Latest / Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast / Why Counting your Music is Essential in Dance

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Why Counting your Music is Essential in Dance · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

0:07
SPEAKER_04: Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the table at a dance competition?
0:10
SPEAKER_04: Exactly what are the judges looking for anyway?
0:13
SPEAKER_04: This is Making the Impact, a dance competition podcast.
0:15
SPEAKER_04: Each week we'll cover a different topic related to the world of competitive dance from the perspective of the judges behind the table.
0:24
SPEAKER_04: 5, 6, 7, 8.
0:27
SPEAKER_04: It's a phrase that all dancers know and hopefully love.
0:29
SPEAKER_04: But does counting end there?
0:31
SPEAKER_04: Is counting really necessary to dancers?
0:34
SPEAKER_04: Spoiler alert, the answer is yes.
0:36
SPEAKER_04: Here to discuss the importance of music theory and counting, our Broadway musician and college professor, Damian Batsman, and top educator and judge Calen Gray.
0:49
SPEAKER_02: Hi Dance World, it's Courtney.
0:51
SPEAKER_02: Welcome to this week's episode of Making the Impact a Dance Competition Podcast.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: I'm here, like always, with my wonderful co-host, Leslie Mueller.
0:59
SPEAKER_04: Courtney, it is March.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: Wow, it's March.
1:02
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
1:03
SPEAKER_04: March?
1:03
SPEAKER_04: And you know what that means.
1:05
SPEAKER_04: That means that hopefully across the entire country, we are all in competition season.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: Yes! I know that we are because it is in full swing, y'all.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: I've seen the posts online, I've seen the fabulous costumes, I've seen some amazing dances hit the stage already this season.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: And I hope that everyone is having a wonderful start or mid, it could be mid-season for some.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: At at competitions this year.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: So shout out to all of the dancers competing around the country and the world.
1:34
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and thanks to all the dance parents making it happen.
1:37
SPEAKER_04: I hope y'all are having a great season too.
1:39
SPEAKER_04: Don't forget your coffee.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna need it.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: Those days are long.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: Leslie, this episode, oh my gosh, I am so pumped about it because if you've heard me talk about it on the podcast, y'all know I love counting.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Counting and understanding your music is crucial to being a dancer, don't you think?
1:59
SPEAKER_04: And sh you know, she Courtney just doesn't talk about this on the podcast.
2:02
SPEAKER_04: She just talks about it.
2:04
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
2:04
SPEAKER_04: That's part of our conversation just all the time.
2:06
SPEAKER_04: All the time.
2:07
SPEAKER_04: It's very important, not only to Courtney, but to the dance world in general, is understanding your accounts.
2:13
SPEAKER_04: So we have two really, really special guests today.
2:17
SPEAKER_04: Somebody who comes to us from a more academic-focused music theory world, and someone who comes from down in the nitty-gritty of the dance competition choreography world.
2:26
SPEAKER_04: So we're really, really excited to hear their perspectives and to hopefully convince you that yes, you need to count your music.
2:33
SPEAKER_02: I think that will probably be the final takeaway from this episode, hopefully, for everyone, is what my prediction is.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: But uh, we'll let you all decide after listening.
2:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, super excited.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: All right, listeners.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: It's time to jump into this week's episode.
2:48
SPEAKER_02: And like I said, this episode I am so excited for.
2:53
SPEAKER_02: Because if you know me, you know I love to count my music and jazz class.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: And I will always give you a count, I will always give you a rhythm, I will give you all the tools to succeed.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: But this was a highly requested episode um on just time how to approach timing, how to approach musicality.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: And I have been saying on multiple episodes, I was like, Leslie, we gotta do a counting episode.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: Like, we have to, because I just don't think a lot of dancers even understand what counting is these days, and that's all that I know.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: So I can't wait to talk about it today.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: And we have the best guests on this episode.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: Can't wait to introduce them.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: The our first guest is a returning guest to our podcast.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: You may remember her from season three, episode 74, Music 2.0, Music at Competition, which is always one of our hottest episodes each season.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, she is a tap dance educator and also a fantastic jazz dance educator and teacher as well.
3:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to welcome back Kaylin Gray to the podcast.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Kaelin.
3:54
SPEAKER_05: Hi, thanks for having me back, guys.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I need a tap dance perspective on this chat.
4:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:01
SPEAKER_02: But also the fact that you are such a fantastic teacher in other styles that I want to hear that approach from how that you know, your training and tap influences your counting and timing in other genres as well.
4:15
SPEAKER_05: So totally does, yes.
4:17
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: Sweet.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: Well, if you wouldn't mind refreshing the memory of all of our listeners and share a little bit more about you, where you're based, what you're working on, and any credits you'd like to share.
4:28
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
4:29
SPEAKER_05: So, like you stated, I've been teaching tap, jazz, all the things uh at my homeschool since 99.
4:36
SPEAKER_05: So I think this would be like my 23rd, 23rd year of teaching.
4:40
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
4:41
SPEAKER_05: Many of you probably just know me through Bring Tap to the People, which is an online tap curriculum program, one of the first.
4:48
SPEAKER_05: I started that in 2014, and I think the last time I looked, I've reached almost like a half a million downloads.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
4:55
SPEAKER_05: Which is like totally crazy.
4:56
SPEAKER_05: And all these like different countries.
4:58
SPEAKER_05: I very rarely look at my stats because the other day I was like, I'm gonna check out it was like Canada, Australia, you know, Japan, all these things.
5:06
SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is actually really reaching a crap load of people.
5:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:11
SPEAKER_05: I teach I taught at various conventions, dance masters, dance educators, Lamoxie.
5:17
SPEAKER_05: I travel just kind of all over the United States, wherever people will have me.
5:22
SPEAKER_05: I very rarely say no.
5:23
SPEAKER_05: I say yes to pretty much everything because I love what I do so much.
5:26
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, that's what I'm doing.
5:28
SPEAKER_05: I'm in the grind right now with my own students, competition.
5:31
SPEAKER_05: And so right now I'm in that space of like choreography.
5:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
5:36
SPEAKER_05: So yeah.
5:38
SPEAKER_04: It's a little bit about a new puppy.
5:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
5:40
SPEAKER_04: I guess he's kind of sick right now.
5:42
SPEAKER_05: We're trying to figure it out.
5:44
SPEAKER_04: Bubba.
5:46
SPEAKER_05: I might bring him in here in a second if he starts crying.
5:48
SPEAKER_04: But oh yeah, bring the puppins.
5:49
SPEAKER_04: We have we have all the pets.
5:51
SPEAKER_04: We have pets on the podcast, all the pets here.
5:54
unknown: Yeah.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: Sweet.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: Well, Caitlin, I'm thrilled to be.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
5:59
SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
6:01
SPEAKER_02: All right, and our next very special guest is a college professor who actually taught me at Marymount, Manhattan.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: If you've listened to the pod, you know that I didn't last too long in college.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: I took one semester in school.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: But I remember this teacher because he taught a music theory style class.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: And it was the first time that I really got to learn the ins and outs of music and approach it from a different way as a dancer.
6:30
SPEAKER_02: And it was really eye-opening to me, and I loved it.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: He's also a Broadway drummer.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: He's drummed for so many different artists.
6:37
SPEAKER_02: He goes on tour with Christian Chenelworth.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: He's just the real deal, y'all.
6:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm excited to welcome Damien Bassman to the podcast.
6:44
SPEAKER_02: Welcome, Damien.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Courtney.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm super psyched that you asked me to do this.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: I remember you, and I love uh, you know, one of the good things of Facebook is I get to see all the awesome stuff you're up to.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: And I'm I always feel, you know, a tiny sense of of pride of that having had you in one of my early classes uh when I was first teaching this course that I'm still teaching, actually.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 2007 was when I was there, and I've uh it has been really cool to be able to stay connected through Facebook and then I've actually had you in the room for an audition before, or I've bumped into you at Steps on Broadway when you've been drumming for a class.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: Like it's just so cool to still see you so immersed in the dance world in New York City as a drummer because that's what you do.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: You're a percussionist.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I uh I'm a drummer, composer, teacher, musician person.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: But I when I moved to New York, I I started playing for dance right away uh through connection.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: John Mackey, who's a composer, did a lot of dance music for Robert Battle early on, had written some stuff, and I performed with Parsons, and then that connected me to Ailey, and so a lot of my first connections to New York were choreographers and teachers, uh Milton Myers, Donald Byrd, Sean Curran, those kind of cats.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: And then when I started working in Broadway, it was through through dance, actually, is what brought me in there.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Because my my first show was because uh Donald Byrd had been hired to replace the original choreographer on the original color purple.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: He was like, I need I need this drummer in the room with me to create the stuff.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: And then because I was with him creating the movement, I ended up getting to have the chair for the show as well, which was really hip.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: So that was my my first show was because of my dance connection, actually, which is pretty cool.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I do that and uh I still play for shows.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: I just did my most recent one was Almost Famous, which was unfortunately short-lived due to COVID still being affecting Broadway attendance.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I've done like 12 or 13 shows at this point, which I've been lucky enough to do.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: And you mentioned, yeah, I um I've been Kristen Chenowitz drummer for about 13 years.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: I tour with her.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually flying out tomorrow for a gate with her in California, and I play, like fly I tour with a lot of people.
