3 musicality lessons from Pierre Henry
In a recent podcast episode I spoke with Pierre Henry. Pierre is a musician and social dancer that has been teaching musicality for over 15 years.
He teaches it in a very unique and understandable way and makes you realise that musicality is not some mysterious thing that some people just “get” more than others.
Listen to the episode on:
Why you should listen to this episode
A good musicality teacher is hard to come by. And taking a musicality class at your dance school or at a festival will not magically give you musicality. The truth is most teachers struggle with explaining musicality in a tangible way.
Those that do well are usually musicians themselves and figured out how to combine the two worlds. Pierre is one of these people.
Three actionable takeaways to improve your musicality
1) Learning musicality is a journey you have to go on yourself, outside of the dance studio
No one will be able to teach you musicality in a dance class. You get it by understanding the basic musical principles and then spending time actively listening to music by yourself.
And you do that outside of dance studio. Think of it that way: Learning how to dance is forming a relationship with your body. Learning musicality is forming a relationship to the music. You need to separate those two things. Otherwise they are competing.
Listen to music alone with headphones on. Pay close attention to the sections and instruments and how they transition. Learn to hear those things. And then focus on expressing them through your body
2) The most obvious way to translate musical knowledge into dancing is by focussing on the rhythm section
The rhythm section is what holds a song together. In partner dancing this corresponds to your feet / footwork.
If you have trouble applying musical knowledge into dancing then focus on this first.
Listen to the rhythm of the song and then bring that into your footwork. Very clear parts are Solos and Intros/Outros. This is usually where the rhythm deviates from its usual patterns. You can do the same with your feet. Either slow down your basic step (usually intro/outro) or increase the intensity of it (solos)
3) Think of musicality as something that has to be explored together
When two people dance together for the first time they will have a different understanding of musicality.
As dancers we want to explore the music together.
You can do this by first establishing a connection to your dance partner and then focussing on the music. As opposed to both bringing your own musicality and hoping it fits together.
Think of it like a band that is jamming together: In the beginning no one knows what song they will create. First someone lays down a beat and then the other instruments jump in on top. Bit by bit it will eventually start to sound good.
You can build your dances in the same way: Start by getting the footwork going (rhythm), then add turn patterns (chord progression) and then add melody (styling / upper body movements).
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