Originally posted by ChrisA
Ballroom music is much less popular. Very occasionally there's something in 3/4 time that would be waltzable. Quickstep and foxtrot less so, arguably, at least without forcing them on to unnatural music that just happens to be at the right speed. The so-called "strict-tempo" ballroom music has been around for about a million years, and IMHO it sounds like it too. It just wouldn't appeal much to the 20-40+ crowd that constitutes most of the MJ crowd.
Latin music would probably sound a bit groovier to us youngsters, but more than about 2 cha chas in a row always used to drive me mad. Ballroom jive music needs to have quite a rock-n-roll vibe for it to feel (or look I expect) any good, so it's far more limiting than MJ-able tracks.
There is perhaps an argument that better DJ'ing could do a lot here. There seem to be many experts in music involved in the Modern Jive arena, so the general standard of DJ'ing may be much higher.
Also a ballroom (&latin) DJ only needs to find a fraction of the number of tracks for each dance a modern jive DJ would need to.
I never really understood the rationale for the 'strict tempo' thing, but agree the music tagged with it is from a completely different era, and very off-putting.
I'd agree with that. I thought ballroom (&latin) was plain unpopular (other than at uni), but was surprised to learn that the tea dances in London, much more than in evening dances, can get good numbers.Originally posted by ChrisA
At risk of generalising horrendously, the people seem to fall into two camps: the young, competitive ones (the uni ballroom scene is still pretty healthy I believe), and er, those that aren't - and haven't been for a looooong time . I may be out of date, though - so please correct me, anyone that knows better.
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