8:55
SPEAKER_00: I was in Florida with Jared Spector last week, and I'll be with Jessica Voss in Arizona next week, and so a lot of that kind of stuff.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: And then I still teach my course at Merriman Manhattan, and uh I've taught it at NYU, I've taught it at uh uh international orchestral festivals, I've taught it at songwriting festivals, so I I can I tailor it to the group that I'm working with, but I think the constant has been dancers for since I think I started teaching it in 2006, I think was the first time I started teaching it.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: It's evolved a lot.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: I want to just like mention to all of our listeners out there too, is that I'm sure that a lot of people in dance studios don't ever have live musicians in the dance space with you.
9:39
SPEAKER_05: Such a treat.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: It is.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: It is game, it is so eye-opening and such a completely different atmosphere in the dance room.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: Like when you have a live drummer in your modern class, it makes you excited to do modern dance, y'all.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: Like you you can't wait to roll on the floor, you can't wait to do those contractions because it's it's fueling you and guiding you.
9:59
SPEAKER_02: And then the the teacher can actually create movement based on what the drummer wants to create.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: All right, give me, give me a beat, give me a rhythm.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: They create a rhythm and then they uh that influences it, or the drummer can watch what is being created and then create a rhythm based on that.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's not like, oh, I have to scan through my Spotify to find a song that fits this, you know?
10:20
SPEAKER_05: It's truly one of the most organic experiences you could have as a dancer artist.
10:25
SPEAKER_05: I mean, honestly, like having out a live band, and it doesn't have to be like obviously someone at Damien's level to come in to teach at your class or to play for you.
10:34
SPEAKER_05: I mean, there's so many kids out there that are that are drumming right now that could come in, pay them 20 bucks, stay for your tap class, and you'd be shocked at what it brings to your classroom.
10:45
SPEAKER_04: Well, and like what a great collaboration, too, between like a school or the band at school and to give those drummers and those musicians a chance to hone their skills in that way.
10:55
SPEAKER_04: Because, you know, unless you're in the jazz band, I I assume, you know, if you're a drummer in high school, you're drumming what you've been given.
11:01
SPEAKER_04: You know what I mean?
11:02
SPEAKER_04: You're in the marching band and you bang your drum on the downbeat whenever you've you're told to.
11:06
SPEAKER_04: And that's but it's not very collaborative in terms of improv and you know what you get to do in a dance class, especially if you are putting dancers, choreographers, and musicians in the same room.
11:16
SPEAKER_04: Like, ugh, magic.
11:17
SPEAKER_04: It's magical.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have to say that when I started when I started playing for dance, it was it was a really big thrill.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: My my sister, she's three years younger.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she's a dancer, so I grew up with her dancing.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, we like when, you know, we'd make the Father's Day tape with like the camcorder and she's she's tap tap dancing on the kitchen floor and I'm playing drums and we're trading fours kind of things.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: So I've always I've always done it.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: But I remember I saw White Oaks Dance Project, my senior year of high school.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Karishhnikov did a solo dance piece to a Bach cello suite that Yo Yo Ma was playing live and it was just two of them on stage and outside of DC.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: And it was so incr it was so gorgeous to watch the collaboration.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I was a musician already at that point that was thinking about doing it for real and uh just watching the connection and knowing what it was like with me and my sister, it was it was really exciting.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: And then it was many more years till I got to uh to do it again.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: But when I played, you know, the f my first dance class, which I just bluffed my weight, I was like, Yeah, totally I play dance classes, but it's like you know, you say yes to every gig and then you figure out how to do it afterwards.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: And it was just such a natural thing for me, and it was such a such an adrenaline rush and so creatively fertile to you know to watch and then be inspired, and then you notice who's listening to you, and then you start playing for those particular dancers, and then they catch that you're responding to them, and it just becomes a whole thing throughout the class of this collaboration.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: And I mean that that's the ideal.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: And the ideal is that you get a whole class full of people doing that.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's just one, but you're then you the musician is playing for that one dancer, the whole class, and it's it's super thrilling.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: That's what I always tell my students is like you want to be the dancer that the musician recognizes is listening to the music.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what you want to be in class, that's what you want to be at an audition.
13:03
SPEAKER_00: Because I play lots of Broadway auditions, and you just see people working so hard to to reproduce the steps, but not connecting at all to the music that's happening.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: And you always notice who's connecting, and then you give that person a little bit more, and that makes them pop even more.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: So it's good practice, even just selfishly, to be listening and reacting to the music.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:24
SPEAKER_05: It's a little serendipitous for you to say that because my older brother um was a drummer.
13:29
SPEAKER_05: So I grew up as the little sister dancing.
13:33
SPEAKER_05: I mean, all day long he would have his drum pad.
13:35
SPEAKER_05: Um, he did kind of like DCI type drum core, things like that.
13:39
SPEAKER_05: But my very first gig right out of high school was a show called Crash Boom Bang.
13:44
SPEAKER_05: And it was like a stomp style show where my brother and I both booked the gig.
13:49
SPEAKER_05: I was a tap dancer, he was a drummer.
13:50
SPEAKER_05: Oh, so cool.
13:51
SPEAKER_05: And that and that was like my first, like a professional experience as a as a, you know, I was a kid at the time.
13:58
SPEAKER_05: I was 17, going on 18.
14:00
SPEAKER_05: But um, and then I went on to with the experience from that show to create the very first kind of instrumental percussion type style show at Kings Island.
14:11
SPEAKER_05: And I got to I got to write all the the music.
14:13
SPEAKER_05: I didn't like like you say yes, then you figure it out.
14:16
SPEAKER_05: But I was in the studio, I was in the studio working with the music guy, and I'm like, this is kind of what I want to do, like this is kind of the choreography I want to lay out.
14:25
SPEAKER_05: And we created the entire track for the show, and it ran for like three or four years.
14:30
SPEAKER_05: I think that it was yeah, it was cool.
14:32
SPEAKER_05: And I don't think many people know that, but I kind of forget it.
14:35
SPEAKER_05: It's been so long.
14:36
SPEAKER_04: No, I mean, because that was like such an early experience, and like King's Island is so like regional, you know.
14:40
SPEAKER_04: If you're from Nevada, you don't you don't know what King's Island is, but you know, that's so Kings Island is a theme park for anybody.
14:47
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like King's like King's Dominion, yeah, you know.
14:52
SPEAKER_02: Got it.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
14:54
SPEAKER_05: That's so cool.
14:55
SPEAKER_05: That's a cool.
14:56
SPEAKER_05: I'm like, I totally get, I totally get what you're saying.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:00
SPEAKER_02: And I'm really I I knew that uh Damien, because you do work so heavily with dancers, I knew you could really contribute to this discussion because I'm interested to hear some like your approach on how to get, you know, you're working with, at least in my scenario, and I'm sure you still work with freshmen.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: And we're about to dive into this, but and Leslie will about to kick things off.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: But like once we dive in, yeah, you work with freshmen who are coming from all different training at different studios around the country to then put them into this curriculum of a college program.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: And some might have better, a better understanding of music than others.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: And I want to hear, like, like as we get into it, how you adapt to that as an educator and instructor.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I can't wait.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: I know, I'm sure you do.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: I can't wait to do it.
15:42
SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
15:42
SPEAKER_04: I can't wait to hear it.
15:43
SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be, I know.
15:44
SPEAKER_04: Well, so I guess first of all, we need to understand and we we want our listeners to understand, especially if they're not musical people themselves, you know, some of our listeners are parents who may not have any experience in the dance world or the music world.
15:57
SPEAKER_04: What what is music theory?
15:58
SPEAKER_04: Like we we keep throwing around this like very academic term of music theory.
16:02
SPEAKER_04: And, you know, what what is that?
16:03
SPEAKER_04: What does that mean in the in just the grand scheme of things and what does that mean in the in the world of dance?
16:08
SPEAKER_04: Do you want me to go?
16:09
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Damien, go for it.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a scary sounding word.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: It was scary to me when I was a freshman at conservatory, but it really is just talking about the elements of music.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: You could just call it elements of music, and that would make it sound less, less scary.
16:23
SPEAKER_04: It's just talking about That sounds like science to me though.
16:25
SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's just elements.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: It's just talking about the pieces that make up a piece of music.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: So There we go.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: I like that better.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: You're talking about like you're talking about rhythm, you're talking about tempo, you're talking about perhaps pitches if there are pitched instruments, you're talking about tone, color, timbre, you're talking about texture, which is like orchestration, what instruments are playing.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, it more granular, you're talking about uh key signatures, time signatures, chord progressions.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And all the more information it's just like it's just like with dance.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: You can watch a dance knowing nothing, but then you learn the word plie and you notice when people are playing and you connect to that.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: And then you learn the word jete and you watch and you connect to that.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And it's the same thing with music.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: It's just the more you learn, the more you can clearly articulate what you are appreciating or not appreciating about a piece of music.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So, like when my six-year-old is like, listen to this great piece, it's so the song, it's so terrible.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, let me explain to you why it's terrible.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: So be like, it's so she just discovered kids bop, and I'm like, this is why, this is why this is awful.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Let me break it down.
17:31
SPEAKER_04: Let me help you.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: It was so great.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Before she was in first grade, she liked, you know, Bobby Darren and Joni Mitchell, but now she's into kids bop.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: So it'll it'll come around.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, but it's just the more you the more you know, the more you can articulate.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I that I do early on in the semester, and I don't think I did it yet with you, Courtney, when you were there, because I discovered this because I also co-taught comp for about 10 years.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And comp as in composition.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: As in dance, like choreography class.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: So we would I would teach that with the choreography teacher.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: It would be a musician and a choreographer teaching that together.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: And I would do this exercise where I'd have them, I would say, tell me, you know, describe food for me.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: And they would, you know, I'd write up 50 words, and I would say, Describe textiles and and clothes, and they would and I'd say, describe like the weather or climates or your geographical locations.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And I would say, All these words you can use to describe music.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: So you felt totally comfortable talking about food and clothes and weather, you should feel equally comfortable talking about music.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to know the terms and the names.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: You can say, I want a piece of music that sounds like a purple leopard at night in the forest.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: And that is information that a musician can then use, and you can go back and forth, and then you can get but then the more granular and the more specific you can be.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: You can if you can say, I'd love it to be like a string quartet with a tuba, and I want it to be all in seven-eight with a section that goes aleatoric, then that's even more information, right?
