So You Think You Can Dance

Last summer, I wrote about my Olympic dream - to have a gymnast, skater, or synchronized swim team choose one of my pieces for their routine at the Olympics. Now that the summer TV season has started, I'll share my other dream - to have my music played on So You Think You Can Dance.

I love watching the first few weeks of this show, where the good and the diluted mingle in crowded hallways and take turns showing off for the judges. It's a panoply of dance styles, ability levels, and egos, and makes for some mesmerizing television. Most of the hopefuls choose their own music for this part of the show and I would just be thrilled and honored if someone were to choose one of my pieces for their audition. I think any of my Latin dances (Mambo Incognito, Las Mariposas Exoticas, Violet's Tango) would be appropriate for ballroom styles. Perhaps some of my more dramatic works (Gauntlet, Westward Motion, Agincourt) would work for modern dance styles and ballet.

This year's auditions are done and they usually use well-known songs for the voting segment of the show, but if you're thinking of auditioning for next season, please consider using one of my compositions - they're all available online at www.alfred-music.com.

Bachata Update

I've been sidetracked by a few other projects and commitments lately, but found time to work on my bachata last night. I put a few finishing touches on and added the optional percussion parts - bongo drums and guiro, which are traditional in bachata music. I'm really happy with this one and I'm excited to have written something unusual and interesting.

Whenever I write a piece like this it's always my hope that it will open student musicians to new things and lead then to explore music they hadn't considered or didn't know existed.

All that's left is to edit the dynamics and articulation, add bowings and rehearsal numbers, and get a printed version ready. Unfortunately, it might be a while, because my weekend is booked solid. Not that I don't enjoy prolonging the joy of the composition experience, especially since I'm so close to finishing.

Bachata

I've written tangos, mambos, waltzes, cha-chas, and a bossa nova that's going to be published next year. You might think I like dancing, but really I just embarass myself on a dance floor. Dances are simply fun to write and to play. Nowadays, with "Dancing With The Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" being such huge hits on TV, dancing (and especially the traditional ballroom styles) are more popular than ever. So when I sat down recently to write a new piece and decided that I want to do something different. I looked up "ballroom dances" online and found a dance that I've never heard of before - the bachata.

A few You Tube views later and I decided that I found my new inspiration. The bachata is a dance from the Dominican Republic, very similar to the merengue. The defining element of the bachata is an accent on beat four - what Wikipedia calls a "pop." The count is: 1, 2, 3, POP, 1, 2, 3, POP. It's a fast tempo (almost like a mambo), but the dance moves are often very close and romantic.

Bachata Video

It also turns out that the bachata has a long history and an established place in the world of latin dance, so it's curious that I'd never heard of it before. It has gone through several incarnations, stylistic fusions, and evolutions over the years.

So far, I've played around with bass lines and accompaniments to get the right "flow" and have come up with a good melody. I'm happy with my bachata so far and just need to come up with a B theme. I intend to play around with texture and dynamics on this one. So far, it's a lot of fun!