Hi Fred,

You've probably figured this out already from other replies, but dancers have a peculiar habit of describing tempo in terms of measures per minute. So keep that in mind when you read the discussions. Having said that, I will still talk in beats per minute.

You didn't mention where you're from, and that will make a difference. But I will answer as though you're playing normal social venues in the U.S., and if you correct me I will adjust my answer accordingly.

If you've done any research, you've probably seen charts of "approved" tempi. Take these recommendations with a grain of salt. Remember, they're intended primarily for competitive style of dancing, which is not always in line with the preferences of social dancers. Social dancing allows for a greater range of tempi, and the tendency is to lean towards "easier" speeds. By "easier" I mean easier for the average person to dance to, which can mean either slightly faster or slower, depending on the style. Foxtrots, for example, would typically be slightly faster, Viennese Waltzes slightly slower.

120 is pretty slow for a social Foxtrot, but it depends on your crowd. The smaller the percentage of ballroom-trained dancers, the less I would hang out in this area. I would *average* 130, but don't be afraid to mix it up a bit. 168 is pretty much exactly halfway between Foxtrot and Quickstep, which might confuse some. And 184 to most ballroom dancers will be perceived more as a slow Quickstep than a fast Foxtrot. But if you have a versatile social crowd, or a crowd with a lot of swing and Lindy dancers in it, they'll stay on the floor for just about any tempo from 116 to 200.

Anything below 116 will kill the floor if you're aiming for Foxtrot. Slow ballads are fair game, but be aware that classical ballroom dancers generally don't go for anything that isn't a classical ballroom dance. Slow ballads attract the non-dancers, so with a mixed crowd they're actually a useful tool for getting everybody up at some point. In this scenario there are no hard and fast rules. With a ballad, you are more likely to attract more people to the floor with a good song selection than a "good" tempo.

As for Quickstep, the recommended tempo is probably fine. You could get away with something slightly slower too, but social Quickstep is not a particularly fast dance (the basic steps are a combination of half and quarter notes), so slowing it down doesn't necessarily make it easier.

Bear in mind also that Quickstep is strictly an international style dance, so it's the least popular of all the social dances here in the states. So much so, in fact, that unless your crowd is either strictly ballroom (with an Int'l influence) or largely swing/Lindy, you may very well clear the floor with every Quickstep. So one per night might be sufficient.

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

I noticed you did not refer to any latin dances,, are they part of your reportoire ?...
If so stay with Rumbas and Cha Cha both med. paced and the same for Swing..also, an up beat R and R always goes down well

Fred.. 1 .1. 2008.
Cha Cha 30 32bpm. Samba 50 52bpm.
Rumba 25 27bpm. Paso 60 62bpm. Jive 42 44bpm.
Isn't it strange. Play a Quickstep here and the floor is packed. The Tango used to thin the crowd but not any more. The Rumba used to have the same affect but that was long ago. We even at a Social dance have a eight bar, which repeats, Paso Doble called Paso Madrid which always goes over well..
For those interested 6,000 people were in the audience for the IDSF World Amatuer Latin in Melbourne just recently.

Thanks everybody for your quick and informative replies!

Polished, thanks for the overview of ballroom dance tempi. It's interesting to hear that all those dances are gaining in poularity in Australia. I live in Sweden and to my knowledge the two most popular dances when it comes to social dancing are the foxtrot and what we refer to as bugg, a local jitterbug-derived dance. If we're lucky the other ones will see a revival here, too.

The majority of dance gigs I do are of the wedding/birthday/corporate party variety, where the dancers often at most know foxtrot and bugg (sometimes only one of them), and they may or may not be comfortable at the competition tempi. Lindyhop is becoming increasingly popular though, and at the occasional gigs at lindyhop clubs we're always amazed at the tempi they call for -- we're sometimes up to I'd say 240 beats per minute (60 bars per minute). Phiew.

Jonathan, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for! Assuming now that a person only knows foxtrot (taking "foxtrot or quickstep" out of the equation), would he/she likely cope with around 170 beats per minute, or is this now too far above the "sweet spot" of around 130? The reason for asking is that there are lots of nice swing and jump blues tunes in that tempo ballpark (e.g. Take the 'A' Train, A-Tisket A-Tasket, One O' Clock Jump, Opus One, Caldonia, Shake Rattle and Roll, and so forth) that work fine for bugg (and of course for lindy), but if that's too fast for a presumably foxtrot-mainly crowd, we should probably not play too many of them.

