Dance
Movement music with metric clarity.
What it means
Dance designates the rhythmic movement of the body to music, and in music at the same time the genre of those pieces that accompany such movement or arose from it. Dance music is one of the oldest and most widespread forms of music-making.
Characteristic of dance music is metric clarity: a clearly felt pulse, a fixed time signature, a regular division into sections whose length corresponds to the dance figures. Every dance has its own rhythm, its own tempo, and its own accentuation — the waltz its triple metre with a heavy one, the polka its duple metre, the sarabande its accent on the second beat.
A distinction is to be made between music intended for actual dancing and stylized dance music, which takes over the features of a dance but is meant for listening. The Baroque suite consists of such stylized dances.
In the notation
Dance music is recognizable by its clear time signature, its regular phrase division into multiples of four or eight bars, and its recurring rhythmic patterns. Repeat signs are frequent, since dance sections are played several times.
Musical use
Dance has shaped the music of every era. Forms such as the suite, the minuet, and the scherzo arose from dances. Folk dances became social dances, and these became art forms. To this day, dance music is an essential part of popular music.
Dance music accompanies movement and is therefore shaped by clear metre, regular phrases, and recurring rhythms. In art music, dances were stylized and taken over into suites, sonatas, and symphonies. Minuet, waltz, and polonaise are examples of dances that found their way into the concert hall. Jazz, too, arose as dance music. Many dance names point to their origin, for instance polonaise, anglaise, or allemande.
Performance practice
Know the character of the respective dance: tempo, accentuation, and step sequence determine the shaping. Keep the pulse reliable. Accent the typical points of weight. And even with stylized dance music, the movement should remain palpable — a dance that no longer sounds danceable loses its sense.