Music In Class Vol. II

Music is essential to dancing. Music inspires the dancers; Swing is the music that made and makes the dance what it is. Music is the key to our dance and, as such, should receive attention in class. We already know that music in class should swing. But what other factors related to music in class should we watch out for?

Tempo

I've seen many moments where Lindy Hop was taught to 28 bpm. This is quite slow. Also when teaching beginners it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to help them by playing very slow music so they can practice "stress-free".
One defining part of lindy hop is momentum exchanged on a line. If music turns too slow, momentum dies. So we have to have a certain amount of tempo - even for beginners - else we have no way to dance lindy hop. I've set my personal lower limit to 34 bpm which I feel is more or less the slowest where you can have easily momentum. That is generally speaking of course. In a slow lindy class, I will break that limit.

Walking bass

This aspect was touched in Volume I, but should be reiterated here. Hearing the rhythm can be troublesome for people that are not used to it. That is why I sometimes revert to music with a strong walking bass. One moment is when I teach beginners. Another moment is when I teach workshops in scenes where the music played tends to be non-swing. In both cases the walking bass helps the students to hear the rhythm without losing the swing.

Pre- and "Post"paration

Prepare your music in advance! It costs time to search for music in class and that is time that your class will lack in dancing. Try to plan at least basics; When do you want to play music in class? What you want to practice during that time? It will give you clear indicators of what kind of music you will need.
Also "post"-pare your music. I keep a list of music I've compiled for teaching that I continually update. Removing songs that didn't work as expected and adding new ones. It includes music in range from 30-56 bpm and has different styles - mainly traditional swing and New Orleans Jazz.

Having your music prepared and matching your music to your exercises and students will enrich your class and guarantee you and your students a better experience.

Jumpin The Numbers

Swing DJ-ing is choosing music. Choosing music based on dancers, atmosphere, style, maybe place and several more aspects. Atmosphere is a two-way street. On the one hand, you DJ based on the atmosphere, and on the other hand you influence the atmosphere by the music you play. While there are multiple factors that influence the ambiance, the focus of this article is on the speed of the music played.

Speed Up!

What I often do to increase the speed of the music is something I learned from DJ Jenn: pick the next song 4 Bars Per Minute (BPM) faster and the one after 2 BPM slower. Then repeat. Example: 36, 40, 38, 42, 40 ...

This way you will continuously get faster (and increase the energy of the dance floor) but letting them get accustomed to the faster speed, by always having a little slow down.

I've added a few things to smooth out various little hiccups. Usually I encourage everyone to DJ the whole range from very slow to very fast. Sometimes this is not practicable, like when DJ-ing a floor of beginners who can't dance fast, or a late night floor where people want swing but are not ready anymore for fast tracks. The problem is that you'll get too fast out of a range that is comfortable to dance, if you stick to 4-2. If the music is too slow, the dancers will likely have no energy or go home. If the music is too fast it might be frustrating. So to stay in a good range, for example 34-42 BPM, you can change 4-2 to 3-2. This way, you'll go up slower and stay longer in the same range.

Another hiccup often occurs in the higher tempos, when the energy of the crowd is not high enough anymore to maintain fast tempos for a long time. It's the opposite problem from late nights. Opposite in the way that if you follow 4-2, you will stay too long in the fast range. The 50-60 BPM range will exhaust the floor easily. There are two way of solving this issue. One is to increase the intervals : go 6-3 or even 8-4. The other way is to go without going down anymore. Go up up up. 52-56-60.

And Slow Down

To go slower one can simply inverse 4-2 and go down by 4 BPM and then up by 2. I hardly ever do this. I prefer to drop the speed at once. The amount of the drop will vary depending on the energy available. I'll give you a couple examples:

60BPM to 30BPM

This might fit well onto a big dance floor with many people who you just exhausted on very fast music. They'll long for some slow tracks and a few beginners who got left out towards then end will happily join in again after getting inspired.

55 BPM to 40 BPM

This would be typical for a dance floor full of dancers with lots of energy. Dropping the tempo to low might kill the atmosphere here.

52 BPM to 29 BPM

This could be from a set where the scene is not accustomed to dance to beats over 42 BPM. So 52 was definitely on the very high end and dropping the speed to 29 will not kill their energy.

Remember to drop to odd and even numbered BPMs. Otherwise you will miss half of your music.

Occasionally I like to top things off before dropping the tempo. This is done by choosing a song that starts slow and turns fast. A classic is "After You've Gone". After this, people will be ready to dance to some slow songs that swing hard.

Bars vs. Beats

When it comes to organizing swing music, one fairly common criteria is the so called BPM. I also use it to a certain degree when actually DJ-ing. BPM is a measurement for the speed of a song and stands for either beats per minute or bars per minute. The difference is simply in the number range. Beats are four times the bars, because there are four beats to a bar in swing music.

While Beats are more exact (when using whole numbers) I don't see much use for that extra precision. I've seen both in use. I personally use bars, mainly because it's less work to get and because I don't need it any more exact.

Getting the BPM

To get BPM, you'll have to either tap them out, count them out, or find a (to me) still unknown program that can handle swing music and determines it for you.

To tap out the music, you'll have to get a software or use online software and depending on wether you want to determine beats, you have to tap once every beat, or every fourth beat to get bars.(Some programs might actually do the beats to bars conversion itself. There are of course more software options to explore if you are interested.

I usually count out music, by counting bars for 15 seconds and then multiply the number by four. While there are more ways, this is the one I prefer.

Fun Fact: Just from talking to fellow DJs, it seems like there are national tendencies. ;) If you are a DJ, state your country in the comments and if you are using beats or bars!