Characteristics of a Good Dance Band

Part One

By Paul Stachour

I've danced in many different places, with many different dance bands and DJs. The suitability of the dance music varied significantly, at least to my perception. I started asking myself questions such as, "What makes a good dance band?", "Can I characterize a good dance band?", and "Can I measure the characteristics?"

An Internet search gave little meaningful data. A typical answer was, "One where lots of people are dancing." Unfortunately, answers such as this give us few clues as to what actually makes a good dance band, or how to guide a good show, concert or exhibition band into becoming a good dance band. It is somewhat like saying, "Try to set a building on fire, and if it does not burn, then it was designed for good fire-protection." A better way would be to enumerate, is the material in the building wood, stone, steel, etc., and what are the fire-resistant characteristics of each of those materials.

In this article, I'll provide a number of measurable characteristics that may be meaningful in determining the suitability of a dance band. I'll discuss each characteristic, and indicate to you why I feel that a band that measures well on those characteristics, is a good dance band.

Before I provide and discuss the list, it is important to say that there is one key thing that affects the success of a dance band more than any other, because it is what drives the characteristics that we see. It is the bandleader. The bandleader is the one who knows, or does not know what is happening, whether it is good or not, and what to do if adverse effects are observed. Often this knowledge of the best kind of songs for dancing comes from years of experience, handed down from an older generation. One would think that a bandleader would know and handle the characteristics appropriately; indeed that is true when there is a good dance bandleader. Notice that being a good bandleader for some other kind of band (such as John Phillip Sousa for a marching band, or someone as bandleader for a concert band, jazz band, or bar band) does not necessarily make that person a good dance bandleader. I’ve observed that most dance bands don't usually start out as dance bands. They adapt their playlists, once dancers tell them what is danceable.

The audience for this article is threefold:

A bandleader without the years of experience playing in a dance band described above, who would profit from knowing some definitive and measurable characteristics.
A band scheduler who schedules dance bands for dance venues, who has a choice of which band to hire, and is looking for some way to measure the goodness of the possible choices.
A dancer who has the choice of several dance venues to attend, where there are bands that they are not familiar with, and is looking for a good way to make a decision as to where to dance.

The characteristics I've identified are:

Loudness
Variety of dances
Indication of dance type
Proper tempo
Duration of dance
Decade of music created
Regularity of music timing
Vocalist synchronization
Flexibility in mapping dances to audience
Challenging the audience
Mapping dances to dance venues
Variety of songs

Characteristic One is loudness. The dance band needs to be loud enough to be easily heard on the dance floor, while being soft enough so that those not dancing may converse in a normal tone. One might need to do a special setup of where the band is, in relation to the dance floor and the seating area, or how the electronic amplification and speakers (if any) are placed. However, the most important loudness item is that it be soft enough that no ear damage is caused by the music. As the foundation for doctors is the Hippocratic Oath of "do no harm," the same should hold true for dance bands. According to dangerousdecibels.org, this is eighty-five dB (busy city traffic) for eight hours. Unfortunately, many people and many bands associate loudness with goodness and wind up destroying hearing. Since hearing loss is cumulative over a lifetime, it is important that the dB level be low enough. A New York City band musician told me that venue owners told him that one of the reasons they were replacing dance bands with dance DJs is that the bands were too loud, and kept being too loud even after being warned. Bands should allow time for a sound check, and define a protocol to be used to tell them if they become too loud. An appropriate measure might be that the dB level never ever goes over ninety-four dB and that the percentage of time over eighty dB is less than twenty percent.

Characteristic Two is the variety of dances that are played. It should be obvious to all that not everyone is equally competent in all of the dances. Nor does everyone want to do the same kind of dances. The best dance bandleaders will know their clientele personally, and they will know what mix to select. A band that plays only one kind of dance, say foxtrot, will seldom be able to get everyone up on the floor to dance, even over the course of the total dance event. Except in the special cases where a dance event is focused on one particular kind of dance, or the style is paired items, one kind of dance should hardly ever be played twice in a row. An appropriate measure might be how many different kinds of dances are played at a given dance event. Another measure might be how many different dances are played before the same kind of dance is repeated.

Characteristic Three is an indication by the dance band of the kind of dance that is being played. Not all dancers, especially beginning dancers, are capable of recognizing in a short time period, what kind of dance is playing. If they don't know which dance it is, it is unlikely that they will attempt to dance. This indication could be done by a printed program, by announcements by the bandleader, band vocalist, or by showing titles/artists/dance types on a screen, or other similar mechanism. An appropriate measure might be the percentage of dances which are properly identified by type of dance.

Characteristic Four is proper tempo. A variety of dance organizations (e.g. USA Dance) publish lists of what is the "proper" tempo (for exhibitions and competitions), usually in measures per minute or beats per minute, for each kind of dance. We know that a tempo that is too fast or too slow makes a particular dance more difficult to do. An appropriate measure might be what percentage of dances are played within that proper tempo range, or very close to it, since the guidelines for social partner dancing can be less strict than that for competitions.

Characteristic Five is duration of dance. If one looks at the professionally prepared CDs, such as those from DVIDA8 in the USA, or Studio Tanz Orchestra* in Germany," one observes that more than three-fourths of the tracks have a duration of between two and three minutes. Consider the tasks necessary for a dance: a) recognize what the dance is, b) think about one's own proficiency in that dance, c) decide who to ask, d) ask them; hopefully receiving a yes, e) go to the dance floor, f) do the dance. The duration needs to be long enough for all of the tasks, but not so long that one does all of the patterns one knows several times, or one starts to get somewhat tired and the dance still continues. Note that this characteristic also interacts with number one, variety. If a typical dance duration averages six minutes, then there would be only ten dances in an hour. If it averages three minutes, there would be around twenty dances in that same one hour period. This would allow for much greater variety. If someone at a dance does not dance for ten to fifteen minutes, they are very likely to leave, or to tune-out. Short dance durations mean more dances in a given time period, and make it less likely that someone will leave. An appropriate measure might be what percentage of the dances has a duration of between two and three minutes.

Check in next month for the second half of this article to learn about more characteristics of a good dance band!