How to Find the Beat in Music
” I have no rhythm.”
A lot of people believe this about themselves and think that having rhythm is innate – either you have it or you don’t. This isn’t true about having rhythm!
The good news is that you’re not inept with rhythm. You’ve just never been taught how to hear the beat. It’s a lack of training, not a lack of potential.
You will not find a class on hearing the beat of music. It’s rarely touched upon in ballroom dance classes. If you have an ear for music or prior musical training it may not matter.
For the rest of use, we need to learn to count music.
Since we cannot see or hold music, hearing the beat of music is one of the most difficult tasks facing new dancers. It is challenging to know whether we are actually hearing the beat correctly or not.
The easiest way to practice working with a steady beat is to buy a metronome. They’re pretty cheap, and should last you for years.
That metronome serves as the base of the rhythms of the song. The beat is a constant underlying factor of any song you may dance to.
To learn the beat you clap hands then practice marching in place, doing a weight change on every beat. It’s good to involve the full body.
Start by using very easy music. Salsa would be in the difficult category!
What is a beat?
A beat is the basic time unit of a piece of music. A beat is a pulse of time.
The rhythm is the sequence of beats or the pattern of pulses.
The tempo is the speed of the music.
Timing refers to moving with the beats of the music. For dancing this is a critical skill you want to develop.
Hearing the beat in a song means finding the pattern and tempo of the song.
To understand the concepts of beat and tempo, think of a clock. Every minute, the second hand ticks 60 times. Each tick is a beat. If you were to speed up or slow down the movement of the clock – change the speed of the second hand – you would be changing the tempo.
The tempo and the beat create a framework on which you build the rhythm and timing.
At first it will feel hard to keep the beat but remember that almost everything has a rhythm to it including your heartbeat. It isn’t as difficult as it may seem to find the beat.
Hearing the beat of the music and dancing the timing is important if you want to become a good dancer.
Dance timing in partner dances will allow you and your partner to move in synchrony.
NOBODY PUTS BABY IN THE CORNER!
Are you ready to make a move?