Night Club Two Step

One of the most common requests I’ve received is to support Country Western dances. That request has come in many forms, but I don’t have personal experience with Country Western dancing (well, that’s not 100% true, I learned to West Coast Swing at a Country bar in downtown Seattle that my ballroom dancer friends would hang out at after rehearsing). I’m nearly certain that in adapting music4dance to support more country music, I’ll stick my foot in something stinky and get some negative feedback. I’m all right with that – all feedback will make the site better in the long run, just please try to be gentle 🙂 I’ve also stepped on plenty of toes with Ballroom dance which I know quite a bit about, Argentine Tango, which I know a little about and some of the social dances that fall in between on my personal knowledge spectrum.

And music4dance is pretty complicated to begin with, so adding another dimension may make it harder to use. But I’m hoping that, with your help and some iteration on the idea, we can get things to work even better in the long run.

My initial approach to adding Country Western Dance support is to review the organizations that publish competition rules, including tempo information, and see if I can work those dances into the music4dance system in a way similar to how I’ve set up the competition ballroom dances. This turned out to be easier than I expected. All three organizations that I found online (United Country Western Dance Council, World Country Dance Federation, and American Country Dance Association) list eight competition dances. Triple Two, Polka, Night Club Two Step, Cha Cha, Waltz, Two Step, Swing, and West Coast Swing. Only one of those dances wasn’t already in the database (Triple Two). Polka and Country Two Step were random additions early in the site’s evolution because a couple of DJ friends and lists published by ballroom dance studios included enough songs of those styles to make it worth my while to include them.

My biggest question was, should I create new dances for all of the dances that overlapped? After all, the Cha Cha danced in Country Western competitions is certainly not the Cha Cha I learned competing in American Rhythm (heck, the cha cha that the International Latin dancers were learning in the next room wasn’t the same dance either). I decided to follow the pattern that I’ve already established for Ballroom dances with the same name, even if they are pretty different. Rumba is probably the strongest example in the ballroom catalog of two dances with the same name that are not the same dance. But the characteristics of the music that a dancer cares most about are similar – this is true even of Rumba, where the tempo is significantly different.

Not coincidentally, I recently finished a significant project that allowed me to use the core database to easily and accurately search specifically for American Rumba vs. International Rumba. While there are a few drawbacks to grouping America, International, and Country Cha Cha together, there are a lot of advantages both in terms of how the system works internally and in making it easier to find new music for everyone (I’ve always been a proponent of genre-bending in fiction and cross-over choreography in dance).

So, there is now an active “Country Western Competition Dancing” page, and all of the individual dance pages for dances that include Country styles include the competition info for those dances. I’ll continue to tweak some of this information as I get feedback and do more research.

I realized as I was writing this post that I hadn’t addressed the fact that this change also complicated the voting mechanism. I want to encourage folks to vote on a song being a good Cha Cha, but also make it easy for them to specify Country, International, or American. I made some quick tweaks, but this is definitely a feature still under development.

Please let me know what you think (even – possibly especially – if you think I got it completely wrong). I’m interested in whether there are other Country Western dances that I should include, even if they’re not part of the core competition dances. There was a reference to Country Smooth and Country Rhythm rounds in one of the organizations rules, should I be supporting that? I’ve also used the composite tempos from the rules, combining the different levels to give the broadest range. Should I just be using the most advanced category? What else have I missed?

And as always, if you enjoy the site or the blog (or both), please consider contributing in whatever way makes sense for you.

Something came up the other day as I was talking to a friend who just took his first social dance class. He has a musical background and is used to hearing and counting beats as a musician. So he got a little obsessed and distracted with figuring out the translation between what he was hearing in the music and what he was hearing from the dance teacher. In this casual intro to partner dancing class at the local community college, he was learning Night Club Two Step, Salsa, and East Coast Swing.

We dance all of those styles to music in 4/4 time. So, as someone with musical training, my friend heard the beat as 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4, etc. But that’s not how the dance teacher was counting. Let’s break these down dance by dance.

Night Club Two Step is generally counted as Slow - Quick - Quick. For most dances that I count this way or the slight variation Quick - Quick - Slow, the Slow is two beats, and the quicks are each a single beat. The translation is straightforward: In the first case, the quicks are on 1 and 2, and the slow is on 3. In the second, the Slow is stepped on 1, and the quicks are 3 and 4.

– or –

Each box represents a quarter note in 4/4 time.

Salsa

Salsa is even easier. If it’s counted using slows and quicks, it’s Quick - Quick - Slow. Translation: quicks on beats 1 and 2 and slow on 3, holding 4. But many salsa teachers count the phrase, which is a two-measure grouping in dance. When they do that, they generally count 1 - 2 - 3 - (pause) - 5 - 6 - 7 - (pause). That’s my preferred way since it aligns with the musical counting of the beats. Occasionally, I’ve heard a Salsa teacher count 1 - 2 - 3 - (pause) - 4 - 5 - 6 - (pause). That variation drives me up the wall. It completely breaks my musician/programmer’s brain because the second measure is counted with numbers that are off by one from what’s in my head. Fortunately, my friend wasn’t exposed to that variation.

Each box represents a quarter note in 4/4 time.

East Coast Swing

East Coast Swing is more complicated for a couple of reasons.

First, it is generally counted as Tri-ple-step Tri-ple-step Rock Step. Or 1 & 2 - 3 & 4 - 5 - 6. We’re dancing a 6-count basic to 4/4 music, so each basic takes a measure and a half. This timing throws a monkey wrench into counting it like a musician. If you want to be a stickler, it would be something like 1 & 2 - 3 & 4 - 1 - 2, and then the following basic would be 3 & 4 - 1 & 2 - 3 - 4, but I’ve never even tried to do that while dancing. The second is that the triple steps are syncopated, so they don’t fall precisely on the eight notes. But this also maps directly to the music, so it shouldn’t be hard for anyone who has played a bit of Jazz to get their head wrapped around.

Each box represents an eighth note in 4/4 time

Conclusions

Every dance has its nuances. Mambo and International Rumba are counted Quick - Quick - Slow, but start on the 2, Waltzes are danced to 3/4, Samba has its own form of syncopation, etc.

Let me know if you find this kind of analysis helpful and would like this kind of analysis for other dances. I’m considering doing a version of this for each dance on the dance pages, including some prettier charts, if I get some feedback that this is useful. Also, I’d be delighted to hear about other ways you count when partner dancing.

As always, I’m very interested in your feedback, so please share any thoughts and ideas about this post or the site by commenting below or using other feedback mechanisms listed here. In addition, if you enjoy the site or the blog (or both), please consider contributing in whatever way makes sense for you.

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Tag Archives: Night Club Two Step

music4dance Goes Country (part I)

Translating how dance teachers count