18:57
SPEAKER_00: But you can start with something very simple, which is like, can this be mysterious in yellow?
19:02
SPEAKER_01: You know?
19:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I just I give them permission early on to just to talk about music in whatever way is organic so they don't feel self-conscious.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: And then the more information that we give them through the semester, they begin to talk about it in a way, because my goal is that by the end of the semester, they feel like they can speak to a musician or a composer about music.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: That's my that's like my goal over the course of the semester.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: So and so I start out with like you can say it any way you want.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: And by the end of the semester, they have the tools to say it, sounding like they understand the vocabulary, basically.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: It's just learning vocabulary, just like when you learn dance French for ballet or layout for jazz or whatever you need to learn, or shuffle flap, you know, shigade booms for jazz.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: I think what gets intimidating I was also Mike Minery's music director for a while, so I learned all this.
19:52
SPEAKER_05: I think what most people find intimidating is when you break it down to that granular level level when you're talking about measures and bars and seven, eight, or I mean, I even see a lot of teachers get confused in basically like three, four, like walt like a waltz time, and then you throw in like syncopation and they're it's like right, right.
20:12
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
20:13
SPEAKER_05: But if we all had a teacher like Damien, obviously it would be presented to us in a in a in a way that we can understand because it really is.
20:22
SPEAKER_05: Once you start recognizing it and seeing it, you're like, okay, now I understand.
20:27
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's just a matter of the willingness to understand it.
20:31
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: I thought the curiosity is a good idea.
20:33
SPEAKER_05: And I still have a and I and I still have a lot to learn.
20:35
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I've been doing academia.
20:37
SPEAKER_05: I know as a tap dancer, I've I still have a lot to learn when it comes to music theory or the elements of music.
20:44
SPEAKER_05: But you just have to stay hungry and and pick up.
20:46
SPEAKER_05: I mean, this that's why this podcast is gonna be amazing, this episode.
20:50
SPEAKER_05: So hopefully it's not as intimidating to dancers and teachers, you know.
20:55
SPEAKER_05: Right.
20:55
SPEAKER_04: Well, so Caitlin, on your end, so you know, not everybody has access to a Damien, not everybody has access to really a lot of music class in schools anymore.
21:04
SPEAKER_04: Like unless you're at a conservatory, I mean, your music class may happen once a week if you're lucky at a public school.
21:09
SPEAKER_04: So in the dance world, you know, when you're going about teaching uh counting and music theory-esque type of things to your classes, where do you start?
21:18
SPEAKER_04: How do you start teaching, you know, counting?
21:20
SPEAKER_05: So bitter, bitter, bitter basics with uh like the younger kids learning whole notes, half notes.
21:28
SPEAKER_05: I set them in a circle, we make a pizza pie.
21:30
SPEAKER_05: The whole, the whole pie is your one, two, then I'm take out my, and you know you have to be so dramatic, but take, you know, the pizza cutter, slice it in half.
21:39
SPEAKER_05: And now I've got one, you know, your half half notes, and then you have some kids clapping the whole notes, some kids clapping the half notes, some kids, you know, and then you create okay, half notes, you pull out quarter notes, keep going.
21:51
SPEAKER_05: And then once they understand that with their hands and their head nod, I'm really big on head nod that the whole body.
22:00
SPEAKER_05: Is doing the rhythm so the whole body feels it.
22:03
SPEAKER_05: Then we stand up and introduce cap steps.
22:06
SPEAKER_05: So maybe it's a stamp, a stamp, a step heel, step heel, a parididdle, paradiddle, which by the way is a drumming, drumming term, right?
22:17
SPEAKER_05: I mean everybody has paddle and roll, paradiddle, interchangeable, but for the most part, paradiddle is is a drum term.
22:24
SPEAKER_05: And that's that's kind of where I start.
22:26
SPEAKER_05: And then I as I get older with my older ones, we've I've got my whiteboard that I got off Amazon and I, you know, try to draw out a little bit more, you know, visually for them.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: That's helpful.
22:36
SPEAKER_05: There's a lot to do.
22:38
SPEAKER_05: There's a lot to do in 45 minutes.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Right.
22:41
unknown: Yeah.
22:41
SPEAKER_05: Teach it is.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: But at least you're starting the music theory and the understanding of those basics at the very ground of like the start of their training.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: I think that's what's getting gets lost a little bit.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: And like, let's be real, we all know in in dance studios, dancers are most likely doing a combo class to kick things off.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: That's a ballet, jazz, or tap combo class of some sort.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: And that should be what is happening.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: Like, yes, we want to get to the shuffles.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: Yes, we want to get to the flaps.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: But we should make sure they know how to do them on the beat before we even stand up.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: Like, let's keep working on the clapping patterns and let's keep working on the stomping patterns in their little tap shoes if that's what we want.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: But like, I think that foundational aspect is super important.
23:25
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
23:26
SPEAKER_05: I think if you are a teacher who is like, okay, this is all brand spinking new to me, and you're like, I feel like a dud, I should know this.
23:32
SPEAKER_05: That's okay.
23:33
SPEAKER_05: That it's totally okay, it's fine.
23:36
SPEAKER_05: But the one thing you could change today and tonight's class is start counting in bars and not in tap class.
23:44
SPEAKER_04: I wanted to get to this.
23:46
SPEAKER_04: Do it.
23:47
SPEAKER_04: Tell me more.
23:47
SPEAKER_05: That is, I mean, everybody can count to five.
23:50
SPEAKER_05: We know we can count to eight, but we as tap dancers need to start considering ourselves the percussionist, the musician.
23:56
SPEAKER_05: And they do not count in eights unless it fits on the screen.
24:01
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, Damien, and tell us.
24:02
SPEAKER_04: I was gonna So tell us why, because I've always been curious why like dancers are eights.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, you're counting because you're counting bars.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the eighth, the eight is is two bars, unless you're counting your eights are the eighth notes, and then you're counting a bar, or maybe your eights that you're counting are sixteenths, or maybe the eighths you're counting are halves, and knowing that is so crucial.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And what you're listening to is the phrasing of either the rhythm or very often the melody.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Because, and this is what I talk, I mean, there's 85 things that I want to comment on, but everything was so wonderful.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Everything was so wonderful, and the way you're starting starting them out, that's basically the first class that I with my college freshmen, except we do it on their feet, and and I teach them you know, I always tell you tell them by the end of this first class, you're gonna be able to read music.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And by the end of the first class, they can read whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what I do is I have them walk to pulses and clap on the one and you know, talk about a clap that lasts for all four counts, and then we and then after we do that, then we because I feel like when I'm teaching, and this is just through so many years of of experience, that there's like, you know, there's three types of learners.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: There's visual learners, there's audio learn oral learners, and there's kinetic learners.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: And like I'm a musician, so you'd think that I'm an oral learner, but I'm actually a visual learner.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: If I see somebody do something once, I can play it back to them.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And my comfort area is sound and music, you know.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: And dancers, whatever type of learner you are, you understand the kinetic, inherent kinetic quality of music.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: So I do everything three ways.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: I we move it, we uh clap it and speak it, and then we look at it in notation.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: So you're getting it three ways so that from the first day of class you're connecting the kinetic to the visual, to the oral.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: So that when a new piece of music comes on and you start to feel it a certain way, you automatically start counting it away, and then you can think visually about what that notation is.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: So you put that all together, you know.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I start from from day one.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: And that's it's so important because there's this separation, you know, and and this is what drove me absolutely bananas, is like I would be playing for you know, for modern class, and for the entire warm-up, people would be like totally divorced from the music.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: And then we get to across the floor and I'd get to kind of play a longer groove.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking mostly of playing like back in the day when Milton Myers had like 70 people every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at steps for his open class.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Like then people would be standing on the side, grooving and feeling it.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, why weren't they doing that for the first two-thirds of class?
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And then I would watch, and then I would get to play like because I used to play for uh Jackie Villamille's ballet class down at the old dance space.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And ballet, I was like, how is not a single person in this room listening to the music at all in ballet class?
26:51
SPEAKER_00: And then, and this is no shade, this is no shade to you, Caitlin, but I would find, because this is the next level, that tap dancers, though they can count it, they are like nowhere near the pocket.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: And the tap dancers to me are the worst offensers for rushing rhythms.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, because there's like I know what this rhythm is, so they like jump it.
27:12
SPEAKER_04: So I know it.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah so my so my my class really deals with both understanding notation, hearing notation, feeling the kinetic quality of timbre, orchestration, color, and texture, and then we we work ad nauseum on the idea of pocket and place placement.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I love that.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's so great.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: But by the and the thing that I say to them is I was like, you know, think about like when you watch a when you w when you watch a dance, like and something's supposed to be in unison.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: It's almost never in unison.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Maybe the roquettes are like 92% in unison, but it's never in unison.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And what that sounds like, like if I was trying to play this, it sounds like like to my ear, I hear it, it just sounds like mess, right?
