Memory Games - The Primacy Effect

"People remember the first and the last things". This saying? refers the primacy and the recency effect. They describe memory effects that have been observed when people memorize lists of words. The effect was that people remembered the first and the last items on the list best. These effects are of interest because we can use them to have people remember stuff better and how to use this for various improvements.


First, the saying is slightly incorrect, because the explanation for the primacy effect is usually forgotten. The primacy effect refers to remembering the first items in the list, because when trying to memorize lists of words, people tend to start from the top over and over again. That means they have seen those items most often. When we try to reproduce the effect this has to be beared in mind.

We can reproduce the primacy on everything that is repeated. A few examples:

• regular classes: If you have weekly classes, if you always start the same way, people will remember this better. This is not very interesting yet. The interesting part is that if you use the warm-up to change the atmosphere, people will remember not only the beginning, but also the feeling or change of feeling when they come to your class. Now the only thing it needs to make them feel happy and energized(or whatever atmosphere you create at the beginning of your class), is to think of your class.

Same goes for workshops classes, if they are associated with a certain couple.

• movements: If you always start with putting the rhythm in your body and getting together before you start, people will when they think of a movement always remember the getting together part in the beginning. That is something I've seen people lack, and as you know - it's easier to dance together once you're sharing the same rhythm.

As for all effects I mention on my blog, I encourage you to use it and find more applications of it!

Got a good way of how to use the primacy effect in class? Share it in the comment section!

DJ Challenges - A Week Of Swing by DJ Superheidi

Last week, I published DJ challenges, so DJs get to know their music better at the same time as to have some fun. The first reaction I got was from DJ Superheidi from Rotterdam, Netherlands. She sent me A Week Of Swing. Enjoy! :)


Monday At Minton's - Chu Berry Jazz Ensemble with Hot Lips Page
Tuesday At Ten Benny Goodman - Benny Goodman
Wednesday Night Hop - Andy Kirk
Thursday Evening Swing - The Cats & The Fiddle
Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday on Saturday Night? - Harry Roy & His Orchestra
Harlem On Saturday Night - Lil Hardin Armstrong
Sunday - Bud Freeman & His Summa Cum Laude Orchestra
Every Day Is A Holiday - Lary Clinton&Bea Wain

Want to listen how days sound? Check out the playlist on 8Track.

You completed one of the challenges? Send it to me and I'll publish it!

Play (With) Music

As DJ we are supposed to play music. Serve dancers with hot dance tunes. We are supposed to handle atmosphere and the dancefloor. Part of the trade and a good DJ though is also to research. I've always liked the playful approach to learning best so what better way to learn about music than to play with music.

I like to think of these challenges as games and I want to introduce some of these games to you, and maybe you'll have fun with them. In any case, they will contribute to you learning a lot about your music, which I think is one of they keys to good dj-ing.

Basicly, chosing the next song is always about connecting to the one before. Doing it by style or speed is fairly easy. But what about connecting songs by:

• themes

  Play songs that all have the same theme like love, sex, drug, food, songs about dancing or war etc.
  Example: Big Apple Contest and Black Bottom (songs about dancing)

• titles

  Play songs that have a theme in common in the title (ignore content of lyrics) 
  Example: Big Apple and I like Pie, I like Cake (food)

• musicians that played together at some point:

  The following song has a musician that played with the musician before
  Example: Fletcher Henderson and Don Redman
 
Those are all fairly easy challenges. Some have even already been released as compilations. The ones that are more challenging and require you to research. Connect songs by

• alphabet

  Do an alphabet with titles, artists, women names, etc.

• same musician

  The following song has a musician that played in the song before.
  Example: Recording of Luis Russell's Hot Six - 29th & Dearborn - and Showboat Shuffle by King Oliver's Jazz Band (Barney Bigard)

• record label

  Only play records that were recorded on a specific label, like Decca, Vocalion, Brunswick, etc.
  Example: What Goes Up Must Come Down by Count Basie and Roy Eldridge's Wabash Stomp

• rare instruments or themes:

  Play songs that all use a rare instrument or idea, e.g. harmonica

• location:

  Play only songs by bands that played in the Savoy Ballroom, Roseland Ballroom, etc.
  Example: Luis Russel and Jimmie Lunceford  (Savoy Ballroom)

• date of recording

  Only play songs that were recorded in one specific year, or chronologically
  Example: Ella Fitzgerald - Whacky Dust and Tommy Dorsey and His Clambake 7 - You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby (1938)

• by country (except USA - too easy)

  Only play bands from a specific country, e.g. only France, Germany, Netherlands
  Example: Kristian Hauger, Rowland Greenberg, etc. (Norway)

• by city

  Only play songs by bands that resided in one city.
  Example: The State Street Ramblers - Kentucky Blues and Louis Armstrong - Weather Bird(Were both recorded in Chicago)

If you do these challenges and come up with new ones, you will gain a lot of knowledge about your music and the musicians that made it.

Challenge: Make a small set of 5 to 10 songs that are connected in some way described in the second section or come up with an own challenge. Then write down the link between each song, and send it to me. I'll publish it on this blog. Also include your DJ name and where you are located. Looking very forward to your send-ins! :)

"This Is Not Lindy Hop!" And Other Nonsense

Recently I've read a debate about what is and what isn't Balboa and what it should be etc. It reminded me of a discussion that I've often heard in Lindy Hop - about what is and what isn't Lindy Hop. As with all articles in the nonsense series I want to offer a new approach to it.

