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Thread: What makes a "challenging" track? (Split from Competition thread)

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    What makes a "challenging" track? (Split from Competition thread)

    Quote Originally Posted by Danicus118 View Post
    The music....
    -I was competing in Intermediate and found the music to be ridiculous to put it frank, Every track i danced to had a crazy club beat in the background and everything just sounded clubby. I heard a Micheal Buble track played "Everything" with a crazy club mix. To me that just ruined the song? A few clubby tracks can be funky and fun, but 1 after another after another just gets boring. They are not open to interpretation the way some of us may dance.
    Possibly something for a separate thread....
    There is a school of thought which holds that you can make a track more 'danceable' by adding a heavy beat to it (often drowning out much of the subtlety that the track would otherwise have had).

    Personally, it's a school of thought that I intensely dislike... but it's a distressingly common one

    Quote Originally Posted by Terpsichorea View Post
    I have to say that I agree with you about the music in the Intermediates - I thought it was horrible to dance to, but I suppose that's part of the challenge
    Unless 'challenging' means having to invent your own interpretation of a track, I can't say I agree.... If you want to challenge a dancer's interpretive abilities, throw something at them with loads of subleties, and see how deeply they can dig into it...

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    Smile Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Unless 'challenging' means having to invent your own interpretation of a track, I can't say I agree.... If you want to challenge a dancer's interpretive abilities, throw something at them with loads of subleties, and see how deeply they can dig into it...
    I agree with you there, i personally enjoy tracks such as Basement Jaxx Red Alert to dance to as there is so many different aspects of the song people can dance to....
    Last edited by ducasi; 6th-May-2008 at 05:59 PM. Reason: fixed quote

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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    Possibly something for a separate thread....
    There is a school of thought which holds that you can make a track more 'danceable' by adding a heavy beat to it (often drowning out much of the subtlety that the track would otherwise have had).

    Personally, it's a school of thought that I intensely dislike... but it's a distressingly common one
    Definite fodder for a separate thread. I have written elsewhere about how I enjoy tracks which have that repetitive groove and that a lot of techno/deep house music is strongest along these lines. Whether it translates as well to partner dancing is a different matter I suppose.

    Nelly Furtado 'Say It Right' is a track I really like that I think falls into this category but I know some others have commented on here before that they don't like it because of its simplicity.

    Personally I don't like the school of thought that thinks the more 'challenging' a track is then it must automatically be better than something simpler.

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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by robd View Post
    Nelly Furtado 'Say It Right' is a track I really like that I think falls into this category but I know some others have commented on here before that they don't like it because of its simplicity.
    To be honest, I don't think 'Say It Right' is that simple a track.... (great track, by the way) - there's a fair bit going on there to get one's interpretive teeth into, as well as a nice 'easy' beat for those who want to take a simpler route...

    Quote Originally Posted by robd View Post
    Personally I don't like the school of thought that thinks the more 'challenging' a track is then it must automatically be better than something simpler.
    Ah - but what do you mean by 'better'? Better for what?

    [EDIT]PS - any chance of a kindly mod splitting the thread?[/EDIT]
    Last edited by straycat; 6th-May-2008 at 05:30 PM.

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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    To be honest, I don't think 'Say It Right' is that simple a track.... (great track, by the way) - there's a fair bit going on there to get one's interpretive teeth into, as well as a nice 'easy' beat for those who want to take a simpler route...
    I agree the groove in SIR isn't the only thing but it's the dominant element. Sparkles likes the 'hey' (or is it 'yeah' ) refrain that peppers that track and of course Nelly's vocals have a certain quality that could influence your dance style.

    TBH, I feel a bit of a fraud talking too much about musicality as I am not at all good at expressing the music through my dancing (other than fairly obvious stops and breaks and being in time to begin with) - maybe that's why I have such a liking for tracks with a good repetitive groove?

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    Ah - but what do you mean by 'better'? Better for what?
    Maybe 'better' isn't the right word. Maybe 'worthy' is a more suitable choice? - some posts on here in the past seem to align the worthiness of a track (and thus its suitability for 'serious' dancers ) with how much it challenges people and takes them 'out of their comfort zone'.

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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by Terpsichorea View Post
    I have to say that I agree with you about the music in the Intermediates - I thought it was horrible to dance to
    Thank God we weren't the only ones thinking that!
    but I suppose that's part of the challenge, dancing well to the music even when you wouldn't normally dance to it.
    I disagree - I think it would have been more fair to give ALL dancers a chance to express themselves with the widest possible range of music - not just the clubby fans. I don't usually complain about the music, and I do like to dance to both fast and slow, but have to agree with Danicus - one after another after another after another got me gagging.

