Musicality is the holy grail of lindy hop. I mean, you’re not really dancing until you’re being musical. Right?
It’s also the bane of every dancer’s existence, at some point in your dance education. Have you had these thoughts?
- How do I ‘be musical’?
- What is musicality?
- Was that thing I just did musical? Or is this more musical?
- Shit, I just figured out how to put 2 moves together, and now there’s this thing called ‘dancing to the music’?!
Let me take you down a different path for a minute. That path is called, “Screw musicality!”
I’ve got something better.
Why Musicality Sucks
Musicality is a beautiful, magical thing. But like all magical things, it has a dark side. Here’s why you shouldn’t lose sleep over learning musicality:
- It’s ambiguous. What the hell does it mean, anyways? ”Expressing the music through your body”? Lindy hop, by its very design, expresses the music that we dance to. So it must be more than that. But as soon as we get particular, I start hearing arguments about what movements are and are not musical. No one agrees.
- It’s impossible to teach. It’s like trying to teach someone to ‘be artistic.’ Think your dance teachers are holding out on you? It’s because they can’t teach it. If I show you how to express music the way I hear it, you’ll just end up looking like a carbon copy of me.
- It’s hard to grasp intuitively. It sounds easy to understand, but that feeling is deceptive. If good design means a user can work the thing from the moment he picks it up, then “musicality” is poorly designed.
- The concept doesn’t go far enough. I’ve found that my own thoughts about musicality are circular and limiting. Musicality is just one part of the inner conversation you have with the music and your self.
A More Powerful Concept
This topic has been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve been bored by many performances and competitions I’ve seen in the past year. I’m also bored with my own dancing.
I need a far more powerful concept to keep my lindy hop fresh.
What is this concept? It’s creative vision.
Why ‘Creative Vision’ Kicks Musicality’s Ass
All human beings are endowed with creativity. You don’t need anyone to tell you what creative vision is. You don’t need anyone to nod their head in approval that yes, you are creative. You’ve already got the ingredients inside of you!
Every thought you have can become a part of your creative vision. Nothing needs to be thrown out for not being creative enough; it’s all fodder.
Best yet, you start being creative in dancing the moment you try. No more waiting to figure it out, hoping to get some little tidbit out of a weekend workshop.
Yes, you’ll still need to work on your dancing skills. Skills help you execute the vision you have in your head.
But you should absolutely not wait until “x” skill level to begin a practice of creativity. Like all habits, creativity requires nurturing to come into full bloom.
Are you scared of dancing creatively? Are you feeling creatively blocked?
Creative support is out there! There are oodles of books and websites at your disposal, filled with exercises to jump start your creativity. I’m currently reading a book by famous choreographer Twyla Tharp. It’s called The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life
A Quick Exercise
I'm not gonna lie. Creativity can be a tad scary.
If trying to ‘get’ musicality has your head running around in circles, forget about it for a minute. Instead, try this:
Next time you are about to dance with someone, listen to the song first. Then ask yourself, “What’s my creative vision for this dance?”
Or, put another way, “Where do I want to take this song?”
Try to open your brain to the possibility of creative vision for just 3 minutes. See what happens.
Your mind may answer in words or images. Perhaps a set of sensations or feelings will emerge. Allow yourself to think of something, anything, without judging it.
Once you have a vision of where the next 3 minutes are going, don’t resist the urge to make that vision come to life! If it feels awkward or scary, you’re going in the right direction. Says Twyla Tharp, “Who said [it's] supposed to be comfortable?”
Your creative vision doesn’t need to be earth-shattering in its uniqueness. It doesn’t have to be pretty, or receive other’s approval.
All you have to do is start trying, and keep trying. To hell with everyone else’s opinions.
What’s your view? Love it or hate it, let me know in the comments below.
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A rose by any other name…
Musicality is creative vision with the added layer of spontaneity contributed by the spontaneity of the music.
I don’t agree. Our concept of lindy hop musicality is, in reality, constrained by what the dancers before us have laid out. By what the consensus of the day is. By what the judges think.