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Popcorn, that's what we call French snare drum music, popcorn music.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: And so that was no shade on French people.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: There's like this anyway, it's a comp it's a it's like a such an inside baseball snare drum repertoire.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: Snare drum race, yeah, snare drum repertoire inside baseball reference.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: If you get a whole freshman class full of dancers that are going to be together for four years thinking about placement and rhythm in the same way, all of a sudden they can dance in unison.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And it's about it's about getting your company, getting your studio, getting your your cast to think about music in the same way, to think about counting in the same way.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, you don't have to do all of this cleanup work because you're already starting from the same place.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: It's about it's about thinking, how are you thinking about music?
28:46
SPEAKER_00: And if you're just counting eights, or if you're just counting even fours or whatever the time signature is, that's still not enough, but it is a good start.
28:55
SPEAKER_00: But then commenting on the counting fours versus eights, the thing that blew my mind was Okay, I was playing a piece, I was playing live with a dance company, well-known dance company, and we were playing this fantastic piece by this Japanese composer that was for Marimba and percussionists, and it was amazing.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: And this piece was in literally every measure was a different time signature.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: It would be like 76, 716, 1316, 118, 58, 44, 3, 4, 11, 8, 13, 16, 44, 3, 4, 2, 4, 3, 1, like just all this stuff.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: And it was it was awesome.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: I want to know what all that means.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: And just different time signatures, yeah, in in a row.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: Like if I found like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 3, 4, 6, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 2, 4, 12, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and then 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, and 2, 3, 8.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: So like, but there's an underlying connection of 100.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you feel it.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: There's an underlying connection of 16th notes.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: And if you know the 16th notes are what stays constant, you can think of everything in reference to the 16th notes.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: But but the phrasing of the music was definitely not in eights.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: And at one point, we stopped, and the rehearsal director was like, let's take it from the fourth eight.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And we were like, fourth eight?
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, where is the eighth?
30:12
SPEAKER_00: We can't.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: And we had to like look at the sixteenth notes and then be like, okay, they're counting every eight sixteenth notes as one.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: And then it just made no sense with what was happening in the music.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: The disconnect was so stark between the phrasing of the dancers and the phrasing of the music.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, it just didn't make any sense to me.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, so that was like one big thing that happened.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: And then the next thing was that I was I was accompanying for Milton uh up at Jacob's Pillow for the modern program, and we would spend every night after the classes talking about like music and musicality and the disconnect and what dancers needed and what they thought about and didn't think about.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, it's just that they're not thinking about, they're just not given the opportunity or the information to be like, this is how musicians think about music.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Like in my class, you know, that the my students, I you know, we do a lot of exercises, they have to count in, and I'm just I never let them count in eights.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: I said, in this room, we're gonna count like musicians.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: If it makes more sense in your context, you do what you need to, but this isn't this is a good habit to be in, and it's just another skill set.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Like I never say that my way is the best way, but you want as many skill sets as you can, probably.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Right?
31:24
SPEAKER_00: As many tools, as many tools as you can, right?
31:26
SPEAKER_00: And so, like the reason you don't count in eights is because sometimes the music is frayed is phrased over eight counts in three, three, two, or sometimes over an eight, which might be four bars, you know, within that, it's not, it's not eights, you know, and so if you always and the thing is that in Western pop music, especially the last 15, 20, even 30 years, everything is in fours and eights.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: And so it if all you listen to is your the Spotify playlist that's auto-generated for you, and it's then that's all that's all your body can experience.
32:01
SPEAKER_00: But if you just go over to Eastern Europe going is very natural because folk music from that part of the world is in fives, sevens, elevens, nines, and it's broken up.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: It's just in our country that that music is all in fours and eights.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: And and it's it's funny because even just like a little south of the border, you know, most Latin music is also in fours and eights, but there's so much syncopation that it feels like it's not.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: And so people know how to move to that in a different way.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: But if you only listen to the same music that that you that the algorithm gives you, then you just don't have anything else that you can connect to.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: Never learn.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: You're not used to it.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: So a big part of it, of of I think dance education needs to be listening, being exposed to, and trying to dance to different kinds of music.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And that also comes on to teachers who have to be willing to try something new.
32:52
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
32:52
SPEAKER_02: And they probably don't try something new because they don't know how to count the song.
32:56
SPEAKER_02: So they're just like, nope, not even gonna try.
32:58
SPEAKER_04: You know, put on some Megan Trainer again.
33:01
SPEAKER_05: Oh god.
33:02
SPEAKER_05: You know what?
33:03
SPEAKER_05: A good song to like maybe start with and just like test yourself teachers is um outcast uh hey yeah.
33:11
SPEAKER_05: Listen to that and go, hmm, what's what is what feels like where the where that one falls?
33:18
SPEAKER_05: And it's it's different.
33:19
SPEAKER_05: It kind of displaced in a sense when you when you sing it, you're like, oh yeah, this is kind of an interesting arrangement.
33:26
SPEAKER_05: Um I'm a huge fan of like Latin jazz.
33:30
SPEAKER_05: Spotify, yes.
33:31
SPEAKER_05: Um get that algorithm going and get your Latin jazz, your funk, your blues.
33:36
SPEAKER_04: Right.
33:37
SPEAKER_04: Anything pre-1970.
33:39
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
33:39
SPEAKER_04: I'm a huge fan of Dave Matthew.
33:41
SPEAKER_05: Dave Matthews is just tricky rhythms.
33:44
SPEAKER_05: So cerebral, just tricky, you know.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Or even better, don't use Spotify at all and get some pieces of music and get some CDs and listen to other kinds of music.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Yes, CDs Spotify is not going to give it to you.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that I mean, I mean, I could take my thing out, but I've got like 3,000 records and 2,000 CDs in the next room.
34:05
SPEAKER_04: Right.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: The thing is that the music I play in class, my students will be like, oh, what is that?
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Can I get that?
34:10
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be like, probably not, because it's not on any of the streaming services because it's not it's not a mainstream music from a main label that wants to to get no royalties and make no money again.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, you can even just go like super mainstream and get, you know, Dave Brubeck Time Out, which will give you songs in all sorts of different meters.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Also, uh, a song that I use in the second half of the semester, once we get to counting mixed meter, is Here Comes the Sun.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: Oh, which is the bridge of that song is in 118, 78, 44, 3, 4.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: It changes this, it cycles through all these different time signatures.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's just a song that you everyone knows, everyone sings along, and then all of a sudden you see it and you're like, oh, oh my gosh, this is changing time signatures all over the place.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: Within you, without you changes from 5-4 to 4-4.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of red hot chili peppers that's in 7-8, 4-4, 5-la, a lot of radio head is in five, a lot of good, a lot of good radio songs to listen to in five.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: And then it's then it's something that you still are getting a strong beat that you can count to.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Right.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:14
SPEAKER_05: I think um when you were talking earlier, Damien, about like the rushing and just not the pocket.
35:21
SPEAKER_05: Again, that's another word that people are like, Yeah, we know what you mean by pocket.
35:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
35:25
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
35:25
SPEAKER_02: Stay in the pocket.
35:27
SPEAKER_05: I think one of the again, just a generalized thing I've noticed is that a lot of kids they just don't see the space between the notes as substance.
35:40
SPEAKER_05: I don't know.
35:40
SPEAKER_05: Like, I I think visually, and again, I I'll use my whiteboard, but it's like between that one and that two is like magic.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: There's things.
35:50
SPEAKER_05: Like there is something there's movement that you have to dance through.
35:54
SPEAKER_05: Yes, there's it could be something as simple as a breath, but you gotta fill that node in between.
36:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:02
SPEAKER_05: Because what we're labeling in my head, what we're labeling the one, the two, are like that's it.
36:07
SPEAKER_05: Like it's like so thin, those counts are so thin.
36:10
SPEAKER_05: But what's between them is really what one E and a two beat is to right.
36:15
SPEAKER_05: Well, that's the thing.
36:16
SPEAKER_05: And even if you're not doing anything.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: If you talk, what I what I do is is I do the example of subdivision, and I usually do it sitting behind my drum so they can feel it.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: But if that's your pulse, right?
36:26
SPEAKER_00: If you just try to hit one, two, it's challenging if you're not used to it.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: But then if you go one and two, and even easier, you go one and uh two and uh one e and uh two e so one and uh and and uh two and uh and then uh one e and uh and a two e and uh and uh one and and and and a two and and and and and and and and so much in there, guys.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: You can subdivide as far as your tongue will take you and then you suddenly feel how much space you have, as as Caitlin was saying, between between each note.
37:01
SPEAKER_00: And I think I I also use the um example of you know being on your leg, like you know, uh this is like a little bit 15 years ago, but like downtown release technique was like all the rage.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: And the people that were great at it, they were great at it because first they learned ballet and and Horton and they knew where their center was, so they were releasing from something to come back to something.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: And then people were like, oh, I like release technique, and then they just took release technique and they weren't releasing from anything and they couldn't come back to their center.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: You can't go off your leg and come back to it if you can't don't know where your leg was.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: And so it's the same thing with like pulse, like like to be in the center of the pulse, you have to also know what it's like to be on the front of the pulse and to sit in the back of the pocket of the pulse.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: And you need to know what it's like to be to be in a tight pocket or a fat pocket.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: And until you play with those uh ideas with like it's really intentionality, then you can't you can't have clarity.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Right.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: So but one and that's what that's what I I work on a lot as well, is like, you know, I have them clap on the backbeat, and then I have them clap a little behind, and then I say, How far behind how far behind can you clap but not be on the six notes?
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Right?
38:11
SPEAKER_00: And then how far in front can you clap but still be on time on your foot?
38:15
SPEAKER_00: So you're clapping but you're not stepping early.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: And then I have them clap in the middle of the pocket again, and all of a sudden the whole class sounds like a unison, perfect.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's that's the beginning place, right?
