Bring Standard Music into the 21st Century

03-13-2002, 11:59 PM

<<2LF>>

quote:
Originally posted by Yvonne:
Latin dance music has bridged the gap between the traditional and the new, incorporating modern forms of music from reggae to electronica. What about Standard? Any suggestions?

As far as Waltz goes, there are some newer styles,
like those of Secret garden and Enya.

03-14-2002, 01:53 AM

Michelle

It's not too hard to find modern music for QS, but here are a couple of "modern" songs for the remaining Standard dances: (Some of them are Christmas songs though...)

EW:
C?line Dion - Brahm's Lullaby
Vanessa Williams - I Wonder As I Wander
Des'ree - I'm Kissing You (Romeo & Juliet OST)
Simply Red - If You Don't Know Me By Now
Lionel Richie - Three Times A Lady

SF:
Elton John - But Not For Me
Aerosmith - I Don't Want To Miss A Thing
Sinead O' Conner - I Want To Be Loved By You / Love Letters / Secret Love
S Club 7 - Never Had A Dream Come True
Christina Aguilera - These Are The Special Times

Tango:
Michael Jackson - Beat It
Lara Fabian - 'Till I Get Over You
Anastacia - I'm Outta Love
Cher - Believe (Tango Remix)

VW:
Bon Jovi - I Wish Every Day Could Be
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris
Seal - Kiss From A Rose
Mariah Carey - O Holy Night
Tom Jones - What's New Pussycat

Hope this helped... [Wink]

03-15-2002, 11:15 AM

B. McClinton

But why stop with the music? The most dated aspect of standard is the costuming. On what social occation would you ever see men in "white tie and tails?" To me, it seems strange to dance to Aerosmith in tails.

Blair

08-11-2002, 10:38 PM

Yvonne

While I do like the look of white tie and tails I guess an updated look for the guys wouldn't be a bad idea if we're going to change the music. What do you suggest?

08-11-2002, 11:25 PM

Chris Stratton

quote:
Originally posted by Yvonne:
While I do like the look of white tie and tails I guess an updated look for the guys wouldn't be a bad idea if we're going to change the music. What do you suggest?

Well just don't try catsuits, okay? Way before my (dancing) time but I hear it was a disaster. Guess vest and long tie works well (a local guy won a studio comp this weekend in a vest and a _dark color_ shirt that looked very good compared to the white shirts everyone else was wearing - of course his dancing had a lot to do with it too!) Personally though I'm looking forward to aquiring a tailsuit - ballroom dancing is one of the most formal and elegant things I'm going to get to do in my life, and I figure I might as well take as much advantage of that as I can.

Oh and as for the music, why not skip to the 24th century with the "Inner Light" waltz from Star Trek [Wink]

08-11-2002, 11:53 PM

90%Attitude

I'been looking around for new standard music, too, but not a great deal of success. (A few Natalie Cole and Anita Baker pieces are exceptions, but even they are updates of old tunes like "Unforgettable" and "Body and Soul".)

The problem appears to be that popular ballroom music always derives from popular social dance music. Latin dancing is hugely popular, standard is not. If you could dance standard to hip hop, we'd have it made. So we're kind stuck.

08-12-2002, 08:58 AM

Chris Stratton

quote:
Originally posted by 90%Attitude:
I'been looking around for new standard music, too, but not a great deal of success.

Movie soundtracks are one of the few places that composers can still write traditional forms for a modern audience. And they turn out some good ones now and then - I'm not real familiar with all of these, but in waltz people have tried to dance to some theme from "Band of Brothers", "It is You" from "Shrek", etc - we were having fun with something from "Dances with Wolves" last night. There was a nice song from Titanic that's been forced to cover just about all 10 dances (the Paso version being my favorite - for humor value). Disney and co are doing a halfway decent job of keeping quickstep alive.

It's my feeling that while no longer popular, ballroom dance and its music still exist in our cultural memory enough that they are regularly conjured up in movies, advertisements, etc - and some of the things created for that purpose work (or can be re-recorded to work) for dancing.

That said, there certainly are gaps... haven't seen much in the way of contemporary slowfox, for example - of the tons of music that does get written in 4/4, most is either too fast or too sad and just lacks that effortless swing and walking character.

08-12-2002, 11:13 PM

Dronak

Is the problem that people don't want to give up the older music or is it that there just isn't that much new music suitable for ballroom dancing? I get the impression that it's the latter. I think other comments are right, too, that if the style of dancing is more popular, you'll tend to have more songs written for it. Standard isn't exactly sweeping the nation. I'm sure there is some suitable, more modern, music for standard; I know I've heard a few Harry Connick, Jr. songs played as foxtrots. But for the most part, a lot of songs written now just don't have the same ballroom feel as older music. I think that's why we still use it, it's the most suitable music available. At least here, I hear a Strauss (or at least similar style) waltz played for Viennese waltz now and then and how old is that music? You play what works. If there's no good, modern music written that you can dance standard to, people aren't going to play it. They'll go back to the older music that works for standard. I don't know if there's any easy solution to the problem, but I do think that we have it because people aren't writing many ballroom suitable songs now.