Someone can dance with intense creativity and do plenty of things that aren’t musical.
Creative vision encompasses all the ideas you bring to dancing. The style, the rhythm, the variations, the feelings, the themes, the musicality. Or the lack of any of these things.
Perhaps that is true of your concept of musicality. You’ve defined ‘musicality’ such that you need to step back to your ‘creative vision’ in order to regain artistic control as a dancer.
What you’re really rebelling against is the idea that there is a wrong way to dance. But you’re not really escaping the idea of “wrongness” by inventing a new concept that you can then lack. New boss, same as the old boss.
People will always be judgmental about dancing (unfortunately). It doesn’t really matter whether someone’s going “You know, I think their dancing doesn’t have musicality” or “He lacks creative vision.”
Dear He Who Must Not Be Named,
Dancing should definitely be critiqued. As I said above, musicality is an ill-defined yardstick. Judgmental people will always be around, yes. You’ve mad a solid observation.
“New boss, same as the old boss.”
That’s a thought pattern I see in a lot of beginners, and it holds them back from assimilating new ideas. Eg, “New rock step, same as the old rock step!”
It’s helpful to identify new ideas as similar to old ideas. However, dismissing new ideas is convenient for the brain, and ultimately limiting.
>That’s a thought pattern I see in a lot of beginners
Yeah, ok, you’ve missed my point and condescended about it, too. You have no idea what skill level I am, k?
My point is that “creative vision” functions in a scene the same way “musicality” does. It’s a thin cover for the strong ideas that 1) we should follow our creative impulses, and 2) doing the steps is not enough; but they both end up functioning _also_ as 3) a yardstick, suffering from all the problems you outline about ‘musicality.’
You’re trying to strip function 3 from ‘musicality’ and call it ‘creative vision.’ Fine. But it won’t work, because the original intent of ‘musicality’ as a concept was only 1 and 2; 3 happens anyway. The same forces that lead to discussions of musicality are driving you towards your new term.
And the same forces that made musicality bleed into function 3 will apply to ‘creative vision.’
Try this: read your entire article, but substitute “Creative vision” for “musicality”
Well, at least I didn’t call you Anonymous Coward.
I’m just trying to encourage accountability. Thanks for reading!
Although I completely agree with one aspect: whatever we call it, everyone should do it (and feel the “right” to do it) from day one.
Teaching creativity is even more vague than teaching musicality, but I get your point. The term “musicality” gets thrown around so often that it begins to lose its meaning.
If a dancer is just getting over the hump of learning how to string together a few moves, it’s quite the jump to get him/her to discover and stretch out into new ideas and concepts i.e. to be creative.
Knowing that you want “to take a dance somewhere” doesn’t mean that you know HOW to get there. The monkey-see-monkey-do process of teaching musicality is an important first step; it reiterates the relationship of the movements we make to the music we hear. Once a dancer learns about interaction with the music in a micro (note-by-note) or macro (by phrase/musical structure) way, he/she will start to experiment with those interactions. This is where creativity comes into play.
Dancing is creative writing.
We develop the language of dance by first learning the “words”: techniques, moves and concepts. We take those “words” and turn them into sentences and eventually, we’re able conversate and tell stories. Funny, sad, happy, serious or anywhere within our range of expression.
It’s important not to “resist the urge to make that vision come to life.” Keep trying and you’ll eventually be able to speak fluently.
“Teaching creativity is even more vague than teaching musicality…”
It’s true! Twyla Tharp’s book teaches ‘the creative habit.’ A habit which allows creativity, in other words. I’m psyched about it.
“Once a dancer learns about interaction with the music in a micro or macro way, he/she will start to experiment with those interactions.”
I’ve seen children do incredibly creative things with music before they learned about notes or phrases. :-)
Love this post….and wasn’t sure I would as I love the concept of “musicality”! But I realized as I was reading your thoughts that I could be “musical” and still be stagnant in my dancing – and all of a sudden I wasn’t okay with just being musical or having musicality and I wanted to be creative!
