I've try basic step in jive but it so dificult, can you tell me how to accomplish it.

Erik,

I have just listened to "Stuck with you" at http://www.cdnow.com and I think it's a great jive, but the music feel is in triplets. If you dance to this song, you will dance 2/3 1/3 1.
I agree with you that songs can have more rhythms. At this moment I'm working on "Schneewitchen walz" for my new ballroom cd. This slow waltz is a good example of music with more rhythms. The bass and drums are based on triplets, but the sax is based on sixteenth notes. This is a normal combination of rhythms, but I've never heard a combination of 3/4 1/4 1 together with 2/3 1/3 1. I've also never heard a jive song with a 3/4 1/4 1 feel.
If you listen to the hi-hats of "Stuck with you", you can hear very clear that they are based on triplets. The bass drum and the snare drum are mostly played on the whole counts. He sings in triplets. I can't hear an instrument playing something like 3/4 1/4 1. The feel is based on triplets. I've tried to dance 3/4 1/4 1 to this song, but it's very hard and feels unnatural. 3/4 is longer than you think. Try to dance a jive to a fast samba song wich has a 3/4 1/4 1 rhythm. I've just tried it. It will work, but it feels very strange.

I don't know if "Return to sender" is the favorite song of my teacher, but when he plays it, he starts to sing so I guess he likes it
I't a good jive to learn a new figure, because it's very slow (33 bars/minute). It is just like "Stuck with you" a jive with a triplet feel.

By the way, I'm your neighbour. I live in The Netherlands.

Kind regards,

Fred

[This message has been edited by Fred Bolder (edited 09-04-2000).]

Fred,

Being a Jazz musician myself, I completely agree with you that "3/4, 1/4, whole" is not technically correct for Jive rhythm, but I for one have not been able to convince the ISTD of this fact yet. Maybe one day they'll change their minds, but in the meantime, we have to be able to distinguish between that which is "officially" correct and that which is actually correct.

When taking a Latin exam, I would tell my instructor verbally that Jive rhythm is 3/4, 1/4 whole. But when I actually dance it, I would either dance half, half, whole, or 2/3, 1/3, whole, depending on the feel of the music (ie eighth-note subdivision).

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson www.ballroomdancers.com

Jonathan,

I have no problem to distinguish the difference between triplet and sixteenth rhythm. The track by Huey Lewis you posted is a good characteristic example. It reminds me of a more popular song ?Walking to New Orleans? by Fats Domino, which has the same rhythm subdivision.

However, where I live in Belgium, our swing vocabulary is almost limited to jive, and I am not tempted to dance jive to these swing feel songs. By the way, could you/anyone advise me a dance camp where I could learn WCS ?

What I learned in an introduction class on ?boogie-woogie?, is that the difference between this one and lindy hop on the one hand and jive on the other is that ?swing? dance is smore smooth and more flat with a ½ ½ 1 chassé subdivision whereas jive is more bouncy (in the floor), more on the balls of the feet and with a ¾ ¼ 1chassé rhythm. I got confirmation about this distinction on the following web page: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/aswin/SwingDancing/other_swing_dance_styles.html, where jive and ECS are compared.

When I try to dance triple step boogie-woogie to thereto fitted swing music ? and now I am talking about sixteenth rhythm swing ? I find it difficult to dance ½ ½ 1 and to use flat feet; the result is more 2/3 1/3 1and still maintaining some ankle action. I feel this fits (?overlays?) well the swing music. That is the reason why I started to listen more closely to swing music and found out that it is difficult to distinguish in sixteenth rhythm swing if musicians are playing ¾ ¼ 1 or 2/3 1/3 1. (I am not talking about triplet rhythm.) Some danceable songs may start smoothly (da de da) and end more accentuated (clearly pom ta dom); other songs have both rhythms at the same time: piano triplets over sixteenth percussion, etc. But again, a dancer does not dance to a music rhythm, he dances to a music feel, created by ? ? Help me. Rhythm surely, instrumentation, accentuation,? ? If it is already the case to sixteenth rhythm swing, I do not doubt that to triplet swing music 2/3 1/3 1 will be thé chassé rhythm felt comfortable with.

Now about jive, where the question started with. What I learnt about the jive chassé is as PantherSon described in his first post reaction. I am not convinced that jive only differs from (some kind of?) swing music by tempo.

Maybe your CD of Huey Lewis, containing ?Blue Monday? also contains the song ?Stuck with you?. This song has a tempo of only 31 bpm, and to me this is jive, not swing ! Moreover this tempo allows to fully develop the ¾ ¼ 1 jive chassé: good for exercise !