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Is so you have to be able to manipulate that.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: You want to be able to go on front so that you can then sit.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: You want to go way back like Donnie Hathaway, so that when one comes, it's like this like explosive release, right?
38:38
SPEAKER_00: So in order to do that, you have to play with that.
38:40
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think any I don't think that this discussion this type of discussion on like being in the pocket or the front or the back of it has ever the is talked about enough in class in all genres of dance class.
38:52
SPEAKER_02: Like, because that is the thing that that I see the most as a judge is is timing usually.
38:58
SPEAKER_02: And and it comes again, it's I'm not just blaming the dancer because it it really stems from the teacher.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: Like, are you actually educating them on how to count and and find that that downbeat and find that rhythm and find that syncopation?
39:12
SPEAKER_02: Because there there have been times where I can see like the choreographer's vision, but then the execution's just not coming from the dancer.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: So then it's like, okay, we have to go back to the training and make sure that they're understanding that.
39:24
SPEAKER_02: But then I've also seen the flip side of like, and specifically in tap, when teachers have used songs that are so far beyond these dancers' ability if it's not in like square four-four, and they're doing like even something as like a three-four, but they don't know how to count it properly.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: And I can tell, even based on the choreography, that that we're counting this wrong.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: We're not fine, we don't know where the one is, we don't know where the downbeat is.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: And then we're doing a disservice to our dancers because you don't even know.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: As the choreographer and educator, you aren't even aware.
39:55
SPEAKER_02: So, like, there have been so many times I'm like, this is just not the song for them.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: They are not ready for this because you don't even know.
40:01
SPEAKER_02: I can tell that you don't know how to count this, and you need to know.
40:09
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40:19
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40:24
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40:38
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40:46
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40:55
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41:01
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41:10
SPEAKER_02: We can't wait to see your dance.
41:20
SPEAKER_05: I had a very recent experience with that, almost exact same scenario.
41:24
SPEAKER_05: And again, I'm not gonna name names, but it was a piece I was observing and it was um more of an obsolete type of music that was definitely not very structured.
41:36
SPEAKER_05: And the person in charge of it was just watching it going, they're just like they're just a mess, they're just not together, spotting differently.
41:44
SPEAKER_05: So then the music goes off.
41:45
SPEAKER_05: And then I said, Do they have like I I said, Do they know like the counts?
41:49
SPEAKER_05: And she's like, Oh, well, I don't I don't count.
41:51
SPEAKER_05: Yes, yes, here we go.
41:52
SPEAKER_05: I don't count.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: And I was like this, please.
41:58
SPEAKER_05: Which again, it didn't have to be anything overly complicated because I feel like the piece of music is like it's it would would have been pretty easy to count.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
42:07
SPEAKER_05: But they weren't rehearsing it with at all with that kind of happening, you know, in their heads.
42:14
SPEAKER_05: So it's different, it's literally different every time you do it.
42:17
SPEAKER_05: Every time it's different.
42:18
SPEAKER_05: And I know this because my eyes, yeah, because I memorize, I'm like Damien, I'm like, I can see a a half of a count of a sliver of a count different.
42:27
SPEAKER_05: Well, they didn't do that last time.
42:28
SPEAKER_05: Right.
42:29
SPEAKER_05: They were on the uh last time, now you're on the and right.
42:32
SPEAKER_05: And there's a difference there is a different me like I'm crazy and I'm like, no, there's a difference.
42:36
SPEAKER_02: There is a difference between the one and the and one.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: Two different things, y'all.
42:41
SPEAKER_00: But people don't understand.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: But there's also a difference of feeling feeling and one, and one and feeling one and like feeling into it or feeling fronting.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: It's up or it's kind of it's like a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's a really big thing.
42:55
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's it feels so difficult to like talk about the kinesthetic awareness of feeling that because I can imagine there are a lot of people who probably do not feel that.
43:09
SPEAKER_04: I physically can feel what you just said, but like visually, like I'm not a visual learner.
43:14
SPEAKER_04: So like if you visualize that for me, I'd be like, nope, nothing, have nothing.
43:17
SPEAKER_04: I can't, nothing.
43:18
SPEAKER_04: You need to feel it.
43:19
SPEAKER_04: It's a flag you need to move.
43:20
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think right.
43:21
SPEAKER_04: And so I think with with teaching, like you both said, like, I do it three ways.
43:25
SPEAKER_04: You teach it three ways.
43:26
SPEAKER_04: And we talk about that all the time.
43:28
SPEAKER_04: With like we we all know at this point, there's no excuse to not know that people learn differently.
43:33
SPEAKER_04: And so if you as a teacher, you're like, all I do is count.
43:36
SPEAKER_04: Well, that's great.
43:37
SPEAKER_04: But like, do you also do this?
43:38
SPEAKER_04: Do you also do that for those kids who can't just hear counts?
43:42
SPEAKER_02: Or the teacher that's that says Well, I don't count my music.
43:45
SPEAKER_02: Or actually, and I ask this question every single time I teach, because and again, like I I said it at the beginning.
43:51
SPEAKER_02: Like, if you've ever taken my class, you know that I count my music.
43:54
SPEAKER_02: I will give you counts.
43:55
SPEAKER_02: There's always a count, y'all.
43:56
SPEAKER_02: There is even if we're counting and I count to eights.
43:58
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, but that's like.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: There's a count.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: Five and six and seven and eight, whatever it is, there's always a count.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: But I always pull the class every time I teach because I do mainly guest teaching.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: And I say, All right, who likes to count their music?
44:12
SPEAKER_02: I'd say like a 10% raise their hand.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Then I go, okay.
44:18
SPEAKER_02: Who likes to listen to the lyrics?
44:19
SPEAKER_02: Pretty much everyone's hand goes up.
44:21
SPEAKER_02: Everyone wants to dance to the lyrics.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, okay.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, who likes a combination of both?
44:26
SPEAKER_02: Who likes to listen to the lyrics?
44:27
SPEAKER_02: Who likes to also count?
44:28
SPEAKER_02: And a few hands come up.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, that's actually the answer I'm looking for is I want you to listen to the entire song.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: And the reason for that is that I listen to the entire song when I choreograph.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: So if you as a dancer aren't able to know when we're square in the beat, and we're we're going to we're basing it off of the actual guided tempo of the one, two, three, four.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: But then I want to have a little musicality that connects to the lyric.
44:55
SPEAKER_02: That's not in, it might not be square.
44:58
SPEAKER_02: So we can't just rely, but there are counts for that too.
45:00
SPEAKER_02: So I will say the lyric is right hat here for you for your reference, but that's also count five, everybody.
45:07
SPEAKER_02: So make sure you're still counting because it's one, two, three, four, uh, five, like whatever the rhythm is.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: So, or I'll I'll like scat it and give them like a one, not a two, uh uh ta- ta- ta- ta- ta- ta-da-da-pa-pa.
45:20
SPEAKER_02: Like whatever feels good for you.
45:21
SPEAKER_02: I'll give you all the tools, but I think that that might not be happening in the classroom.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: And there needs to be a little bit more, I think, maybe consistency across all teach teachers at the studio to make sure that it's cohesive in every genre.
45:36
SPEAKER_02: Because something I've I mentioned, like we always talk about like top class, everybody needs to take top class to learn their musicality.
45:42
SPEAKER_02: But like something we talked about on our musicality episode in season two, you're learning musicality in every style, and especially in ballet.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: Like in ballet, you should be moving to the music.
45:52
SPEAKER_02: You have to fill that that plie on the one.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: Come up two, plie three, come up four.
45:57
SPEAKER_02: Like you should be counting through the entire thing, or doing a waltz across the floor.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: Now we're in three, four.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: Like, we we need to be the dancers need to understand that and understand the difference in types of music that they're dancing to.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, they all yeah, that's such an awesome point.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: And I actually played January Session Company class for Katie two days ago at Merrymount, and she always likes me to do a couple of those during January because it forces the dancers to listen to the music differently.
46:24
SPEAKER_00: And I was talking to her after class, and I was like, it's so interesting, because you know, you know, for like two years we didn't have them live.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: So this crop of dancers, they have a really different relationship, we'll say, to music than they than I'm used to because the musicality is impossible over Zoom.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: It was a total complete waste of time disaster.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: And I you know, when when they're doing like long extensions, they're used to pianists going bum blah blah blah playing these lyrical things.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: But my feeling is with an extension is like because you want the energy and the rhythmic, the propulsion to keep going all the way, not just this beautiful, but you want to feel this underneath that, right?
47:09
SPEAKER_00: And then a clean moment when you come back in, and a clean moment when you start forward, and a clean and all of those things are are about placement, but they're also about, and we've been talking really just about rhythm and and counting till now, but like the other half of my class is about timbre and orchestration.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: And you started talking about it when you were like, sometimes I'll go with the bead, sometimes it's the lyric, and that's always the thing.
47:34
SPEAKER_00: The thing is that when the piece of music comes on, the first thing they hear is the pulse, and the second thing is the melody, and that's where their like intentional listening ends, is is there.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: But like if you are dancing to a piece of music and there's a rhythm guitar and there's a lead guitar that has distortion, and there's a keyboard bass, and there's drums, and there's also a shaker, and there's also a tambourine, and there's also a cello, there's like 17 things to listen to to connect to many layers.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes you're on the bass drums, sometimes you're hitting a snare drum, and just because they're both drums, those are totally different timbres that you need to understand to connect.
48:09
SPEAKER_05: My heart is like racing.