And I think back now at every clip (or live dance) I have watched and why it has actually inspired me and you are right it has come down to how creative the dancer was with how they moved to the music. And the wow moments for me have been when they did something I didn’t expect – because it challenged my creativity (or lack of).
So thanks for sharing and for having a “creative” vision for discussing dancing and specifically lindy in a new way!!
Rockin’!
I totally had the same realizations when I thought back to all my favorite clips and routines. I love modern dance, in fact, because it constantly surprises me. I like having my assumptions about dance challenge
To me, musicality is quite a simple concept. It’s just a word that refers to pulling elements out of the music. It’s all already there in the music, and as dancers we accent what’s there and tell the world “Hey! Look at this! This is so awesome!” I think you’ve hit it right on the head Rebecca. Creative Vision is how we choose to use everything we do to make something new, unique, and amazing, which includes utilizing musicality as well as technique, footwork, style, and (perhaps most importantly) personality. Your own creative vision comes from within and is a pathway to express yourself and your ideas. Great article Rebecca.
One thing I latched onto in this article is the role of teachers in teaching musicality and creativity. Michael has some very strong points.
Creativity is about solving problems within certain limitations. Sometimes that problem is How Can I Express Myself While Lindy Hopping? Teachers should show students how the move is not a move – but a vehicle for technique. Show students how the rules they learn are much looser than they are at first glance. And these things shouldn’t just be taught in ‘musicality’ classes, but through a dancer’s whole journey.
“musicality” is just another buzzword. like “connection”. it’s defined differently by different people. it’s valued differently by different people. Then it’s argued about, which is often a waste of time because of those varying definitions and values when people THINK they’re talking about the same thing.
the way I see it, a lot of it comes down to dancing vs practicing. play vs study. (perhaps an over-simplification, but you get the idea)
when I see people dancing the same way to every song, I don’t think I’m seeing dancing (or my definition of “musicality”). What I’m seeing is most often something closer to practice. Unfortunately (perhaps just for me), that’s what I see from most people on most floors most nights.
Even if you get 10 songs in a row that are the same tempo, it’s not the same song 10 times. it’s 10 DIFFERENT SONGS! The feel of the music changes with each song, and even within a single song, but more often then not, the dancing changes very little.
As for “Creativity”, that might just be another buzz word. Something to be defined differently and valued differently by everyone who uses the word. “Simplicity” might be another one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItMVNYsnNoE&feature=related
watch Falty and Casey starting at about 2:52. Four swingouts, then nothing but jig walks, then they end with some spazzy convulsions. To me, this is awesome. Is it Creative or Simple? Can it be both? is it Musical?
my point is that anybody who understands lindy hop will appreciate this dancing, even though it might not fit their definition of the favorite buzz word of the day.
another good one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkcaNtu1Wxo
the first chorus is just awesome. swingouts for a full phrase, then side-by-side charleston for a full phrase. repeat.
Musical? Creative? Simple?
bottom line. ‘taint whacha do…
dance or practice? play or study? The moves make little difference. it’s the underlying motivation/inspiration that inspires them that I’m concerned with.
I use the word “musicality” and I promote it heavily. but it’s just another buzz word. define it however you like. I’d just really like to see people dancing for fun more rather than always trying to “get better” or whatever…
(LAST last word…)
the music is really fun. if people got out of their heads a little more and payed attention to it instead of trying to get “that move” perfect, the dance floor would be a very different place. Call it musicality. Call it creativity. Call it broccoli. buzzwords are only good as far as you can throw them, and they shift constantly.
Practice has it’s place, but when you’re DANCING, enjoy your partner and the music above all else and magic happens.
Thanks again for your comments! You always have lots of good things to say.
Connection isn’t as subjective as you suggest. It’s variable, but because it’s mechanical, it’s also measurable and easy to communicate if you develop a wide vocabulary and understand the biomechanics of the muscles and skeleton. That doesn’t mean doing a degree in bioscience, just think about how your body works during a dance and how you might get someone else to do similar or counterpart things.
