I have a question for you - What happened to melody?

(This is an updated rewrite on a Facebook Note I wrote back in 2021)

How I Danced
When I first started dancing Kizobma I danced a lot on the beat. It was easy for a beginner to find the beat and dance on it. Then I started using more syncopations, doing fast moves. That was also when “french style” started appearing, around 2011-2012 - when a lot of dancers, at first mainly from France, started dancing in a different way, adapting their dance to the music played, which was then quite often Ghetto Zouk, remixes etc. The music allowed for a different way of dancing. So for a period I danced with a lot of syncopations. Then I started doing more slow moves, on the bass or on the vocals for example. And I finally started using the melody more and more, playing with different levels of energy, constantly shifting between what instruments and sounds I was dancing to. 

The Richest Dance
To me, this is the richest dance. When I can change th...

Within the dancing world, we use the word “musicality”. We try to be “musical", but what does it really mean? We have some kind of idea. We talk about it. There are classes on it. And quite often we know it when we see it. But can we explain it? If I would ask you what musicality is, how would you define it? And would others define it in the same way? 

This is an excerpt from my book about musicality - "The Secrets of Musicality for Dancers - Learning Nine Essential Skills for Musicality in Dance" Just click the link. 

I think there would be a lot of different answers. Some would simply talk about “understanding the music”, but I think that is both too vague and too limited.

To vague, because what does that really mean? Understanding the music?

And too limited because I think musicality is more than that. It is not something purely intellectual, like “understanding”. Musicality has an expressive side too. I think it isn’t just one thing. It has many different layers or skills. ...

If you want to learn more about music and musicality, no matter if you dance kizomba or any other dance, this is a good place to start. Music is built on the interplay of three things:   

• Rhythm
• Melody
• Harmony


Let’s take a closer look at each one of these elements.

This is an excerpt from my book about musicality - "The Secrets of Musicality for Dancers - Learning Nine Essential Skills for Musicality in Dance" Just click the link. 

Rhythm
Rhythm is essential for music. It is the element of time in music. When we clap our hands or tap our foot to the music, we are expressing one part of rhythm, the pulse. 

Just like most things in nature, like the heart, the waves on the beach or the night and day rhythm, all music has a pulse, at a specific tempo. This is the same as when we often talk about beat, and the beat of music. From now on we will use the word beat instead of pulse, as I think it is more common among dancers. The tempo of this beat is what we often call BPM (Bea...

Yesterday I met a friend, an old student of mine. She told me she had been to some tryout classes in kizomba, helping the teacher out with the class. And she had been sad to hear the teacher saying about musicality: 

"Either you have it, or you don't". 

It just made me sad to hear.  

This is an excerpt from my book about musicality - "The Secrets of Musicality for Dancers - Learning Nine Essential Skills for Musicality in Dance" Just click the link. 

 Nature vs Nurture
Yes, some people would say that it is not possible to teach musicality. It is something you are born with. They would say just that - either you have it, or you don’t.

I don’t agree. If it was that simple, we would have the people who have it, and they would all be great. And we would have the ones who don’t have it, and they would all suck. I don’t think this is what we see. I think some people have it more and some have it less.

Some people might be more “gifted” and have a natural talent for it. We all lie s...