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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    [EDIT]PS - any chance of a kindly mod splitting the thread?[/EDIT]
    Done. Not sure of my title for the thread – want to suggest another one?
    Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story

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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by robd View Post
    I agree the groove in SIR isn't the only thing but it's the dominant element. Sparkles likes the 'hey' (or is it 'yeah' ) refrain that peppers that track and of course Nelly's vocals have a certain quality that could influence your dance style.
    Actually - one of the things I like about it is that (to me) no single element dominates. You have that ever-so-slightly-hiphop beat, that light drum-roll type thing, the 'hey', even some strong rhythms from the vocals during the main verses - each element is strong enough to dance to, or one can mix 'em up. Then there's some nice call-and-response going on in some verses between Nelly and the backing singers. You could even get very ethereal, and dance to the slow keyboard harmonies...


    Quote Originally Posted by robd View Post
    Maybe 'better' isn't the right word. Maybe 'worthy' is a more suitable choice? - some posts on here in the past seem to align the worthiness of a track (and thus its suitability for 'serious' dancers ) with how much it challenges people and takes them 'out of their comfort zone'.
    Mmmm - OK - I'm probably guilty of that at times
    But I absolutely love being thrown in the deep end dancing to an awesome (and challenging) track that I've never ever heard before (with, preferrably, a partner who's up for some fun bits of experimentation)

    From my perspective, that is my comfort zone... it's not that I want to be taken out of it.

    An easy way to get me out of my comfort zone is simply to make me dance to something that doesn't make me want to dance... (which brings us back to the Bongo Song )

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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by Danicus118 View Post
    I agree with you there, i personally enjoy tracks such as Basement Jaxx Red Alert to dance to as there is so many different aspects of the song people can dance to....
    Ironically, that's one that leaves me cold - to me, it sounds very samey. Vive la difference....

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    Re: What makes a "challenging" track? (Split from Competition thread)

    I haven't actually heard the version of "Everything" with a dance beat bolted onto it which was apparently one of the tracks played, but I strongly suspect that I have had a lucky escape. 9 times out of 10 a clumsy attempt to turn a non - clubby track into a club dance hit by sticking a dance beat under the tune sucks big time . The irony is that in its original form this is a challenging track to dance to with loads of opportunity for musical interpretation. Perhaps the challenge was to make something excruciating seem almost tolerable.

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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by straycat264 View Post
    Ironically, that's one that leaves me cold - to me, it sounds very samey. Vive la difference....
    Next time it is played try dancing to the different beats....
    It starts of with one....
    Then another is overlapped....
    Try switching between the two....
    Then another is added....
    So you can break.... Dance through the break.... Or slide.....

    Its good to dance to if you find a good follower for the track otherwise it can be a lil bit boring.....


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    Re: The Ceroc Champs, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly!

    Quote Originally Posted by Danicus118 View Post
    Next time it is played try dancing to the different beats....
    Oh - don't get me wrong - on the occasions someone drags me up to dance to it, I agree there's a whole lot going on to mess around to. I think it's just that few of those elements inspire me (I quite enjoy it until the point the first chorus hits).

    On the competition music front though, I'm with you - this one presents a lot more of what I'd deem 'challenge' than the earlier-described beat-laden version of Everything.

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    Re: What makes a "challenging" track? (Split from Competition thread)

    Personally, I figure a "challenging" track is one that whilst carrying a nice tune, might be difficult to dance to - either might not have a constant beat or very fast .... this is as opposed to an "interpretive" track which would allows the dancer to perceive and stylise .

    Different types of interpretive tunes for different stylisation though - ie as mentioned above - Say It Right - nice interpretive tune, hip-hop feel allows for a particular type of interpretation which might be quite different from Buble's Sway - also a nice interpretive track (just using these as examples) but completely different stylisation IMHO.

    Neither of these tracks would be "challenging" as such, but they both allow for completely different interpretation, style, musicality.

    If you want a challenging track for Ceroc, I'd reckon anything over about 175bpm should do it- purely on the basis of managing to dance Ceroc at that speed! Or something with no discernable beat - that always foxes most people!

    Challenging tunes have a habit of becoming less challenging though, the more you are exposed to them, so in the context of the champs, the most challenging music would be tunes that have not been heard or are very rarely played.

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