The *KEY* to WCS Musicality 

Those are all great ways to think of musicality! You should definitely try west coast swing! I have a feeling you will be great at it!

@@WestCoastSwingOnline I really want to practice WCS, but in Viet Nam, there has not been any class for WCS yet and finding a partner to practice with me is crazy hard also, we have East Coast Swing here (I haven't practice it also). When I can find a partner, definitely I will practice with your videos ^^

@@WestCoastSwingOnline I really want to practice WCS, but in Viet Nam, there has not been any class for WCS yet and finding a partner to practice with me is crazy hard also, we have East Coast Swing here (I haven't practice it also). When I can find a partner, definitely I will practice with your videos ^^

THIS is what I’ve been struggggllliiingg with. Good god. I’ve been trying to find videos to show me how the 6 count fits into traditional music terminology because I’m used to counting that way in music and dance like ballet, modern, tap, jazz and other non ballroom dance. And I’m used to Latin ballroom. So their video before this in their series playlist REALLY helps. And they are the only ones I have found to explain that they just count “through the 8” regardless of the style of step they are doing which can have a different found of 6 or 8 and change throughout (like a sugar push 6 going into a side pass 8 and back to sugar push 6). That puts the traditional 4:4 dance/music counts of 1-8 off, but that’s okay. I was looking for the reassurance that they are MEANING to do that and to KEEP COUNTING anyway through the dance step. Then I would get lost on where to emphasize things or where my anchor steps would come in and this last video in their playlist finally said emphasize the 1☝️ & 5 ☝️ while counting through traditional 8 counts (aka 2 musical measures in 4:4 time signature) and moving in the the off counts of 6 (sugar) to 8 (pass) to 6 (sugar) etc… the 1 & 5 will keep me in tune to the music while being able to use my habit of counting in 8s and training my muscle memory to move through 6s & 8s dance styles/combos while aware of the musical “dance phrases” of 4x 8-counts for the beat drop or chorus change to verse. Thanks! 🙏

Thanks for sharing your story. We're not musicians (like most dancers) so our descriptions come from my 25 year journey of making sense of it for myself and coming up with ways to easily communicate it to others. I'm so happy you found something that helped make it click for you! Keep up the good work -Brian

Thanks for sharing some official musical knowledge. Swing dancing in general with it's 6 and 8 count base patterns does not fit neatly with music. That being said swing dancers have evolved to be VERY musically interpretive (perhaps because the steps and the music don't fit neatly in the same box) You're right that many teachers incorrectly use terminology (certainly me from an official music perspective) Sometimes people might pick up the right term and use in incorrectly. Ultimately for us as teachers I've found that 95% of new dancers don't have these troubles at all... they're just struggling to find the beat and stay on time. Musicians are immediately bugged with the 6 count basics LOL On different steps of their journey, dancers need to hear different bits to help them connect the dots. It would take a 2-3 hour class to cover all the 'official' music terminology, then lay out all the struggle points (and their solutions) to help people connect to the music at a higher and higher level. We do this in a course we sell but more often than not we're just trying to share bite size bits of info to help people overcome the struggle that's in front of them :-) Thanks again for your input. I'm sure some people will find it really valuable! Best wishes, Brian