Characteristics of a Good Dance Band

Part Two

By Paul Stachour

Last months issue covered characteristics one through five. This month will examine the remaining characteristics.

Characteristic Six is old versus new (decades). This is when the music/song was written or was popular. Having nothing but 1930s big-band music is probably wrong, as would be having nothing but songs
popular in the 2010s. Unless a dance event is designed to feature only one era of music, an appropriate measure might be to place each song into a decade box, and then calculate the closeness to a
uniform (also called rectangular) statistical distribution measure.

Characteristic Seven is regularity of timing. While much of music for listening increases enjoyment by having speed-ups, slowdowns,
pauses, and intensity changes, this is not true of music for dancing. Dance music needs regularity in its tempo. Dancers depend upon a steady beat, and a regular and recognizable cadence, in order for
them to work together as a pair. Indeed, a guidance given to newer dances is often phrased similar to, "If you lose track of what is happening, just keep your feet moving to the defined rhythm
pattern, within the basic pattern of the dance, and things will be OK as the rest is being re-established." An appropriate measure might be to enumerate the duration between beats for all beats of the
song, and then to calculate closeness to a uniform statistical measure.

Characteristic Eight is vocalist synchronization. While only instrumental music is required for dancing, and indeed dance
competitions are typically performed with only instrumental music, vocals are nice for variety. However, often the vocalist does not follow the beat fully. They speed up, slow down, hold longer, etc.
This is not a problem, as long as the vocal intensity is not loud enough as to camouflage the underlying beat. When it is, the dancers have trouble hearing the beat to keep their dance going properly.
An appropriate measure might be the percentage of vocalist deviations from the instrumental beat.

Characteristic Nine is mapping dances to audiences. Each audience has particular knowledge, skills, and perceived wants. It is often not clear what dances an audience is capable of doing. For example, if the scheduler of the band has indicated that they want lots of West Coast swing (WCS) played,
but the bandleader observes only a few of the people dance when a WCS song is played, and only the simplest patterns, then the band should be flexible and play fewer WCS dances than planned. Note that
bands that play at the same venue to similar audiences regularly have an easier time than, for example, a cruise ship's dance band where the audience changes frequently, and rapidly. An appropriate
measure might be the percentage of people who are dancing, averaged over all dances at a dance event.

Characteristic Ten is challenging the audience. In the interests of expanding the dance community,
the dance band should occasionally play something that it expects that only a small portion of the audience (or perhaps even no one) can do. Examples of such dances might be polka, quickstep, paso
doble, or Peabody. An appropriate measure might be a very small percentage of the total number of dances, probably one or two dances over the course of a dance event.

Characteristic Eleven is mapping dance types to dance venues. Some dance venues are better than others for certain types of dances. For example, a dance band should probably not play a quickstep or a Viennese waltz when the size of
the dance floor is quite small, unless specifically requested. An appropriate measure might be the percentage of dancers who are taking long steps for the progressive dances as opposed to those who
are being forced to take short steps.

Characteristic Twelve is different music. While the band most likely has a portfolio of songs that they play often and well, they should also look for, and play
other songs. I do not mean new music, that is music recently composed (although it could be recent); I mean that which is different from their usual style. For example, it might be playing "Home on
the Range" as a waltz with a Japanese feeling. An appropriate measure might be a percentage of such to the total number of dances. A good measure might probably be one or two dances over the course of
a dance event, or around five percent.

Characteristic Thirteen is repetition. Even if there is a good variety of kinds of music at a dance event, if the order is such that there are lots of one kind
of dance in a row, people who do not do that dance might leave. Unless there is a requirement for a defined group (e.g., Argentine Tango Tanda), there should hardly ever be more than three in a row or
more of the same kind of dance, preferably never the same kind of dance twice in succession. Also, one should also not have a large number of progressive dances or spot dances in succession. An
exception to this three-in-a-row characteristic might be appropriate when most of the dancers are relatively new to partner dancing, thus needing one dance to observe and understand, before they get
up to dance themselves. An appropriate measure might be to calculate the factorial or Fibonacci value of the number in a sequence, add all of those values together, and divide by the total number of
songs in that dance event. The closer the result is to 1.0, the better.

While I believe that these characteristics and associated measures are not fully sufficient to show that a band is a good dance
band, I've observed that a band which rates well on many of these measures, gets a much higher percentage of people out on the dance floor and actually dancing. After all, that's the objective, isn't
it? I've noticed most show/exhibition bands do not make very good dance bands, compared to bands which I consider good dance bands. They don't get as high a percentage of
people dancing. However, when such bands continue to play for dances, over time they do evolve into a real dance band, one which serves the partner dancing community well. In my opinion, it is because
they, either explicitly or subconsciously, become better in many of the characteristics which have been identified in this article. The Twin Cities are fortunate to have a number of
good dance bands. The two which I dance to most frequently are the Jerry O'Hagen and Tim Patrick dance bands. In my opinion, they would do quite well if formally measured according to the identified
characteristics. Two newer ones are the Red Rock and SteamHeat Swing Bands. For a future article, I hope to develop and describe a procedure with which one could record their observations and
calculate a reasonable measure of a dance band's suitability. While this write-up was prepared with dance bands as the primary objective, the measures should be equally applicable to dance DJs. In closing, I wish to acknowledge the assistance of David Braynard, the bandleader on a cruise ship I was recently on, for his assistance in the
preparation of this article.