Apart from that, I agree with everything you write. I’m rebelling against the dance camp culture just now because I’m learning more from “feeling” my own dance and creativity than I cam be taught (for now).
Ya I don’t really agree. To me the most inspirational stuff I have seen has be from people being really musical. I remember being really new to dancing and going to my first event and watching Nick Williams social dance and remember really loving it because he was really musical. I think creativity is good too but without paying attention to the song to me it often looks out of place and random. I don’t really know if I’m the worlds best dancer or anything, but when I try and be creative I listen to the song for inspiration.
I’m trying to set aside my obsession with musicality in favor of ‘creative vision’. I view musicality as only one part of creativity. I’ve seen many great, creative dancers who challenge my ideas of what being musical is.
This is good.
Trying to be musical is ineffective. Trying to be creative is a natural pathway towards musicality.
The great moments of musicality I see in both my own and others’ dancing are typically spontaneous, and come naturally from a combination of a dancer’s skill and creativity.
You can’t engineer something as intangible as musicality.
Lately I’ve been defining Musicality as “hitting little teeny beats or emphasized things” or the minute particles of the dance. Largely I leave that up to unthought reactions on my part.
Phrasing though, I think about that a lot, which, to me, is “changing the type of dancing I’m doing for a large section of music.” E.g. I’ll think of one section as swingout heavy, another as a 20s charleston section, still another as solo jazz footwork, and so on. This is way easier to teach to people and is what makes a 3-minute dance seem musical.
“It’s ambiguous. What the hell does it mean, anyways? ”Expressing the music through your body”? Lindy hop, by its very design, expresses the music that we dance to. So it must be more than that. But as soon as we get particular, I start hearing arguments about what movements are and are not musical. No one agrees.”
I think you are over simplifying. just because there is disagreement on what movements are and are not musical doesn’t mean there isn’t any agreement. Everyone values being able to dance with good timing for example.
“It’s impossible to teach. It’s like trying to teach someone to ‘be artistic.’ Think your dance teachers are holding out on you? It’s because they can’t teach it. If I show you how to express music the way I hear it, you’ll just end up looking like a carbon copy of me.”
untrue. you can teach people how to use tools without teaching them what to create with them. it may be difficult to teach well, but even teaching people how to pulse on beat correctly is teaching people to be musical.
“It’s hard to grasp intuitively. It sounds easy to understand, but that feeling is deceptive. If good design means a user can work the thing from the moment he picks it up, then “musicality” is poorly designed.”
i disagree. One of the fundamentals of musicality is rhythm. Most people I have found to have a natural sense of what is rhythm. that is not to say that there aren’t people who have difficulty grasping it, or who will never get it. There are. But I disagree that it is hard to grasp intuitively. You even seem to disagree with yourself from your #1, “Lindy hop, by its very design, expresses the music that we dance to.”
I think it is obvious to understand what has happened when a dancer stops to a break in the music. that is musicality, and is easily understood by most people.
That isn’t to say that the concept can’t become more difficult to understand when you go further down the musicality rabbit hole, but I don’t agree that it is all hard to grasp intuitively.
“The concept doesn’t go far enough.”
Just because your thoughts on it don’t go far enough, doesn’t show any fault with the concept.
love,
falty
I agree with Falty.
To me, musicality is simply being aware of the music and aware that each song, and therefore each dance, is unique.
It can absolutely get more complicated than that, but I don’t believe that there is a right or a wrong way to use it. Also, I think dancers can choose to NOT be musical or to work against the music and still consider the dance a success, as long as they are aware of those choices.
The best musicality classes I’ve taken just played music and broke down its structure. There was never any mention of what kinds of movements to do to certain types of music. They just gave us the means to understand the music we dance to and through that understanding we get to interact more fully with the music.
I do agree, however, that creative expression (or Creative Vision as Rebecca calls it) is incredibly important. However, I think it is a concept that intersects with musicality but is separate and cannot replace it.