48:12
SPEAKER_05: My heart is racing because I feel like I'm with a like-mind, like, like obviously you are a brilliant mind, but I feel like what what my brain says to myself when I get presented with a piece of music, what I visualize is, you know, I I it's like that one meme where it's like a glacier on top, and then it shows the water and then it and everything down below.
48:34
SPEAKER_05: And like like you was pointing out, everyone looks at the pretty picture on top, and I'm looking down there.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: It's another point in favor of learning at a very basic level to be able to read music.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: And you don't, and and I'm really, really particular with my class about this.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't expect you to be able to sight sing a piece of music I put in front of you.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't expect you to even be able to like play any of it.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: But what is useful as a dancer is if you can count and understand time signatures and note values, and you can follow a piece of music as you hear it, you can see melodic shape, you can see spaces, you can see note lengths, you can see accents, you can see dynamics, and you can use that information to connect to it.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: And then when you add a score, you can see like, oh, this is the moving line was here, and it just moved down here, and then it moved down here, and now everyone's in unison moving across here.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: And I just I'm I'm reminded of uh a moment when I was music director for Battleworks and Robert was like taught thinking about creating a new piece, and we were riding in his car, and he was like putting on the music, and I was like, Did you start choreographing to it?
49:42
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No, I haven't, because I haven't studied the score yet.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: Like he doesn't even start, he doesn't even start choreographing until he studied the score like a conductor.
49:49
SPEAKER_02: Right.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, because he wants to know everything that's happening, and then you also listen with your ears and you react to what you hear, and then you listen kinetically and you react to what you feel, but it's another layer of information that it can help you so much with what you're trying to do.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's not to say that you should that you have to have a score for everything, but it's just saying it's another layer that, like, if you're wanting chariograph to a string quartet, you can get the score and you don't have to be able to read it, but if you can follow and be like, oh, the cello has the mell the moving line here, right?
50:19
SPEAKER_00: Like we can, and then cello means, oh, that means like a big wooden instrument that vibrates a string with friction going across.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: And that is one way to move.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: And then there's a pizzicato violin, and that's little light flex, like the layers of consciously connect to those textures.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: It it just gives you so much more as a dancer to connect, and some dancers do it organically, but but then being able to name what you're doing makes it that much richer, you know.
50:46
SPEAKER_00: Being able to name what you can already do, and then being able to name it when it's something you don't organically do just adds all these dimensions to what you're doing.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: I I I think.
50:55
SPEAKER_00: Whenever I ask dancers what makes a musical dancer, they always say, you know, it looks like they're dancing what you hear.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's what all this is is adding up to.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
51:06
SPEAKER_04: Those being able to organically, uh like you said, if if you can move organically in those ways and then you can name it, that also means you will be able to talk about it in a way somebody else can understand it.
51:17
SPEAKER_04: And that is where I think, you know, we we always talk about like, well, if you're just because you're a good dancer doesn't mean you'll be a good teacher.
51:24
SPEAKER_04: Same thing here.
51:25
SPEAKER_04: Just because you personally understand what the music is doing and can can move that way in in the way that, you know, it makes sense, doesn't mean you can explain it.
51:34
SPEAKER_04: But like we need more people who have figured out how to explain it because so many people don't know what it is.
51:40
SPEAKER_04: And so that's kind of where Caitlin, please go ahead and speak what you wanted to say.
51:43
SPEAKER_04: But I wanted to talk more about like the approach to teaching and the rehearsal process, the rehearse, the rehearsal process and the being able to like get your kids to hear and physicalize what you hear.
51:56
SPEAKER_05: Well, like you said the word approach, and I think my kids probably hear that word a million times a day.
52:01
SPEAKER_05: So let's say it's a typical Saturday and I'm doing six, I'm rehearsing six tap dance pieces.
52:07
SPEAKER_05: And me as a choreographer, I'm thinking, how can I separate this dance from this dance to this dance to this dance?
52:14
SPEAKER_05: Uh, not only for an observer to enjoy watching, but as dancers, you know, they should feel different.
52:21
SPEAKER_05: We're doing a very like a Latin jazz feel here, and then we're doing a very like live band uh swing tap dance on this end.
52:30
SPEAKER_05: And I tell them all the time when you do a paddle and roll or a paradiddle in this Latin number, it the approach is so same sound, but when you do it here, it should feel like an entirely different step.
52:45
SPEAKER_05: And I'm trying to keep in mind too, with you know, obviously a lot of your listeners being dance teachers, um, and again, you might be a brand new top teacher, like you might feel like a fish out of water, but you can introduce very simple exercises to your dancers.
53:00
SPEAKER_05: You said the word staccato.
53:02
SPEAKER_05: Well, everybody knows what staccato is, quick, sharp.
53:05
SPEAKER_05: And then many don't know the opposite of that, which is legato, right?
53:09
SPEAKER_05: And you can use those two words with your babies and say, let's hit staccato notes, ready, show me legato.
53:17
SPEAKER_05: Same step, but let me see the difference in tonality there.
53:21
SPEAKER_05: And I'm telling you, you you do that stuff and the kids, and you have to again demonstrate it.
53:26
SPEAKER_05: So the some kids have to be next to you watching how you move your shoulders, how you sit back.
53:32
SPEAKER_05: Weight, weight shift is such a huge thing for me.
53:36
SPEAKER_05: Like, and again, sometimes it's just that if kids are rushing, most likely they are not shifting their weight because they're not filling that space, that space that we talked about earlier.
53:46
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
53:46
SPEAKER_05: Anyway, that was my stagato legato exercise.
53:49
SPEAKER_05: I'm just saying it's you know, it's something you can do with with your six-year-old, you know?
53:54
SPEAKER_05: And then they're also a little bit of music theory.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: And and all of this is like you would love you would love my class, Callan.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: You would really do it.
54:02
SPEAKER_05: And uh do you zoom private lessons?
54:06
SPEAKER_00: I will not do anything online.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: It is actually, you know what?
54:10
SPEAKER_02: As I hear you like talk, Damien, I'm gonna be like, all right, I'm gonna, we're gonna develop some type of like competitive dance curriculum for you.
54:16
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna connect you with studios where you can go out to studios and do like music, this this class and like crush course for them because it's better than nothing, you know?
54:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the thing, is is is I've I've done that a couple of times.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: I've done that, like I said, at orchestral festivals, they've brought me in to do that with a whole orchestra so that he gets the whole orchestra thinking about things the same way.
54:37
SPEAKER_00: And I've done that with with with at Dance Things, but it's something that I definitely would like would like to do more.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: And I've also done it, I'm lucky enough to work consistently with like the same music director several times.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: And he always has me.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: Normally, like the first week of cast rehearsals, the drummer isn't there because they're just learning notes, but but he has made a practice of having me there because I teach, I basically help teach the casts how to articulate and feel the rhythm of lyrics in a way that will then connect to their bodies so then when they have to dance, there's a connection between the lyrics and their body.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: So I've also developed one that like has to do with kind of musical theatery stuff.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean I I I just think that you know, like like in a weekend of of of a dance competition, like having everyone go through uh a 90 minute or two 90 minute classes of this, it would just it would it what it does is it immediately changes your intentionality of your connection to the it's not something that you're dancing to, but it's something you're collaborating with.
55:38
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's pre-recorded music, it becomes something you're collaborating with rather than dancing to.
55:44
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I wasn't familiar with your the audience of this because I'm super analog and old school.
55:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, if if it's dance teachers and stuff that we're talking to, like it we're we're getting complicated and excited because we're all obviously like music dance nerds.
55:57
SPEAKER_00: But but but but this can all but there's it's it's equally, if not more, valuable to start this on the super simple level.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: So like Caitlin was talking about like exercising with you know, clapping whole notes and half notes, and hearing that, like, you know, if you had the whole class stepping on the pulse, which is usually a quarter note, and clapping on the one, and then you just say, you know, you just say make your steps more legato.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: So you're teaching them the word smooth, and you say it means smooth, and then you say, okay, make your steps normal again.
56:32
SPEAKER_00: Then you say make your steps tenudo, which means have weight, and that also makes you fulfill it more.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: And you say, okay, now make your steps staccato, which means light and quick.
56:41
SPEAKER_00: And then you can say step from the beat or step into the beat.
56:45
SPEAKER_00: Try stepping into the beat for you know, a minute, then step from the beat for a minute.
56:50
SPEAKER_00: And that just in it immediately attunes somebody to all these different ways of relating to just the pulse at the most basic level, you know, and that's like, you know, as you know, every dance audition often starts with just walking across the floor to the beat.
57:04
SPEAKER_00: So if you can walk across the floor with to the beat with intentionality and making a choice, that already separates you from 90% of the other people.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
57:13
SPEAKER_00: So for for yeah, so for a dance teacher looking for a way to implement these ideas, and you're like, I don't know these terms, it's like it doesn't have to be fancy.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: Like just simple, and you don't even have to use the dance the musical terms.
57:24
SPEAKER_00: You can just say, you can use your own words, which is what I'm saying.
57:27
SPEAKER_00: Like, so step to the beat heavy, step to the beat light, step to the beat happily, step to the beat sad, step to the beat angry, but step to the beat and clap on the one, and all of a sudden you're integrating note value and dynamic and quality.
57:42
SPEAKER_05: A couple things that my kids know, kind of my older ones mainly, they know straight rhythm, downbeat, swing, uh, swing on the swing on the downbeat, one, a two, a three, a four, or start swinging on the up, a one, a two, a three.
57:58
SPEAKER_05: And you can use one step to practice that.
58:01
SPEAKER_05: Um straight on the one, one, a two, a three, a four, uh swing on the one, one, a two, a three.
