answer. Just an answer that suits you and your style best. Breaks really should be marked, and freezing is a simple and effective place to start.
Should you freeze on every break? No.
Should you dance through every break? No.
I imagine that when Gerry talks about finalists dancing right through a break, he means that they didn't really acknowledge it at all, rather than that they didn't freeze dead.
Nobody thinks that everyone should freeze on every break, except possibly Mr. Freeze, who is more of a villain than a dancer.
I tend to do the 'freeze on a break' thing as a follower with leads who are just learning to hear the breaks. And even then I wouldn't literally just stop. I often 'fix' the connection through the hand and keep that constant and then do something with my feet to highlight whatever instrument/part of the music hasn't stopped. Or I might slow down a return. Hard to know as I just do whatever feels appropriate.
But that is only when the lead is someone I know is wanting to learn how to recognise breaks. I wouldn't do that with a stranger.
I'd rather a lead did the 'freeze on every break' thing than danced right through every break without acknowledging them. It can be hard enough for some leads to hear the breaks coming without me expecting them to do something interesting with the break when they do recognise them. Freezing is a good place to start.
I've cracked it
I'm on a promise.
Lynn has offered to break me in.
Maybe, you'll be across for BlazeIII?
I'll getting ready to plan a trip to N.I. over the summer. See you then. And my connections will be listening.
Everyone has their own interpretation.
Personally, mistakes aside, I only dance when the music is playing. If the music (really) stops, I stop dancing.
That said, the number of absolute breaks with no music playing is fairly low. If there's any music whatsoever, I tend not to freeze. If the music doesn't stop, neither do I........... legs and energy permitting
A freeze is a great tool tho, esp when the music raises the tempo leading into the freeze. The contrast between fast and the ultimate slow. I.E. A stop, is great, and if you can do the 'add complexity' thing as well right before the ultimate simplicity, I.E. A stop, even better. It's all about contrast
'Make me smile' is a great song, albeit overplayed now. Three (I think) absolute breaks where the music really does stop, plus all three are blatantly signalled, and the music tempo raises approaching all three.
You don't have to do freezes for all three, but it's tricky because if the music really does stop, then any kind of dancing over the breaks looks mighty naff. That said, there's freezing, and then there's freezing like a statue.
I still get a little buzz from hitting a break dead center
You can stop dancing without having to stop moving. But a complete stand still works really well if you have a very fast move prior to the break. The high speed and the sudden stillness work together to really accentuate what the dancers are doing with the music. It's why you'll often see big fast spinning drops into a break... if it's done well it looks verrrrrry niiiiice
One thing I learnt from a private tango lesson was that you can stop moving without having to stop dancing.
OK - the connection in tango is very different - but you can get similar connection in blues. You can be completely connected with all movement 'stilled'. You know you will be moving again in a moment - the connection is there, the pause is poignant and it feels loverly!
Yes, I remember them saying that. It did change my approach to breaks at a stroke, and made me realise I had been overcompensating in trying to rid myself of the MJ approach of ignoring or not even being aware of breaks in the music. But I still have to resist a tendency to overdo the breaks.
This might be slightly OT but how do you spot breaks? Sometimes the music signposts them very clearly but sometimes they just seem to happen by themselves, and I've danced with a couple of people now who've told me I should be able just to spot them coming and respond - so how do you spot them?
listen to sway by PCD`s or buble for an example....
the major accents or breaks in sway occur on beats 1 and 5, breaks and major and minor usually occur on the odd beats...1,3,5,7....listen to the song a few times and think about dancing to the song......it something you can develop quite easily....
Well, it helps if you understand phrasing. Phrases are akin to paragraphs in written language – they’re sections of music that make sense in their own right in some way. I’m sure one of the many musicians in the forum could give you a much better description than that.
Phrases are typically (but not always, you have been warned ) either 32 or 48 beats long, and if there’s going to be a break it’ll almost always be at the end of a phrase. If there’s no break in the phrase the music will either come to some sort of conclusion and then go straight into the next phrase, or it’ll carry on by without any fan fare.
If there is a break in the phrase, they music will usually come to some sort of “conclusion” either 4 or 8* beats before the end of the phrase, after which point one or more instruments will be removed until the next phrase.
If you’re having trouble hearing the breaks coming I’d suggest you try to get a feel for phrases first. Count out the beats in music you’re listening to in the car, and try to find the phrases first. Once you have a good feel for those start to listen to music with nice regular breaks in them (Wade in the Water, Sweat etc) and do the same there. You’ll notice that the build up in these songs happens earlier than you might expect otherwise before they go into a break. The phrases are still either 32 or 48 beats long in total, but the build up happens early in songs that have breaks.
This is pretty general advice, and I’m well aware that there are plenty of exceptions to the rules I’ve posted here, but once you start to get a feel for where the phrases are the rest is much easier. I don’t recommend actually counting the beats while you’re dancing by the way – it’s just distracting. You should start to get an instinctive feel for where you are in a song if you keep doing this at other times though, in the same way that you can often tell which line of a dirty limerick someone is on just by their tone of voice
*Actually, thinking about it I suppose it's more like 3 beats or 7 beats, as the one or the five is often heavily accented....details details.
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