It's very interesting to hear that 116-120 is really at the lower end of the range. In fact this confirms what we've observed in practice: A previous bandleader insisted on playing slowfox tunes at 112 beats per minute, and they were never a big hit with the audience.

As for the ballads, I wonder what steps are used? I take it that it's not a slow motion version of foxtrot then, but more of a walk-like movement? (Sorry about the "dumb" questions, but my "dance partner" is the double bass.)

Terence2, I'm glad you brought up the latin dances because I have questions about them, too: Actually the few latin numbers we put into the stacks are either bossa nova or samba tunes, and I've recently begun to question that. I've not seen any references whatsoever to bossa nova at dance school sites so I figure it's pretty much dead as a dedicated dance -- or? In practice over here I think people just continue with foxtrot, improvise some steps or go to the bar (all of which is fine of course, but maybe not the intended reaction). What's your take on this? Perhaps we should actually try a rumba and a cha cha and watch what happens? We do have such arrangements but they've pretty much been in the vault for the last twenty years or so.

Regards,
Fred

PS
Yes, the "bars per minute" vs "beats per minute" issue is indeed a recurring source of confusion among aspiring musicians.

Rumba and Cha will work fine.

As to 99% of other latin, unless a b/room crowd.. dont bother

Fred. Bars per minute. Verses . Beats per minute. If a person is to become a skilled dancer they must be able to count the music in BPM which is Bars Per Minute. They must ba able to count in the Waltz for instance Modern or V. Waltz. 123 223 323 423 523 623 723 823. Dance music is eight bar phrased as you know. Most singers Elvis. Nora Jones sing songs that are eight bar phrased. At the begining of any dance music there is a four bar introduction usually followed by 64 bars of music. We should be able to count the whole disk through in Bars per Minute. Try counting it in beats per minute instead of blocks of eight bars. Is it neccessary to be able to do this. If you are to dance to the music as it is written it is absolutely neccessary.
If we take the V, Waltz as an example. We usually dance Eight bars of Natural then change to the Reverse using one bar for the Forward Change This gives us a count of 223 for the first of the Reverse. We continue to bar 723 where we then use the 8th bar for a Forward Change on 823 . We can now continue with the Natural V. Waltz Turn on bar 123. Try counting that in beats per minute. The Samba gets even worse.
In parting I have a hugh collection of disks. Not one of them has printed on the cover anything other than Bars Per Minute. in both Latin and Modern.

This is now going OT, but here goes:

Polished, the issue is that the acronym BPM actually, and unfortunately, has different definitions for ballroom dancers vs a large portion of the music community: To a DJ within the pop/rock/soul/r'n'b/disco field, BPM means beats per minute, and tempo figures on such disks are given in that unit. Further on, the tempo figures on any standard metronome are given in beats per minute. Hence, on printed music sheets, the vast majority also has the tempo given in beats per minute (if present; often the tempo is only roughly indicated by markers such as 'allegro' within classical music or 'medium swing' within jazz), although the acronym per se is rarely written.

BTW, I'm pleased to hear that expert dancers are so aware of musical form (no need to teach a musician to count bars ), and that this is reflected in the dance. A very common form within jazz is "AABA" where the A and B sections comprise of 8 bars each for a total of 32 bars referred to as one chorus, but many tunes are instead based on 12 bar blues.

Ok so now that we've established you live in Sweden, I'll adjust my answer slightly. There's more traditional ballroom in Europe, so people probably will actually do Quickstep. They won't likely do social Harry Fox-style Foxtrot; Instead you will probably see real ballroom Foxtrot. For this reason, I'd recommend keeping your Foxtrots to 130 and below.

In UK there is a dance which is similar to American style social Foxtrot (well, sort of half way between that and Quickstep) called "Rhythm" dancing. this is danced to a variety of tempi, but typically on the fast side. Terence may be able to fill you in on the details. But although it's popular in the UK, I'm not sure how widespread it is. You may want to ask around a bit in your neck of the woods. If it's common there, you're free to use just about any tempo between 116 and 200. If not, I'd shy away from the middle (unless you have a strong Swing/Lindy contingent) and stick to Int'l Slow Foxtrot (112 to, say, 124) and Quickstep (somewhere around 200-ish).