58:10
SPEAKER_05: You know, there's just so many different ways to do it, but they will see in their body, oh my God, swinging on the one or on the downbeat, your body has to manipulate so differently if you're using, let's say, the broadways that the left heel heels, big, heels, no heel.
58:26
SPEAKER_05: If I tell you to swing on the downbeat, one, a two, oh my God, now I have to shift my weight to make it to control it.
58:32
SPEAKER_05: And I use that exercise a lot.
58:34
SPEAKER_05: I do with my adult class.
58:36
SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, guys, we're getting real nerdy up in here, but I want you to kind of do straight on the one, swing on the one, swing on the swing on the up, straight on the up.
58:45
SPEAKER_05: And they they understand these terms.
58:47
SPEAKER_05: And we're talking adults who like are mainly beginners, you know, but it's just those little simple things, these little bite-sized pieces of information can really transform your tech classes and your jazz classes too.
59:01
SPEAKER_04: And I think the key is something is better than nothing.
59:03
SPEAKER_04: Just because you don't have a music theory degree doesn't mean you can't teach legato staccato, doesn't mean you can't teach, you know, like, and and again, you know, even though Damien, you're super analog, like you could go take a college class or you could get on YouTube because there's a hundred percent some basic music theory stuff on YouTube, which will give you just a little bit of information that you can pass on, you know, to the next generation.
59:27
SPEAKER_04: Because again, I don't think they're getting it in school unless they are specifically at a school that is a music-centered school.
59:33
SPEAKER_04: Play an instrument.
59:35
SPEAKER_02: Like that's super helpful.
59:36
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think a lot I've I asked that question too a lot.
59:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, who plays an instrument?
59:40
SPEAKER_02: Who, you know, have you played an instrument?
59:43
SPEAKER_02: Not a lot of kids are doing it, but like you like I played clarinet in fourth grade for until like seventh grade, I think.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: But I learned how to read sheet music.
59:51
SPEAKER_02: I learned what a quarter note is.
59:52
SPEAKER_02: I that was already taken care of in fourth grade for me in elementary school.
59:57
SPEAKER_02: And then I translated that, and that led me into my dance classes, and I understood how to count that.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_00: You know what you learned even more?
1:00:05
SPEAKER_00: You even learned even more playing clarinet was you learned how to connect your breath to those.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_00: You learned how to connect your breath, your breath to the phrasing.
1:00:13
SPEAKER_00: And that is what so you were I had back when you were in school, I was only teaching the advanced class.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_00: Now I teach all of the sections.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_00: And the difference always between the people that I that get put into the advanced and don't, because I I do it second semester after I see them first semester, because I play for everybody still, I would say 95% of the time all the people that I put there have played an instrument as well.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting.
1:00:38
SPEAKER_00: Because because playing an instrument teaches you to breathe with the music and it teaches you to connect it, it it makes it gives you an understanding of note length, it gives you understanding of the beginning and the end of a sound, you can make a choice about the attack and the release, which just so directly translates to dance because your body is an orchestra, and if you go, I can't be in the screen, but if you go like this, or if you go like this, or if you go like that, or if you go like that, you're just moving from here to here, but they're all completely different.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_00: And when you've played an instrument, you understand, like you can attack it with your bow, you can gently put your bow on, you can put the bow on and then speed it up, right?
1:01:20
SPEAKER_00: Like it's just it's so it's so rich.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: And again, you don't have to play an instrument to understand this stuff.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_00: I think Leslie, what you said is really great.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_00: During during COVID, I had to start using a little bit of things like YouTube videos and stuff in my classes, and I've kept some of them because there are some just really great things.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_00: Like if you're a dance teacher and you want to integrate this, like if you look, if you look up, and I can send you some and you can share them later if you want that I use.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would be awesome.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_00: But like, you know, just like like different members of the instrument family demonstrating how their instrument works, and then also some videos talking about timbre and tone color and ways to talk about it that that are um very lay person friendly.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_00: Because then it then it just gives you as a teacher, you can be like, okay, I'm gonna try a different kind of music.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try string cartel, I'm gonna try folk music from Bulgaria, I'm gonna try, you know, Chinese uh Udoo play play or something, you know.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_00: And then you can listen to it and be like, okay, that's a string instrument.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like there's a steady pulse, but it's not really in a time to mature.
1:02:21
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I can use that, and that's what we can talk about.
1:02:23
SPEAKER_00: We can talk about dancing to a string instrument without without strict counts.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, like and then you just into then you're just introducing little bits, like like Halen said, little bite-sized bits of new ways to relate to the music.
1:02:35
SPEAKER_00: And what I call that in my in my classes, I call it ways in.
1:02:39
SPEAKER_00: Like you want to have so many ways in to a piece.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to rely on just pulse and melody.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_00: When a piece of music starts, if there is not a steady pulse, then you're out of luck all of a sudden.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_00: If a piece of music starts and a like discernible separate on top melody never comes in, you're waiting for something that never is gonna happen.
1:02:58
SPEAKER_00: So you want to have other strategies to connect to the music.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: That's great.
1:03:02
SPEAKER_00: And and and then when you get something that's super straight ahead, it's easy, then it's like a wealth of possibilities and it's so easy to connect.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:03:10
SPEAKER_02: So I have a question going back to uh the counting aspect of dance.
1:03:15
SPEAKER_02: Do you think it's crucial for dancers to know how to count?
1:03:19
SPEAKER_02: And should dancers be relying on counts while they're while they're dancing in all genres?
1:03:26
SPEAKER_05: You've gotta have I think you've gotta be able to swing back and forth between I mean, I think ultimately, yes, you need to know how to count music, you know, just in generality.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_05: Um now, should that be the guiding light in everything you do?
1:03:42
SPEAKER_05: Absolutely not.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_05: I think that it's some it's okay to let things go, but you have to first know how to count music.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_05: You should be able to weave you should be able to weave back and forth, I think.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_05: But I think you have to at least know how to count your music.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_05: That's my opinion.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna say, Damien?
1:03:58
SPEAKER_00: So I I agree, and the this is so at some point every semester, a student will say, Do you count the whole time you're playing?
1:04:06
SPEAKER_00: Which is a great question because I'm teaching them to count to count every single second of class.
1:04:11
SPEAKER_00: And I say, No, I don't, but I did.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_00: And the second and the second that something is not doesn't feel perfectly centered, I turn it on.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: It's always there, it's always there.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_00: It's like the fader is on like 0.5, and the second that anything is the slightest bit wonky, it goes to 100 and it goes louder than everything else.
1:04:34
SPEAKER_00: And and but in order to be able to do that, it's just like I said with the like being on your lathing.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_00: In order to be able to do that, it you have to practice it so much that it becomes automatic.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: So that a piece of music comes on and you automatically start going, one e oh, oh, wait a minute, okay, there's no four.
1:04:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, one e that's be and the three e and a one that's be and a three and a one eight.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it changed.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:04:55
SPEAKER_00: One that's be and a three and a one, two, three, four, five, one, x, b, and the three, e and a one, two, three, four, five.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is three, four, five, eight.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_00: And then you can do it, and then then you can let it go and you can react to it.
1:05:06
SPEAKER_00: And then when something doesn't line up or something doesn't make sense, you turn it back up.
1:05:09
SPEAKER_00: One e and a two.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's on the e of three, and then the and of the five, and that's why I'm not that's why I'm not hitting it.
1:05:16
SPEAKER_00: So then you use it to problem solve.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
1:05:18
SPEAKER_00: So you need to be able to do it all the time, and then you can let it go.
1:05:22
SPEAKER_00: And then the second something isn't clear or clean, you turn it up to problem solve and fix.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_00: It has to be a because it's running in the background.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_04: You know, it's it's not not there.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_04: It's not not happening.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_04: It is happening.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_04: Like you said, it's just better's really low.
1:05:36
SPEAKER_04: It's yeah, and then it's back.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_05: It's very parallel to me, like technique, like your ballet dancers that you want to all of a sudden be contemporary, releasing modern dancers, and you're like, no, I need you to let go of your technique for a second to do this.
1:05:52
SPEAKER_05: It's still there.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_05: It's happening.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_05: I always say it's it, it's always in your back pocket, guys.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_05: It's it's right there.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_05: Like it's still there.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_05: It's because it's become such.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_05: innate part of your dancing.
1:06:01
SPEAKER_05: Same thing with counting.
1:06:02
SPEAKER_05: It's it's it's all it's always back there, of course.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_05: Otherwise you can't record an album and make music.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_05: If you don't go away if your big your band's not there.
1:06:11
SPEAKER_05: You know, if you just looked at at the back of a CD back in the day and looked at one song and looked at the amount.
1:06:17
SPEAKER_05: If it worked on one song, you'd be like, oh my God.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_05: And everybody has their own like role to play to create this piece of music.
1:06:25
SPEAKER_05: So it just goes far deeper than just those two things pulse, melody.
1:06:31
SPEAKER_02: And also something I want to just throw out there that I always say in in my class when it comes to timing and musicality and counting is the fact that every choreographer and I'm speaking choreographer, I'm not speaking teacher and educator, every choreographer might have a different expectation on what they expect from the dancers who are delivering the product.
1:06:52
SPEAKER_02: And they might have a different way of approaching their choreography and structuring their choreography and and delivering their choreography to you.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_02: You as the dancer have to be ready for anything.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_02: So just because your teacher never counted isn't a good enough excuse when you get into the room with a choreographer who expects counts.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_04: Because then Or the opposite because that's what kills me is that somebody's like, so here's the choreography and they're just doing it.