For example: Let’s say I feel passionate about Flamenco and I want to creatively infuse a Lindy Hop dance with Flamenco movement. If I rely on my Lindy Hop musicality then that dance could actually work out because I will temper my use of Flamenco and still engage with music being played. However, if I decide that my creativity is more important than musicality then I could easily get carried away with the Flamenco and might as well be dancing without music because there will be little or no connection to music.
Musicality isn’t necessarily the most important part of our dance, but I do think it’s important and that it shouldn’t be discarded.
Yes, there is some agreement on what musicality is. In the comments here and on Facebook, though, I’ve seen widely varying answers to that question.
That drives beginners nuts. They can be taught to clearly identify a swing out (with a small amount of gray area). But there is a HUGE gulf of gray in between “is musical” and “is not musical.”
“you can teach people how to use tools without teaching them what to create with them.”
The best definition I’ve seen on musicality is by Brett and Kelly: “sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music.” And Christina said: “The best ‘musicality’ classes that I’ve had have all really just been music classes.”
If teachers used that definition, I’d be overjoyed. But that’s not how most of them teach it.
The idea of musicality is dissected into notions of hitting breaks, dancing on a particular place in the beat, “being” the horn solo, and mimicking the way the teacher moves. Each of these by themselves is learning a useful skill.
Beginners are often led to believe that’s the end of it!
Creativity is not a skill. It’s a way of using skills in an inspiring way. We all have the ability to be creative.
When I began thinking about musicality as a component of creative dancing (and vision as a way of honing creativity), it was hugely inspiring.
1) So we agree that musicality is not just an ambiguous term, good because your #1 seems to state the opposite.
There is some consensus on things considered to be “musical”. I do not, however, think that there is no disagreement. But I feel like, with many things, when you start discussing it at a higher level, things can become quite a bit more esoteric. “Creative Vision” does nothing to solve this, and seems to me to be something that when discussed at a higher level could also be quite ambiguous.
Why would anyone expect a beginner to understand all things musical? Beginners can easily understand why dancing on beat is musical, why pulsing to the beat is musical, etc. When they are a beginner, there is no need to look so far past these things. Also, because they are easier or more intuitive does not disqualify those concepts from being under the musicality umbrella.
Also, what beginners are being driven nuts by trying to understand musicality? Beginners that I know are driven nuts about things like why there are 6 and 8 count patterns. Do you mean beginners, or more intermediate dancers?
“Beginners are often led to believe that’s the end of it!”
what horrible teachers are doing this? has a teacher really said to a student “well, that’s all there is to musicality” after describing your ides above. I think this is a strawman. I dont think any teacher says “thats all folks”. Im happy to be convinced otherwise, truthfully, i don’t take many classes.
“Creativity is not a skill. It’s a way of using skills in an inspiring way. We all have the ability to be creative.”
Creativity is indeed a skill! Its not a skill that can be very easily objectively measured in terms of quality and quantity, but being creative is something that can be honed, improved upon, and can lead to creating being an easier or more difficult task. That is not to say there is one ideal way that every one should think about creativity, but say it is not a skill is wrong. The more time you spend creating, the easier it gets.
I agree that everyone can be creative, but I wont agree that everyone will be good at being creative.
Not to be that guy who quotes from the dictionary, but if you look up “ability”, in the definition i bet you will find the word “skill”. Or you can just go here http://thesaurus.com/browse/ability and see that “skill” is a result.
I feel like this whole thread has little to do with dancing and more to do with semantics and trying to create a new imperfectly defined word to replace a word that is imperfectly defined.
-falty
“Also, what beginners are being driven nuts by trying to understand musicality?”
I think we’re all beginners in a sense, and I don’t meant that to cover my ass. You’ll notice the readers of this blog represent a huge range of levels. (I think it’s useful to apply the beginners mind whenever possible.)
So the “beginner” that’s driven nuts by this is anyone who asks the question in workshops about how to ‘be musical’.
“What horrible teachers are doing this?”
My very first lindy teacher, for one. I remember being very consumed with hitting breaks, and doing the right thing with my leg to hit the clarinet, or whatever. It’s what my dance scene did to ‘be musical.’
