Today is International Dance Day! While I personally am unable to dance on my feet, my fingers definitely dance! Don’t believe my lack of dancing ability? The first time I danced with my wife before we were married, I tried to dip her. I dropped her! She still married me and laughs at my lack of dancing ability.
But when we make music, we make it dance! The term used is musicality. How do you take the notes and lengths placed on the page and make them come to life? We make the music dance! Whether that is giving natural accents on the first beat on each measure, or phrase the music correctly, we make the music come to life. We’re not robots and the music shouldn’t sound robotic!
As we gain experience and confidence as musicians, we’re able to play faster passages, which makes our fingers dance across the instrument. In gaining knowledge and practicing what to do, making the music dance becomes natural and regularly happens without much extra thought. But at first, it definitely needs to be an extra step for students to learn how to do it well.
Obviously in music, there are different dance styles that we play, whether that’s a waltz, bouree, minuet, cha-cha and more. Those pieces are written in a way that the music naturally dances, but as experienced musicians, the idea of making the music dance can be brought into any piece, dance or not.
How do you dance through music?