1:07:19
SPEAKER_02: You didn't deliver it properly.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_04: Are you not gonna give me a count?
1:07:23
SPEAKER_04: Are you not gonna give me an accent?
1:07:24
SPEAKER_04: Are you just I'm supposed to interpret it I have to count.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_04: Right.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_04: Whoo, here we go.
1:07:28
SPEAKER_02: Like woo that and that's that's it's hard.
1:07:31
SPEAKER_02: I can like as a dancer who was right.
1:07:33
SPEAKER_02: But I can do it.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_02: I have to study and analyze it a little bit more but that's and figure out okay they're stepping on this lyric what or they give me they give me like a shum bat da da da exactly and then I then me in my head as the smart dancer I translate that to what count is that?
1:07:47
SPEAKER_02: And that helps me better understand the musicality and better understands this song.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_02: Because another thing that I always tell dancers and they never know how to answer this question.
1:07:56
SPEAKER_02: So all the dancers that raise their hand and say they like to dance the lyrics then my rebuttal back to them is but what if you don't know the lyrics of the song?
1:08:05
SPEAKER_02: What if you don't know the song?
1:08:06
SPEAKER_02: What if you've never heard the song in your life how do you dance to the song if you're dancing if you want to dance to the lyrics but you I haven't even played the song.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_02: So how are you gonna dance?
1:08:15
SPEAKER_02: Like that's and they're all like oh yeah you're right and I'm like but if you're counting there's always a count y'all so if if I put if I give you the counts I should be able to plus press play on the music and boom there's a beautiful dance because you're already counting internally and you can find where that downbeat is and you're connecting to the music.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_02: But if you're relying on the lyrics to guide you through if and I've never played the song it's gonna be a disaster.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_02: You're never you're not gonna be in the pocket you're not gonna have the right timing and tempo.
1:08:43
SPEAKER_02: Like it's just not going to work out.
1:08:44
SPEAKER_00: And I mean what you just said you said the word connecting and that that's what I always talk about in my ways in part of the semester is that you just have to have an intentionality with your connection.
1:08:56
SPEAKER_00: It can't just be I mean there the the Cunningham Cage collaboration was spectacular and amazing but even with their collaboration they still reacted uh for people that don't know I'm sure you guys know but like people maybe that are listening right so Merce Cunningham was a choreographer and his longtime partner was John Cage who was a composer and they were both into aleatoric and and chance ways of creating things.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_00: And so Cunningham would make a piece of music that had a lot of chance inherent and Cage would make a piece of music uh would make a dance and Cage would make a piece of music and then in different performances they would put a different piece of music to the dance.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_00: And but it wasn't just that they ignored that piece of music and it happened to happen.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_00: They would then do that same dance differently react into that piece of music that they were dancing to right and so you have to have an intentionality even if the counts aren't going to line up even if there's no lyrics that you can connect to even if the pulse or the time signature is different that you have an intentionality of connection to it.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_00: And so you know as long as you are making an intentional choice then that is a fair way in.
1:10:01
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing I wanted to say which was uh I think something that you started to talk about Kellen which is that like like and it relates to counting and it relates to everything we're talking about is having more knowledge it won't it won't take away you were talking about like like you know you letting your technique go for a moment.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_00: Like you're not even letting it go because it's it's always there in your body.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_00: And and I'm just I'm I'm gonna make it about me for one second just because I think it's an apt analogy which is that I I when I went to school I was lucky I had the best private teachers.
1:10:31
SPEAKER_00: I was a very strong percussionist but I I didn't really have music theory knowledge.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_00: And I was like I don't want to be able to hear chord progressions.
1:10:41
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna get in the way of my enjoyment of a piece of music and I just want to feel it.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_00: Now I always counted but like I was talking about like harmony and and progressions and tonality and stuff like that.
1:10:52
SPEAKER_00: And and I remember very clearly towards the end of my freshman year hearing the Cleveland I went to Cleveland Instant music hearing the Cleveland orchestra play and they were playing Sibelia's Fifth Symphony and there's the end of the of that symphony it goes on for a very long time in a positive way and I was like overcome with emotion and like crying and I was like why am I crying and then I suddenly realized consciously I was like this is a really long extended playful cadence and I was like and it didn't it like it like it didn't get in my way all it did was make me understand why I was feeling that I was like oh he's delaying the resolution for so long that my body is dying not having the resolution and that is cool because then I was like how can I use that?
1:11:36
SPEAKER_00: How can I exploit that when I'm playing that piece how can I use that when I'm creating a piece of music like so the knowledge doesn't get it never gets in your way there was a point where we had this guest per um Timpanus come in and do a master class and I was playing this excerpt from Sibelius piece Finlandia and it was very very fast.
1:11:53
SPEAKER_00: And the his name is Tim Adams I eventually went to study with him in grad school after this experience because it was it was his he was so specific and profound it really shaped the way I approached things.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: But he was like he was like Damien he goes it's like you've practiced way too many hours you're not going to make a bad sound just hit the drum and I was like so worried about my technique of hitting the drum the correct way that it was getting in the way of me just playing drums.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_00: He was like play that rhythm on a snare drum and I played it and he goes no problem play the rhythm on the timpany and let go of your technique you won't make a bad sound and I did it and it was like one of those like rifle moments that changes the rest of your life because it's like the technique is there and and if I need to fix the sound or I need to fix the rhythm I can focus on the technique but I've put in those hours and the technique is there.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_00: And it's the same thing with dancers like being able to count will not get in your organic natural way that you move.
1:12:45
SPEAKER_00: It'll just allow you the choice to be more specific if you want to.
1:12:50
SPEAKER_02: I'm pulling that out for a quote I'm so excited for that literally perfect yeah yeah I think yes 1000% y'all this was wonderful.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_02: Wow I I loved this episode I hope all of our listeners haven't learned so much new knowledge um in this and start loving that music theory y'all please start loving start loving those counts y'all we want you to love them and you learned what the pocket is and the music yay so much please share with all of your dancers it would be sit down and tap class and just play this episode it'll be helpful I'm not gonna lie uh thank you so much to our guests Damien and Kaelin for joining us on this episode.
1:13:29
SPEAKER_02: You guys are fantastic and how we always have our guests lead us out on making the impact is just with one final thought in regards to the topic.
1:13:37
SPEAKER_02: You can talk to dancers you can talk to teachers you could talk to parents whoever you'd like to speak to when it comes to counting musicality music theory all the things.
1:13:46
SPEAKER_05: So what I like to tell teachers is it's okay if you don't know.
1:13:49
SPEAKER_05: If you don't know something how could you possibly know it?
1:13:53
SPEAKER_05: And it's okay to be like I've been teaching tap for 20 years.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_05: I should know this it's okay there's there's always an approachable way to something that seems overwhelming at first and you just have to have the the willingness to humble yourself and start at that bottom level if you need to and and make it well first know it before you teach it.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_05: I would say that too you can learn a lot you know at the same time as your kids that's okay.
1:14:19
SPEAKER_05: But try to find again as teachers bite-sized digestible ways for your kids to understand the very basics of music theory.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_00: I would say don't be afraid to talk about music.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_00: Talk about music in in whatever way makes sense for you but talk about the music.
1:14:37
SPEAKER_00: Bring attention to the music if you are using a piece of music in your class tell your students the name of the piece of music and and who it's by if it's a piece of classical music tell them who the composer is and who the performer is it always breaks my heart when people are using music in their classes and even in performances and they don't give credit to the piece of music and they don't know what it is.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_00: It's you know if you I always say like if you want people to pay money to come watch you dance, if you are saying I deserve to be paid money to people should pay money to come watch me dance, the people that created the music to which you are dancing also deserve the respect of being known and you should buy that piece of music.
1:15:23
SPEAKER_00: Don't rip it offline pay for the$2 download or pay$10 for the CD or$5 you can buy probably the CD use.
1:15:31
SPEAKER_00: So that's a huge one is if you create a culture with your students of respecting the music that will flip the generation back to where we used to be because I've seen it change in the last 15 years and it's really heartbreaking.
1:15:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:15:43
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing like I started to say is just like don't be afraid to talk about the music.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_00: Bring it up talk about it with the kids.
1:15:50
SPEAKER_00: Can you count this?
1:15:50
SPEAKER_00: How are you counting this?
1:15:51
SPEAKER_00: How are you hearing it?
1:15:52
SPEAKER_00: Because it can also be interesting to hear the different ways that people are counting and hearing it and then figure out what way makes the most sense for that piece of music in that piece that you're creating in that moment and just make room for something that you aren't comfortable with.
1:16:07
SPEAKER_00: Try some new things out.
1:16:08
SPEAKER_00: So branch out from Spotify particularly and find other things.
1:16:12
SPEAKER_00: Asked ask your mom asked your grandpa for a piece of music that they like that you don't know you know and and all of a sudden you're like whoa I didn't know that I love big band jazz.
1:16:23
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh I didn't know that I liked pre-war blues you know like and you just find all this this world of music that you weren't aware of because you don't get it on your Spotify playlist.
1:16:33
SPEAKER_00: I find that to be more of a problem now than it was 15 years ago because people 15 years ago still would go to a record store they'd see a CD and they're like that's interesting and they try something new and you just in for all of the like it's the whole world of music at your fingertips you're only getting such a small narrow amount.
1:16:50
SPEAKER_00: So so don't be afraid to try something new for yourself and then that might inspire you to create something new for your class too we hope you enjoyed this week's episode all about counting your music and music theory we'd like to send a huge shout out to our very special guests for joining us.
1:17:07
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1:17:11
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1:18:56
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