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The Importance of Music

Jul 10, 2024

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Music is so important for us dancers. It is the basis of our movement and often the catalyst of our inspirations. Choice of music also plays a substantial role in the neurological experience of dancing. In an EEG study, dancers and non-dancers listened to either preferred music or non-preferred music. When dancers and non-dancers listened to music they preferred, compared to music that they did not prefer, both groups had more activity in gamma, beta, and alpha bands. The authors interpret the gamma activity as affective responses to, and conscious recognition of, preferred music, beta activity as appreciation of the tempo of the preferred music, and emotional arousal related to the preference, and alpha activity as enhanced attention for cognitive functions such as memory retrieval (Nakano et al., 2021). Music does not only impact emotional responses or enhanced attention however, certain music can also encourage more movement. Listening to music often induces a desire to move. When the desire to move to music is pleasurable, it is often called groove (Janata et al., 2012, Madison, 2006, Senn et al., 2018). Groove is most strongly felt when music (or rhythms) has medium levels of syncopation (Longuet-Higgins and Lee, 1984) (Matthews et al., 2019, Witek et al., 2014). Too little syncopation is perceived as boring, too much syncopation is felt to be too complex. A medium amount of syncopation is felt to be interesting and creates a desire to ‘fill in’ the gaps with movement (Witek, 2017). Hence, the tempo of music can either encourage or discourage people to dance, something I was unaware of because there are so many different styles of music that dancers create choreography to. This is especially important when teaching new dancers and getting them comfortable with improvisation. Finding music that drives movement can be very helpful in shining improvisation in a positive light as it can be difficult for those who have little dance experience.


Janata, P., Tomic, S. T., & Haberman, J. M. (2012). Sensorimotor coupling in music and the psychology of the groove. Psychology of Music.

Longuet-Higgins, H. C., & Lee, C. S. (1984). The rhythmic interpretation of monophonic music. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 1, 424-441. https://doi.org/10.2307/40285271


Madison, G. (2006). Experiencing groove induced by music: Consistency and phenomenology. Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 24, 201-208. https://doi.org/10.1525/mp.2006.24.2.201


Matthews, T. E., Witek, M. A. G., Heggli, O. A., Penhune, V. B., & Vuust, P. (2019). The sensation of groove is affected by the interaction of rhythmic and harmonic complexity. PLoS One, 14, Article e0204539. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0204539


Nakano, H., Rosario, M.-A. M., & de Dios, C. (2021). Experience affects EEG event-related synchronization in dancers and non-dancers while listening to preferred music.


Senn, O., Kilchenmann, L., Bechtold, T., & Hoesl, F. (2018). Groove in drum patterns as a function of both rhythmic properties and listeners’ attitudes. PLoS One, 13, Article e0199604.


Witek, M. A. G. (2017). Filling in: Syncopation, pleasure and distributed embodiment in groove. Music Analysis, 36, 138-160. https://doi.org/10.1111/musa.12082


Witek, M. A. G., Clarke, E. F., Wallentin, M., Kringelbach, M. L., & Vuust, P. (2014). Syncopation, body-movement and pleasure in groove music. PLoS One, 9, Article e94446. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0094446






Jul 10, 2024

2 min read

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