I wonder if jive in its origins/standardization has not been more influenced by rock and roll and therefore is more suited to rock music, with a more continuous and stronger beat accentuation. Swing music generally is richer (more varied) in (has different) instrumentation (e.g. piano) and contains shuffle beats. Again, help me, I?m not a specialist. If Elvis? ?Return to Sender? is the favorite song of Fred Bolder?s teacher to teach jive, I think it is o.k. It may be difficult to dance ¾ ¼ 1, as a beginner and because the tempo is high, but I would not ?theologically? accept any other tempo. Not for jive.

This being said, it is important to enjoy dancing in whichever way it feels good.

Question: is it possible that the jive chassé (3/4 ¼ 1) indicates the rhythmical expression that should be danced on all jive steps. Jive rhythm is in fact a 1 a 2 a 3 a 4, ? the ?a? being the straightening of the knees on both rock steps and the last step of the chassé, just (1/4?) before the next step is placed onto the toes. (This is also called ?delayed hip action?)

Last question: the ISTD book says that jive chassé may be replaced by single or double steps, but it is desirable that the basic rhythm of Q a Q (3/4 ¼ 1) is felt in the knees ? Do they mean this in the sence of my previous question (straightening of the knees) ? Or how can you feel the rhythm of three steps in your knees when you only put one step ?

Enough for now. I hope to learn more. Thanks in advance.

Erik

Hi there,

I want to give my comments on this topic. I think the size of the steps depends on the speed of the music. If the music is fast, you are not able to make large steps. There are also different beat values in the jive rhythm. I was a little confused about the beat values that Panther Son gave, but that could be a little typist's error. The beat values 3/4 1/2 1 don't fit in the jive rhythm. For as far as I know you kan have two different basic jive rhythms, which depends on the music.
The first one is very easy. It has the beat values 1 1 1/2 1/2 1 1/2 1/2 1. This is Back, Replace weight, Side, Close, Side, Side, Close, Side. So the beat values for just the chasse are 1/2 1/2 1.
The other one has a more swing feel with triples. The chasse has the beat values 2/3 1/3 1. If you listen to the music, you can recognize the triples. The hi-hat mostly plays X XX XX XX X.
If you use beat values like 3/4 1/4 1 then you have a Samba rhythm. It looks a bit like it, but it doesn't "swing". Download my self-made freeware dance software and you can try it. http://www.xs4all.nl/~fghb/ballroom.htm
If you choose the normal jive basic, you will have the beat values 1/2 1/2 1.
You can also open the "swing" variant wich has the values 2/3 1/3 1.
This is only how I understand the jive rhythm. I'm open for your comments.

Kind regards,

Fred

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Thanks for your helps, Panther Son!
As I learned, chasse figure has 5 steps (123a4), may be I'm not remember it's name exactly but I can describe it here. At 1st step the left foot is put behind the right foot, at 2nd the weight is moved to the right foot and then like Panther Son writed.
-Is there semeone can show me it's foot work in detail.
-At 1st step how far is the left foot put from the floor?
Thanks!

I should also mention that "feel" and "tempo" do not share any direct relationship with one another. You can have a slow song with either straight or rolled eighths, as you can have a very fast song with straight or rolled eighths.

The reason I bring this up is because it was suggested that it is the 1/4 beat subdivision that gives Jive its springiness. Actually, what makes Jive springy is the fast tempo. And whether you dance 1/3 beat or 1/4 beat at Jive tempo, either way it's going to be springy. Dancing a straight 1/2 beat subdivision might smooth it out, but no one here is arguing in favor of 1/2-beat subdivision, at least not for Jive.

This is also, by the way, why West Coast Swing happens to be such a smooth, low, slinky dance. Being one of the slowest forms of swing, it has the tendency to make dancers want to, well, slink. The style of dancing fits the style of music, both of which are strongly motivated by the tempo. This is why it is arguably more desirable to subdivide a straight-feel West Coast Swing into 1/2, 1/2 rather than 3/4, 1/4. If the goal is to be more smooth, then it's actually a good idea to divide beats more evenly.

Still, when a WC Swing dancer hears a song with rolled eighths, they're going to dance 2/3, 1/3. At a slow tempo, 2/3, 1/3 will seem very smooth, even though it's a very springy rhtyhm when played at a fast tempo.

Conclusion: Jive is separated by other styles of swing by tempo, not by musical feel. Almost all styles of swing are danced to songs of both straight and swing feel, (although the music is predominantly swing feel, rolled eighths). What gives Jive its springiness is tempo, not feel.

