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Natural sense of rhythm?

Sometimes dance to the offbeat as well as the main beat. and then also dance to the "off-beat-of-the-off-beat".

Dancing to the beat and nothing but the beat is not dancing.
 
Sometimes dance to the offbeat as well as the main beat. and then also dance to the "off-beat-of-the-off-beat".

Dancing to the beat and nothing but the beat is not dancing.
By beat I don't just mean the main one; I meant any regular one in the music.
 
Well, it serves him right for bogging off :p

Dunt it just?

I am meeting up with him for the Africa Oye thing next Saturday. I'm really tempted to try and capture his 'dancing' on video :D

erm, it's not next saturday, it's the one after. just thought i'd edit that
 
I've never been sure if it's so much a natural sense of rhythm as investing half your early teenage girlie life practicing in your friends’ bedrooms.




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I tend to dance to the bass line not the drums. I have no idea if I am in time or not and cant say it really bothers me either way as I only get up to dance in public if I am particularly hammered or in a very confident mood.
 
This will be me!

Hehe just found this clip entitled '' - have a look from about a minute in. :cool:
 
If you can't dance, how can you make love?

:eek::D

Not just me that's thought about that then? :D

I've been told I can dance, sometimes I dance to the drum rhythm. I can do fast dancing and I can waltz. I think some people can just dance iykwim.
I don't get how it can be hard to dance tbh.
 
@ eric - does it depend on the speed of the music at all?

Speed of the music is irrelevant. If it's too fast to hit the beat then I just go with every other beat. Same as I would if playing an instrument. With dancing the problem comes when I let my mind get in the way. It puts a time lag in because the messages simply don't get to my muscles fast enough.
 
i can't dance to house music at all, i can enjoy it, but i dont' feel it

hiphop and dnb i just feel it

i dunno if i dance in time to it lol, i don't follow the bass a lot of the time i follow the snares or the melody

breakcore you know, you just go mental, there are so many bits going on that there is always something to dance to :D it's best when you are tripping with a party between one and 3 peopls :D
 
It's a good question. I can hear a beat and could probably drum it out on a table, if with a fair bit of lag. And when finding myself dancing, I hope and assume that my movements are somehow correlated to the beat in my head. But I am assured by neutral bystanders that this is not the case.
 
Speed of the music is irrelevant. If it's too fast to hit the beat then I just go with every other beat. Same as I would if playing an instrument. With dancing the problem comes when I let my mind get in the way. It puts a time lag in because the messages simply don't get to my muscles fast enough.
That's a good point. I think that's why lots of people who aren't familiar with it have trouble with salsa. Once you start thinking about what you're supposed to be doing, you are no longer able to do it. I think that's especially true when people think there is a 'right' way to dance to the particular kind of music, and are a bit scared of letting go in case they look like a twat. I don't think anyone looks like a twat when they are fully lost in their dancing, however they are moving. A bit ungainly maybe, but not like a twat.:)
 
From a playing music point of view I've got a really good sense of rhythm - when it comes to bodily coordination I'm sadly lacking (apart from when a bit of chemical assistance is brought into play - then the change is truly staggering!)
 
Sometimes dance to the offbeat as well as the main beat. and then also dance to the "off-beat-of-the-off-beat".

Dancing to the beat and nothing but the beat is not dancing.
That sums it up for me.

I've no idea if I'm a good dancer or not.
So long as I'm not flinging my arms about and hitting people or playing imaginary guitar, it's no one's business but my own.
 
I have always found people dancing totally out of rhythm very strange but perhaps they don't hear the beat :confused:

I rarely blow my own trumpet :D but I believe I have a very good sense of rhythm, in fact I was told so by a west african drummer who I had a few djembe lessons from some years ago. I think it IS something you are born with.

I used to do alot of Arabic dance and I could recognise the different rhythms and dance accordingly though I have no understanding of the technicalities in music speak.
 
on this point, I have occasionally wondered about the odd side to side swing thing that Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and a few other blind piano players do.
they're both considered musical geniuses (let's leave whether you agree to one side for now) but that dance looks kind of odd to us.
clearly they've never seen each other do it and there is no visual element to what they're doing from their point of view.
But surely they are in time with what they're playing and hitting the beat?
although it doesn't appear that way particularly.
Does that suggest that there's a very strong visual element to the idea of dancing on the beat? that it's not just the rhythm? :confused::confused:
 
I've got no sense of rhythm or physical spontaneity, not in a good way anyhow.

People like me though are good at taking lessons and hence learning steps or sequences, which is what a lot dancing used to be about.
 
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