Dance music
Dance music is
music composed, played, or both, specifically to facilitate or accompany
dancing. It can be either the whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement.
Dance music works usually bear the name of the corresponding dance, e.g.
waltzes, the
tango, the
bolero, the
can-can,
minuets,
salsa, various kinds of and the
breakdown. Other dance forms include
contradance, the
merengue (Dominican Republic), the
cha-cha-cha and Soca (Trinidad & Tobago) Often it is difficult to know whether the name of the music came first or the name of the dance. See
:Category:Music genres for more.
Dance music includes a huge variety of music, including traditional dance music such as
Irish traditional music,
waltzes,
rock and roll,
country music and
tangos. An example of traditional dance music in the United States is the
old-time music played at
square dances and
contra dances.
While the combination of dance and music is very ancient (for example
Ancient Greek vases sometimes show dancers accompanied by musicians) the earliest Western dance music that we can still play with a degree of certainty are the surviving
medieval dances such as
caroles and the
Estampie. The earliest of these surviving dances are almost as old as Western staff-based
music notation.
In the
Baroque period, the major dance styles were
noble court dances (see
Baroque dance). Examples of dances include the
French courante,
sarabande,
minuet and
gigue. Collections of dances were often collected together as
dance suites.
In the
Classical music era, the minuet was frequently used as a third
movement in four-movement non-vocal works such as
sonatas,
string quartets, and
symphonies, although in this context it would not accompany any dancing. The
waltz also arose later in the Classical era, as the minuet evolved into the
scherzo (literally, "joke"; a faster-paced minuet).
Both remained part of the
Romantic music period, which also saw the rise of various other nationalistic dance forms like the
barcarolle,
mazurka, and
polonaise. Also in the Romantic music era, the growth and development of
ballet extended the composition of dance music to a new height. Frequently dance music was a part of
Opera.
From the late
1970s, the term
dance music has come to also refer more specifically to offshoots of late 1970s
rock,
disco,
Funk and
Postpunk, These new styles and genres, altogether referred to as
Club music, include
house,
techno and
trance. Generally, the difference between a disco, or any dance song, and a rock or general popular song is that in dance music the bass drum hits "
four to the floor" at least once a beat (which in 4/4 time is 4 beats per measure), while in rock the bass drum hits on one and three and lets the snare take the lead on two and four (Michaels, 1990).
Even though dance music is upbeat, people often
slow dance to
love ballads which are not referred to as dance music upon popular belief. As a result of this, people often stereotype that slow dancing is no dance at all.
Note: many radio stations have alienated dance music.'''
WKTU FM -
New York City*
Dance as form of musical composition*
List of ballroom and social dance albums*
List of dance party albums*
VFunk*
Rave Board Game*
Dance vs. rock*
DanceFrontDoor - Dance music news and reviews site
*
Fantazia Rave Site - Dance music information / Profiles and more
*
Resident Advisor - RA is an online dance music magazine.
*
Real Dance Radio - RDR is a online Dance News Portal.
