KEEPING TIME, UNDERSTANDING THE 8-COUNT

Musicality in dancing, put simply, is the ability to change your dancing with a change in the music. To do that, you need to know how long your patterns are, and how long a particular section of music is. Enter the 8-count, the basic unit of measurement we use to tie what we dance to what we hear.

Just a few things we’ll be covering:

  1. What is the basic structure of a song?
  2. How does the 8-count help us measure the length of section of music we are dancing to? (Choreographers use this all the time)
  3. How does the “energy level” of a piece help us know when to start and stop dancing?
  4. How do we find the “1” in the music?
  5. What part of the song is it best for beginners to practice to?