Basic Music Structure, Part 1 - for Lindy Hop and Swing Dance

The topic of musicality can be obvious to some, and totally baffling to others. This resource is meant for students and educators to help break down this material.

As dancers, we're supposed to look like how the music sounds, and a huge part of that is observing and predicting changes that occur in music through things like musical structure or macro musicality. However, hearing those changes can be really tricky for some.

In this video, we'll talk about hearing the differences between 3 basic structures (AABA, ABAC, and Blues), and we'll talk about some of the differences in terminology between dancers and musicians. We'll also listen for different musical features to help make the changes more obvious.

02:11 AABA Explanation
03:42 ABAC Explanation
05:30 Blues Structure Explanation
07:04 How to Hear Phrase / Chorus Changes
08:03 Practice Listening to the Background