Reagrds,
Jonathan Atkinson

>> This being said, there is no reason for
>> me to discuss if musicians would play
>> ¾ ¼ 1 or 2/3 1/3 1. Still I want to share
>> my feeling that, certainly in quick tempo
>> music ? and that is what we are talking
>> about ? it is difficult to determin which
>> of both rhythms a band is playing, e.g.
>> in swing music. Maybe something in between ?

Oh no, not at all... There's nothing difficult about determining which musical feel (eg "swing" feel vs. "straight" feel) a band is playing, regardless of tempo. That's why we call it a "feel"... The difference between a beat divided into three parts vs. a beat which is divided into two (or four) is felt so naturally that it requires no cognitive interpretation whatsoever. You do not need to go through the process of analyzing and interpreting the number of subdivisions in a beat. You simply feel it as one or the other.

In fact, so natural is the concept of rhythmical subdivision to our musical nature as human beings that it's very difficult to dance against the feel... so much so that it takes a very skilled musician to do so. And as dancers, it would be a useless skill to have since doing so would make us look and feel off-time with the music that's playing.

I do have video of Donald Johnson & Katarzyna Kozak (British Open Rising Star Latin Champions) dancing Associate Jive to music. I'd love to use it as an example, but unfortunately, the music we used while filming is unlicensed, so I cannot publicly distribute the video clips on the website. I must first overdub some other music, which will make the video example useless for this discussion. But if you were to see this video with the original music, you would see that their steps match the beats of the music perfectly. And since the music is "swing" feel (that is to say, each beat is divided into thirds), they are undeniably dancing 2/3, 1/3, whole.

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson

Anton,

Funny you should ask. You know that film shoot with Donald and Kasia that we had a few weeks back? We filmed a whole set of Int'l Cha Cha, Samba, Rumba, and Jive steps.

Now it's only a matter of time before we process the video and post it to the website. I should warn you, however, that we do have plans to start charging money for the steps. The first few steps (maybe 5 or so) will be free, and the rest will be viewable to members who purchase them. The upside to this is that we can provide many more dance steps without the risk of overloading our bandwidth. Also, you'll be glad to know that it won't be on a pay-per-view basis; Once you purchase a step, you will have unlimited access to it.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson www.ballroomdancers.com

Hi,

I would like to give my idea and feeling on the jive chassé rhythm.

I believe there is no such thing as dancing on the ?chassé-rhythm? in jive music. Jive music is in no way determined by a kind of chassé-rhythm. Many good jive songs do not contain this rhythm subdivision. What is inviting to dance jive rhythm to a certain song is the repetitive accentuation of the beats of the 4 beat measure with strong accent of the 2nd and the 4th beat (generally the weak beats). Syncopation is another aspect characterizing jive-like music, and a ?chassé rhythm? may be ? but must not necessarily be present ? as syncopative fill out.

So I do not generally dance a jive chassé to ?chassé rhythm?. It is instead the accentuation of the weak beats that makes me want to ?bounce? (I know no better English word except of 'jive'). I believe it is particularly the jive chassé that allows to express this bouncy feeling.

This being said, there is no reason for me to discuss if musicians would play ¾ ¼ 1 or 2/3 1/3 1. Still I want to share my feeling that, certainly in quick tempo music ? and that is what we are talking about ? it is difficult to determin which of both rhythms a band is playing, e.g. in swing music. Maybe something in between ?

Now try for yourself to sing both rhythms: 3/4 1/4 1 and 2/3 1/3 1. In the first case I am singing ?pom pa dom?; in the second case ? in order to distinguish ? I am tempted to sing ?da de da?. I wonder if you still take me seriously, but I continue telling that ?pom pa dom? sounds more accentuated to me than ?da de da?, which is more smooth. I feel that the rhythm ¾ ¼ 1 allows/invites for more better ?bounce? expression than the other one.
From what I learned about boogie woogie (and lindy hop) and the differences of these dances with jive, I would understand that Americans are more used/inclined to dance 2/3 1/3 1 and even ½ ½ 1. To me this last rhythmical expression is unacceptable as jive. I think this different rhythmical interpretation explains why East Coast Swing is also danced more smoothly than our more springy jive. Also I wish to reply to Jonathan that I consider the music track he posted to be swing, not jive music.

Another issue is if one can actually dance the more syncopated rhythm. So much has to happen if one wants to dance the jive chassé correctly, that I think that the rhythm really danced is more likely to be 2/3 1/3 1 or at least more like something in between. On this quick tempo ?a? count you still have to change weight entirely, straighten knee and flex hip. In samba there is only partial weight shift. Nevertheless I feel that the 3/4 1/4 1 rhythm - even when only a theoretical concept - is to be strived for in jive.

I hope to read more here on this subject.