Now that dancers have gotten SO much better, I’ve seen tons of great dancing where I had to stop and ask myself, “Is that even musical?” I see it as being highly creative. Taking liberties with expectations, with what lindy hop is supposed to be.
5 years ago or so, I saw my first video of Skye Humphries dancing, and I thought, “What the hell is that?” I was mad! I was like, “He’s no good, he’s missing the breaks!” And, “Why did he jump there, that had nothing to do with the music!”
And I grew up playing classical music and jazz. I was just easily convinced that lindy hop musicality looked like a particular thing, namely, whatever most people are doing.
Anyhow, I love those, “What the hell is that?” moments. It’s good to get your ideas shaken up a bit, no?
I feel like there is a lot of more agreement here (among these comments at least) than it may appear. I think the main argument is over what to call these things that we do and teach.
If the word “musicality” has a stigma in a particular scene then, sure, calling it something else could “trick” the beginner/intermediate dancers into being musical without it also causing larger issues or confusion.
For instance, I hate to use the word “pull” when I teach because I too often see leads ripping out their follows arms because they are trying to “pull” them in. So I find a variety of replacement phrases that emphasis the spirit of what I’m teaching.
I guess what I’m saying is (directed at no one in particular): do what you have to do to connect with your students but make sure they are getting the tools that they need to progress and contribute to this dance.
“Do what you have to do to connect with your students but make sure they are getting the tools that they need to progress and contribute to this dance.”
BINGO! I wish I could give out prizes for the best comments.
The confusion with musicality is when people mix musicality with creativity. Pure musicality is not that hard to teach, as Faltesek said musicality is being with the rhythm, and there are several “tools” to being with the rhythm (starting on certain beats, emphasizing certain beats or phrases, bouncing to the rhythm). Now what you do with the these tools, how you use them together and with the music, this is where creativity comes into play. A lot of people lump the creativity part and the musicality part together and call is musicality, but if you are dancing with the music, you are already being musical (even if all you are doing is a swing-out followed by yet another swing-out). If you start piecing a series of moves together for a phrase of music, vary it up a little each the next two times, and then do something with that series that really digs-in and ties-in with phrase 4, or what comes after it, then you are being creative with your musicality. If however, you do this same series of movements with each and every song, then your creativity is gone — you’re just doing choreography — but you are still being musical.
I find this blog confusing and whats more I don’t understand what you mean by “creative vision.” Could you elaberate more on creative vision so that I could understand?
From my Mac’s dictionary:
Creativity: “Use of the imagination or original ideas.”
Vision: “The ability to think about or plan for the future with imagination.”
Creative vision, my definition: Novel ideas that go somewhere.
I posted a big ol’ response to peter on falty’s facebook post, but I have a comment that addresses this post more specifcally.
The real secret in my mind to dancing with the music (musicality?) is the same thing that makes music good. Tension and release. The simplest form of this is to do something cool and complicated, and then do something simple and easy. Its best to try to have your complexity wax and wane with the musicans (start and stop your movement ideas with the musical phrase). I think you can absolutely teach this. Everyone can hear simple chord progressions. If you don’t believe me there is a TED talk by Bobby McFerrin that shows it very clearly. The most important part of this is to know where you are going and end the idea clearly.
Whoops … this accidentally got pasted to Marshall’s comment . . . now I’m posting it in the right place *doh* . . .
————————————————————–
This is an interesting little provocation. On one hand, I do feel that “musicality” is taught well by a few, poorly by many, and indeed for some it becomes self-indulgently esoteric; but At heart I think that my experience of both teaching and learning “musicality” comes from a place of 1.) listening to A LOT of jazz and blues 2.) using tools that emerge directly from the structure and patterns of that music like repetition, call and response, common phrase patterns (ex. AAAB), accompaniment, riffing, adding or dropping rhythmic or melodic elements, crescendo and decrescendo etc. Things like these are all eminently teachable and learn-able in very concrete terms, and practicing them explicitly means that you begin to cultivate ways of being able to use and adapt them spontaneously, creatively.
