How to tell which ballroom dance goes with which song?

Question

When a song comes on, how can you tell which dance it is meant for? I know to use counts or the 'quick, slow' rhythms, but by just doing that I can make almost any dance fit into most songs. Is there a better way to tell? Thanks!

Answer 1

You ask someone

Answer 2

In competition or practice, you dance to music especially chosen for "strict tempo" that matches the figures best: 29 bars per minute for foxtrot, for instance; but the dances each originated to be danced with a particular music style, not the other way around. If you learn something about music, it'll be easier to figure out.

I assume you know the difference between waltz (3/4) time and cut (2/4) and standard (4/4) time, thought the difference between the last two isn't very important. That at least will put slow waltz and Viennese waltz in their place, simply based on time/tempo.

Foxtrot, quickstep, and the swing/jive variants all come from the music of the US "jazz age." Though ballroom foxtrot requires a fairly small tempo range, social foxtrot doesn't. Depending on the tempo, it's proper to pick the most comfortable of the group. It's quite possible for swing dancers to take the middle of the floor while others are dancing foxtrot or quickstep around the periphery, and this reflects history, when swing had a tinge of lower-class/kids image and foxtrot the country club image, with the same music.

Samba steps come from samba rhythms, and typically has strong percussion to emphasise the point.

If you're dancing American style, mambo generally has syncopated rumba rhythms. That's confusing, since rumba music is fast, and rumba dancing is slow, an unfortunate slip in nomenclature. But a Tito Puente CD should be all you need to learn to recognize the rhythm.

Rumba itself is typically danced to bolero music, and in the American style, whether you're doing a box rumba or bolero is according to tempo (and whether you know bolero: a lot of people don't). It's common, and perfectly OK, to see people dancing International rumba, American box rumba, and bolero all at the same time if the tempo's in a certain range. Confusingly, a lot of bossa nova music is also danced as rumba, with the proper tempo, but it always grates on my nerves. Bossa nova as a dance form, though, is a dead duck. Last weekend, I got some stares for my "really slow samba," but that's what bossa is.

Cha cha doesn't work well at tempos either too slow or too fast, but can be used on a surprising number of popular pieces.

I don't think you'll confuse paso doble. The challenge for lovers of the dance is to find some music that can be forced in that direction, but it's strained.

One of the challenges these days, of course, is that there are a limited number of ballroom dances, and music is always evolving. For a lot of it, you'll just have to pick the one that feels best, and that's sometimes a challenge. There's no rule I can give you, but experience will make it a lot easier.

The music store section at http://www.ballroomdancers.com/Music/ has "strict tempo" music selections with short clips you can listen to, and listening will give you a good idea of how to match the music to the dance.

Answer 3

If the dancers look like they're having a fit, the music is too fast / doesn't match the beat of the dance.

If the dancers fall asleep / start groping each other, the music is too slow.