Music and Dance
 

I've just re-read an article I listened to as a pod-gram from Stephen Fry concerning his views on dance as it relates to music. It's a great read in my opinion, although not particularly serious and dealing more with his own personal dislike of the art, it did however raise a few thoughts in me about the very nature of the human impulses in regards to how we listen to music.

You can have a read of it if you like: Bored of the Dance

There is for a start, a distinction here between music. Not a distinction between classical and contemporary, since for example Vivaldi is famous for some of his waltzes, as are many other classical composers, and I defy people to attempt to dance to ambient or drone music.
The point is, some kinds of music are clearly designed to harness the urges we have to express music in movements, and others set out not to arouse these urges at all.

Both classical and modern music have both kinds, we have the music of romantics with varying rhythm and tempo, clearly not requiring the listener to dance to help facilitate listening experience, but also gavottes and waltzes which are quite the opposite, specifically designed for dancing.

Contemporary music is the same: obviously anyone going to a LMFAO concert will be expecting to be doing some "shufflin'", since there is the strong beat that will always incite the listener to move somehow, but also the music without this kind of texture, such as (as previously mentioned), ambient, drone and even post-rock. You just can't dance to it.

Now comes the question: what's the significance of this distinction? Does the fact that we feel the need to dance facilitate or enhance our listening experience, or is music more enjoyable when we are? I know this varies from person to person, but there must be something that separates the two kinds.

Perhaps different mediums stimulate different parts of our brains?

Any thoughts?

I heard that music can be categorised into 2 categories,dance or song.

song is obviously more contemplative
dance is more physical, and perhaps more communal.

Both types move us in some way, even a great ballad I sometimes need to stand up to rather than just sit down completely stationary. It's interesting how the word move is used to describe people being emotionally affected by something and also literally moving.

And I think there could be some varying rhythm and tempo even before the romantics. Also dance pieces were incorporated into concert hall pieces, such as the minuet in the symphony, so though they are clearly in dance form they were not meant to be danced to in that context.

This is true, quite an interesting observation, perhaps reflecting the way that music is always interactive, you don't just "listen", there will be a phsical or emotional response.This is also true, I was merely using it as an example as to how there can be music which dancing is not technically possible, like Rachmaninoff's piano concertos: personally I find some of them to be the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, yet clearly moving with it is not really possible.

i dunno i dance mostly as an exercise

some songs however, is so beatcentric i can't help poppin' and lockin' to it, and stuff like Duran Duran's Skin Trade, whenever it's on, i just have to do my reggaeton moves

inversely, as you've said drone, ambient and post-rock is more like soundscapes for your mind, unless you prefer to do swaying wavey gestures with your arms, as you hear it, then all power to you

i dunno much about classical dance, but most pieces written for a ballet, must of course have contrapuntal points and dynamics to punctuate the movements

Damn I thought Stephen Fry liked EVERYTHING and could have easily seen him in the local dive in the mosh pit getting down to some noise.

Dance beats (whether liked or not) tap into the hypnotic and tribal beats that our ancestors must have dug the fuck out of and were a form of expression as equally as important as any other form of art at that time and as such they must have moved us emotionally as much as they do today.

I don't think there are any of us that cannot refrain from moving some part of the body when a certain cadence of sound hits us and although Dance music (an unfair umbrella term regarding something this big -subject wise) appears simplistic to many, it does tap into something very primordial and instinctive.

The actual content of what is 'dance' music can of course be objective but I would struggle to find one human being who wouldn't move to some beat or another.

Dance music is a genius dnace. Well it can be. It depends what is for the dance.

The primordial aspect brings that subject of the origin of music again which was in that other thread. While it was said by me and others that music was about communication there is also another aspect that of losing oneself in the rhythms and sound of the music. Tribes could use music as part of rituals as well where they might take potions or inhale things to reach what they considered another state. In that sense they could use it to leave the world as they knew it and to feel some other kind of connection outside of themselves (which they would interpret as they wished).