The Discussion

To quickly outline the discussion for people that haven't been involved in it I'll mark the extremes. One group of people wants to evolve the dance and they keep experimenting with its parts. The other group wants to preserve lindy hop as it was danced back in the days by keeping new influences out. According to them there are things that are lindy and things that are not.

Preserving Lindy Hop

If we back up one step, we get to the question - What is Lindy Hop? While Lindy Hop is hard to describe there is one part I think is regularly overseen. Back in the day inventing and adding new things to the dance was part of the dance. Swivels and aerials for example weren't always part of the dance. They got added throughout the years. Two things we consider completely part of it it nowadays. Imagine someone walking up to Frankie after he pulled the first aerial and told him: "This is not lindy hop, I don't want to see you do this again in a competition or call it Lindy hop". This is ridiculous!

If we want to preserve Lindy Hop - I certainly do - this part has to be beared in mind as well. Let us preserve lindy hop by evolving it!

Self-Correcting

Does this turn anything into Lindy Hop? No, it doesn't. It opens the possibility for new things to be looked at, tried out and once evaluated either be refused or integrated into the dance. It removes the fear of "not doing lindy hop", when we try out our ideas.

I believe that dances are self-correcting. Some new things will be included whilst others won't. Lindy Hop changed already quite a lot back in the days, at some point it had changed so much it got a new label and in Europe we call it Boogie Woogie. It happened again afterwards, and it became known as Rock'n Roll. I don't think we need to artificially keep things out and attack people for inventing things. Let us sometimes back off a step before telling people they aren't lindy hopping, and just see if it could match in some way, maybe it will be the new swivel or aerial of lindy hop.

Read more in the nonsense series.

Aspects of DJ-ing

Sometimes when I tell people, that don't dance any kind of swing dance, that I DJ, they assume that I mix my own music, that I scratch etc. In the Swing scene the reaction tends to be more: "It's just music put into a playlist". To me DJ-ing for dancers is neither one nor the other. Being a DJ denotes two parts: serving music to dance to and also educating dancers about music.

Serving Hot Tunes

The maybe biggest challenge for beginner and intermediate DJs is that we don't play for ourselves but for a room full of dancers. This does not mean that I play music I dislike but almost analogue to teaching - I only teach stuff I like. When DJ-ing this means something slightly different. I don't play all the music I like. I play the music that is the intersecting set of music from the tastes of the room and mine. 

Serving the room also means taking care of the ambiance. Do you want to have an easy-going or a high energy atmosphere? Do you want the floor to be crowded or not? Connecting the music in a way to shift the ambiance to where you want it can be done through tempo-managing and styles and various other ways.

And All That Jazz

The second aspect is to educate the dancers. We DJs spend countles hours on researching music, musicians, history and connections that make us the "experts". DJs should know what bands played at the Savoy and what the difference between Traditional New Orleans Jazz and Swing is.
For some people it's the music that made them start to dance Lindy Hop or Balboa or whatever Swing dance. For others the music is secondary and the interest is for example in the infectious joy. Music made the dance what it is. As the experts it is our job to play this music so people can have a chance to experience what it must have been like to dance back in the days. It is our job to play this music so people can find the spirit and joy of all those swing time era dances.

We DJs can call ourselves lucky. Swing music is considered normal in most scenes. As with any good teacher, we have to continue learning ourselves to be able to continue to teach and educate. This means continuing to research, understanding better, finding new old tunes etc.

It is for those two reasons I call myself Doctor Jazz. It's a song by Joe "King" Oliver and if you don't understand the connection, listen to the lyrics. :)

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.

A Jazz Song Alphabet by DJ Paulo

Paulo Rodrigues aka DJ Paulo from Lisbon, Portugal from That Old Swing Magic gets his grove on and made this Jazz Song Alphabet:








Always - Benny Goodman and His Orchestra
Breakin' in a New Pair of Shoes - Frankie Trumbauer and His Orchestra
Cuttin' the Campus - John Kirby and His Orchestra
Don't Be That Way - Teddy Wilson
Evenin' - Jones-Smith Incorporated
Fiddle Dee Dee - Lionel Hampton and His Sextette
Good Queen Bess - Johnny Hodges and His Orchestra
Hello Dolly - Louis Armstrong
Indiana - Oscar Peterson Trio
Jump Through the Window - Roy Eldridge and His Orchestra
Keep Smilin' - John Kirby & His Orchestra
Love Must Be Catchin' - Julie London
Mack The Knife (live in Berlin) - Ella Fitzgerald
No Soap, No Hope Blues - Anita O'Day
Out to Lunch - Coleman Hawkins Quintet
Put a Lid on It - Squirrel Nut Zippers
Queen Isabelle - Cab Calloway and His Orchestra
Royal Garden Blues - Bob Crosby and His Orchestra
Spring Cleaning - Fats Waller and His Rhythm
The Gal From Joe’s - Charlie Barnet and His Orchestra
Une Petit Laitue - Roy "King Jazz" Elridge and His Orchestra
Viper’s Dream - Quintette du Hot Club de France
Well, All Right Then - Jimmie Lunceford & His Orchestra
Xico - Luisa Sobral
You Showed Me the Way - Frankie Newton and His Uptown Serenaders
Zozoi - Claude Hopkins and His Orchestra


Want to listen to this compilation? Go here!
Want to see all alphabets? Go here!

If you are a DJ and have an alphabet, send it to me and I'll post it! Keep the alphabets coming!