If the term “musicality” has a negative gestalt for some, I can only imagine this to be a property of the jargon-y or specialized air it seems to have attained in contemporary lindy hop. Really the popular definition is pretty simple and very forgiving: “sensitivity to, knowledge of, or talent for music” (wiki). Looking at it in this way, “musicality” becomes an expression of listening to and understanding jazz (the music), and I find that an entirely more useful definition.
Fixed it. :-D
Given the stated target audience of this blog, I read the over-arching theme to be “Don’t worry about being ‘musical’ by anyone’s definition, just create the dance you want to have.” Eh, maybe I over simplified it :)
kellyporterblogpostfail
lmao
To bad I didn’t get my camera out in time to record last night’s mikefaltesekguitardoorfail :)
Even more powerful: Rhythm. I faithfully believe great Swing Dancing begins with Rhythmical Body Movement. I see lots of musicality*, and tons of creativity, but without rhythm it just doesn’t swing.
I’ll second that observation for sure, Dax. Bad rhythm of various sorts is what ruins the lion’s share of otherwise good ideas, IMO.
“It’s ambiguous.” Good. Things are not ambiguous cease to be interesting very quickly. A great work of literature is one which people can for generations discuss and never conclude upon. A book which only has one interpretation, and which is as clear as day, is not a great work of literature.
“It’s impossible to teach.” No it isn’t. I have been to some very good musicality lessons, and I like to think that I’ve given some too. It is _difficult_ to teach, but most important things are difficult.
“It’s hard to grasp intuitively”. This is why people value it. People are impressed when they see someone juggle six balls because they know that it is difficult. People are impressed when they see someone honour every beat of the music for the same reason. We admire people who display quality. Dance, like all activities, can be used as a fitness indicator, to advertise ourselves as good or bad specimens of humanity. We don’t like it when sportsmen take drugs, because this lowers the reliability of sport as a fitness indicator. When you see someone being musical, you know that it is an accurate display of quality. If someone is displaying an innate quality they possess rather than something they may have learned, this is a particularly good fitness indicator, which is why such things are so admired.
“The concept doesn’t go far enough. I’ve found that my own thoughts about musicality are circular and limiting.” I’m not sure I understand what you mean by this. Do you mean that you personally have been unable to take it far enough to satisfy yourself? What evidence do you have that musicality in Lindy hop has a low ceiling? Do you apply this limit to all music as well?
Now I shall state my personal bias: for me, dancing is first and foremost the interpretation of music, and when I’m watching a competition, I give zero marks for a spectacularly difficult move executed perfectly, if it was unrelated to the music. My bias may stem from the fact that I cannot do spectacularly difficult moves perfectly, but I can fit a dance to music pretty well.
Musicality is not hard to do, but it can be hard to teach. Partly this is because a significant portion of musicality comes down to innate ability or background experiences (like playing an instrument growing up) that can’t be made up in an hour if someone lacks them. I find it quite easy to be musical in my dancing – i pick out rhythms to play with, I use my feet like I’m an extra drummer with the band, I try to tweak my swingout so I can match the strong hits of the drummer, I make my dancing bigger or smaller or smoother or bouncier to interpret the music. I come from a musical background and naturally feel the music and can predict where it’s going even when it’s the first time I’ve heard a song.
BUT I had a dancer ask me once ‘how do you know when the 1 is in the music?’. I don’t know how to teach that to someone. I tried, but all I can think of is that that can’t be EXPLAINED, but (I hope) it can be learned. Maybe they could take a tap class or a hand drumming class to try and internalize the beat and learn 8-count phrasing.
In terms of creativity and movement, I do think one aspect of that is really important – you have to give yourself permission to play and you have to experiment and take risks in order to find those places where you can highlight those drum hits or figure out how to impact your partner with your musical ideas without screwing you both up. This means plenty of screwed up moves and broken connections along the way, but you don’t get better at dancing musically if you just to perfect swingouts.
Re:”how do you know when the 1 is in the music?”
You have to have some concept of what “1″ *means* before you can find it. The best “musicality” classes that I’ve had have all really just been music classes.
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