Playing for Swing Dancers
A guide for bands
We have written this article to help bands who are booked to play for our events, but other bands and swing dance event organisers may also find it useful.
As with jazz music itself, this document should be seen as a set of core rules or principals, around which you can experiment and improvise.
Our main dance style is Lindy Hop, which evolved alongside swing music in the 1930s and 40s in Harlem, New York.
When you think of Lindy Hop, you might imagine fast acrobatic dancing. While this high energy dancing can sometimes be seen in performance and competitions, it is not how we tend to dance socially, especially in a local scene such as ours.
Many of our dancers are still learning (as we all are), and therefore our aim is for the music at our events to be accessible to them. More experienced dancers can still feel challenged by slower tempos, as they will have more time to be playful and to experiment; as indeed will the musicians.
One of the core features of Lindy Hop, is the triple step, which generally happens on beats 3 & 4. Unlike a cha cha cha, which is evenly spaced, the first of these three steps is held or stretched (ste…..p, step step) to match the uneven rhythm of swing music. The second and third steps are squeezed into the remainder of the bar, over approx 1.25 beats. The music needs that swinging rhythm for the dance to feel right.
A good way to test if a tempo is too fast, is to try triple-stepping to it yourself repeatedly (so that’s six steps to a bar), then try moving around backwards, forwards, sideways, etc. If you can’t move around in a relaxed manner, then the music may be too fast.
Here are some examples of some nice swingy tunes with a relaxed and steady, beginner friendly tempo:
Ella Fitzgerald – Smooth Sailing
Preservation Hall Jazz Band – Louisiana Fairytale
Duke Ellington – Kentucky Avenue
Another thing you’ll notice about the tracks linked above, is that they all come in at under 4 minutes in duration. We would really like it, if you can play a longer set list, with such shorter tunes. That way, we can switch dance partners regularly, which keeps things interesting, and gives the evening a sense of momentum about it.
The exceptions to the rule on duration, are if it’s somebody’s birthday, or we have a snowball or jam circle. You’ll be able to tell, because we’ll all be standing in a circle and clapping. In these situations, please try and keep going for say 6 or so minutes, until the dance has reached its natural conclusion.
We hope that you don’t find the above requests at all restrictive. As dancers, we love to hear the band having fun, and bouncing off one another. When it works well, you’ll inspire creativity in us, and in turn us in you, with any luck. There’s a lovely moment in the Ella track (linked above) where the musicians break and she solo scats for 2 bars. We love those kind of moments, which punctuate the rhythm and therefore also the dance.
Above all, please have fun. If you enjoy it, then hopefully so will we. Try to avoid asking dancers if they want ‘a slow one or a fast one’. While such variations can break up a set nicely, the answer is almost always “somewhere in the middle please!”
Further reading:
A Quick Note On Coaching Bands To Play For Dancers – Swungover blog