It’s happened to us all, we have been told we aren’t dancing on the famous “1” or the WRONG beat. Or, you know that person that can hold a beat, but doesn’t “start” on the 1. Most dance classes teach students to dance on the “1”, but is that the only option? In today’s post we talk about what beat we dance on to timba music.
How did the 1 come into your dancing?
While the 1 is the standard beat we are introduced to, both of us have related to the 1 differently.
Andrea
I used to never understand what it meant to dance on the 1. When I first started dancing, I just followed my partner’s lead on the strong beat on the song. Which may or may not have been the 1. Eventually, I had to study what the 1 when I became part of a performance group. Once I started teaching, I really had to learn what it was to help my students.
Alexa
The 1 didn’t feel that daunting to me because I used to play an instrument, so I felt confident finding the downbeat. This was a lot easier for me to hear in salsa than timba. Granted I really struggled to be able to justify what was the 1 to someone else. Oddly, as I have learned and listened to more music the 1 seems to matter to me less and less.
Dancing on the 1, for us, means to mark beats 1,2,3 5,6,7 with pauses on 4 and 8. For the purposes of this post, we refer primarily to Timba and what is danced to it. We find most people learn to dance on the 1, and use that during socials. When we learn this way, it gives a lot of uniformity to the dance and maximizes who you can dance with at socials when you’re starting out. Truth be told we dance on the 1 a lot as well. Lately though, we have been inspired to challenge ourselves with what we have learned about music and dance to not just dance on the 1. Plenty of people already do this by dancing on beats like 4, 5, or even 6. These are different choices and keep in mind they’re still on-beat but marking it differently.
Timba bands are huge, you have percussion, winds, brass, vocals, strings, and piano elements with sometimes duplicates of the same instrument. Between them they’re all layering different rhythms. All this to say, dancing on the 1 with so many instruments layered together isn’t always so straight forward, or even our first instinct. People have told us before that part of why they don’t like timba is because it is hard for them to find the beat (meaning the 1).
These days we’ve been experimenting a lot with dancing on 2,3,4 and 6,7,8 (contratiempo/son timing) as well as 3,4,5 and 7,8,1 (songo timing). It’s a completely different experience and interaction with the music. For us, it presents a bit of a challenge because we have to shift gears. That strong beat isn’t necessarily the key to staying on beat anymore. (Alexa) When I dance contratiempo, I listen to the bass a lot. Plenty of other people use the clave or the conga to guide them. None of it is wrong.
In order to dance with more people, you probably need to know how to dance on the 1. Both of us encourage you to expand your repertoire, and see what it feels like to dance contratiempo or songo timing. Maybe you’ll even find a partner willing to take on the challenge with you. We find this important because timba music isn’t a metronome, it is quite rich and full of variety. To give it the love it deserves, exploring the other beats and instruments leading those beats deepens your understanding of music and dance. Remember, we dance to music, not the other way around.
What beats do you like dancing on? How do you feel about dancing on the “1”? Do you think there is a right beat? Let us know in the comments below.
Bueno…ya tu sabes.
Ya Tu Sabes 