Ballroom dancers will tend to sit these out altogether. You may get some enthusiastic social dancers, but the floor will be predominantly filled with non-dancers who finally recognize something they can handle: Rocking back and forth in place. So the moral of the story is, Know your audience. If it's strictly Ballroom, don't play a single ballad.

There is definitely a ballroom Samba, and there's also a Bossa Nova. The latter, however, is practically unknown. In Europe, the Samba will go over better than in the states, but it still may not be quite as popular in a social setting as Cha Cha or Rumba.

If you play a Bossa, the rare couple may dance a slow version of Samba to it, but more likely the dancers will choose Rumba. The vast majority of ballroom dancers are tempo-driven, and to their ears a Bossa sounds more like a Rumba than a Samba. So you're probably better off taking your Bossas and giving them more of a Bolero treatment, from the standpoint of tempo and orchestration. It may make you cringe to think of desecrating Jobim's beautiful work in this way, but you'll pack the floors. Dancers don't care if it's authentic; They want to be able to dance a Rumba.

The same goes for all of your mid-range Foxtrot/Quickstep hybrids: I recommend you update the original arrangement and *turn them into* a traditional-tempo Foxtrot or Quickstep, by slowing down or speeding up accordingly. One of the staples of Jazz music is re-treatment, so why not use this oddball restriction and use it as a sort of "opportunity" to create new and interesting arrangements based on a dramatic tempo change? Just a thought.

By the way, I myself am a jazz musician. I attended the Grove school of music from 1991 through 1995. Here's a sample of an arrangement from one of my school projects, a medley of "night" songs:

http://www.atkinsons.tv/Jonathan/night_medley.wma

Good luck!

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

Actually.. 3 of my smooth classes in social style e.g. F/trot, are taught essentially as American style ( even in silver level ) this apparently has become quite common ,after I gave a lecture at a congress 2yrs ago.

Todays clientele are much older than than those of the past , generally 40s and up. They , by and large, are not interested in medal test work ( do have to stay with a "book" format for q/s.
and some waltz ) also, R and R is very popular .

Polished seems to be a bit confused about the function of the term "BPM" (or at least so it would seem from the statement above), which is not a method of counting but a means of describing tempo.

I think perhaps what he meant to say is If a person is to become a skilled dancer, he must be able to count bars (i.e. measures) in addition to beats. There are many methods for counting, but those that include the counting of measures as well as beats are typically preferable because they provide the counter with an awareness of phrasing. I don't think anybody would dispute this (although there might be situations where it's unnecessarily cumbersome, but that's a discussion for a different day).

But that's all beside the point. Back to the topic of "BPM", again it's not a method of counting, so of course topics like measures and phrasing have absolutely nothing to do with it. Put very simply:

TEMPO IS A MEASURE OF SPEED. NOTHING MORE.

When you see a tempo indication, be it on a sheet of written music or the back of a dance CD, it's not telling you how to count, or how many measures are in each phrase. It's simply giving you a concrete and factual representation of the speed of the music as a number. When you look at this number, it's supposed to make you say, "That's fast!", "That's slow", "That's sort of medium", or possibly "This one is slightly faster than that one", etc.

In some sheet music, tempo is described using words such as "vivace", "andante", "lento", etc. This works well enough, but has the disadvantage of being relatively inaccurate. For example, "moderato" might fall anywhere between 110 and 120 bpm. (This, of course, could be an advantage if your aim is flexibility, but that's not relevant to our discussion).

Using a numerical indication of tempo, therefore, is advantageous because it's far more precise than using subjective language. By the same token, Beats per minute is advantageous over Bars/Measures because it's more accurate... actually, 3 to 6 times as accurate, to be specific. So if you're going to choose numerical indications over subjective terms for the sake of accuracy, why would you choose a *less* accurate number?

As well as being inaccurate, Measures/Bars is also on occasion totally misleading, particularly when comparing songs of a different time signature. To see a Tango at 30 MPM followed by a Tango at 60 MPM, the average dancer might assume that one was twice as fast as the other, without realizing that because one is in 4/4 and the other in 2/4, they are in fact the same exact speed. And if tempo is supposed to be a clear and accurate measure of speed, then the practice of representing the same speed with two very different numbers is remarkably flawed.

However, having said all that, I do realize that for better or worse, ballroom dancers have always used measures to describe tempo. It's ingrained in their very being, and no words of wisdom from any musician will ever sway an entire culture of tradition. So I simply explain the theory as best I can, and then let it go. Fred, take note. :)

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com