Salsa: Ear Training
|
|
Course
Design
Cultivating
a conscious understanding of salsa's music is probably the aspect most
overlooked by a developing dancer. It is arguably salsa's greatest challenge
and, at the same time, its greatest reward.
If you've completed our Salsa: Level One and
Merengue Tutorials; and would like a stronger grasp of the music, then
these tutorials are for you. The programme is designed to help you understand
the roles of percussion & rhythm instruments in salsa, allowing
you to interact and derive timing from them. In short, it defines the
dancer's part as a percussionist in music.
The programme consists of a series of progressive
tutorials, which take you through three stages of development:
- Stage I:
Determining the Beats of a Phrase
Identifying the four beats in a bar (or measure) of music, and understanding
the two-bar phrase. Interacting with the master rhythm or clave.
- Stage II:
Clave as Universal Constant
Distinguishing the timbre and patterns of particular instruments.
Recognising your rhythmic location using these patterns.
- Stage III:
More about Salsa's Rhythms
Exploiting your increased sensitivity to rhythm through exposure to
salsa's more esoteric patterns.
Compared with visually-based content like styling
and dance vocabulary, these aurally-based tutorials can seem a little
dry. If you find this the case, then just dip into them occasionally
(it works nearly as well). The tutorials assume that you'll be dancing
“on one” though you should be able to adapt to any other system
with very little effort (see The Complete Merengue Tutorials > Tutorial
Programme > Transformations: Merengue to Salsa).
For further information about teaching and learning,
you may like to read our instructors
course manual.
|
