Looking for help with musicality for west coast swing? We’ve got you covered. In the articles below we cover topics like counting the music, staying on time, learning to hear music and more. Once you’re comfortable you’ll learn the #1 key to musicality so you can connect your steps to the music!
Musicality can be difficult if you’re not natural. Don’t worry. We’ve taught tens of thousands of dancers to hear music better. Take a look around! We’re happy you’re here :-) Start this interview on the history of west coast swing!
Almost all dances can be broken into 2-beat units of a downbeat and an upbeat. Each unit of the dance, in turn, can have a different number of weight changes and can have those weight changes occur at different times. To keep track of the “how many” and “when” of weight changes, we use rhythm … Read more
Good musicality brings out unique elements of songs. At a very high level, the dancers can actually cause you to hear things in the song that you weren’t aware of before. This ability rests on two primary skills: knowledge of music, and especially unique features about the particular song, on the one hand, and the … Read more
In west coast swing, there are three common ways to count music: straight count, rolling count, and swung count. This post will discuss straight vs. rolling counts; a follow-up post will take up the differences between rolling and swung counts. Let’s break them down… At a basic level, music is divided into beats. If you … Read more
Musicality: Learning Major Phrases Music is written in major phrases. Many contemporary songs are written in 32-beat phrases, or 4 sets of 8 beats; blues music that follows the 12-bar blues progression occurs in 48-beat phrases, or 6 sets of 8 beats. Each major phrase ends by resolving to the tonic. The tonic is the … Read more
by Brian B at west coast swing online
Brian & Megan 
