A friend and I have randomly decided to try and learn swing dancing together on our own (there’s no class available in our city). I’ve been looking at a few swing dancing resources online (such as this one), and all of the videos I’ve seen seem to be based on 3/4 or 6/8 (or something like that). However, most swing music that I’ve heard (like Benny Goodman’s stuff) seem to be in 4/4 time. Even stuff off the Swing Kids soundtrack is in 4/4.
Am I missing something? Is there an easy translation to go from 3-count steps to 4-count music?
The videos you’re looking at are of what is commonly called East Coast swing, which is indeed made up of mostly six-count steps. There are other variations of swing, including West Coast, Lindy, Balboa, Charleston, that are mostly eight-count steps. The six-count stuff is usually what people learn first, so if you aim to go dancing socially, you’re most likely to find people who can dance it.
You do dance to music in 4/4, it’s just that you’ll only line up your “one” step with the music’s “one” count 1/4 of the time. Even when dancing with 8-count movies, you’ll dance some 6-count steps as well.
Good on you for wanting to swing dance. I bet you’ll have a lot of fun with it.
Thanks! Would you recommend any 6-count music that would be good to practice with? Trying to learn 6-count steps with 4/4 music sounds a little daunting for beginners.
The fact that you can even tell that the music is 4/4 puts you ahead of most beginning dancers. A lot of them can’t even find the beat. I’d say practice to whatever swing music you want, and just deal with the fact that you won’t always start on the one. Note that the stuff from Swing Kids and the recent (late '90s) pop swing revival is all pretty fast. As a beginner, I’d start with something much slower. Old Frank Sinatra songs that most people would Foxtrot to are good.