Anonymous. If in the International Style Rumba I step forward on beat one I am out of Rhythm. The Cha the same. If in the Samba on a Volta I cross my foot on an and count, and then step to the side on the count of one I am out of rhythm with the music.
If in the Foxtrot I start my Feather Step with my right foot on beats 3 4. instead of 1 2. I am out of Rhythm. That would not be the work of a genius. It would be the work of somebody who was never taught correctly. Socially it doesn't matter, although if there is any feel for the music at all it must feel awkward. There are some people who could dance a V. Waltz to a Tango. Or a Rumba to a Polka. So don't be ridiculous.

"If in the Foxtrot I start my Feather Step with my right foot on beats 3 4. instead of 1 2. I am out of Rhythm."

Not necessarily.

It depends entirely on why you did it - for a good reason or for a bad one.

If you did it in ignorance, or thinking that you were in the usual place in the music when you weren't, and expected the usual feather step character to result, then what you did is very bad.

But if you did it in full knowledge, knowing that this would give the feather step a very different character (almost make it a different figure), and that this character is what you intended to achieve, and what you do fits into a greater whole in a way that makes sense, then what you've done is demonstrate a more sophisticated artistic musicality in your dancing.

Obviously, you had better not attempt anything like that until you are very adapt at putting figures in the usual place in the music!

Anonymous. O.K. Why don't you just say that for some reason we may deliberately go out of Rhythm. But we should not continue out of Rhythm . That is why we have for one a Syncopated Open Telemark or various other steps that we can use to put us back into, on Time, in Rhythm and in Phrase with the music being played..

"I can tell the difference between two-bar phrasing and eight bar phrasing"

It's not a one-or-the-other, both units exist at the same time.

There's a smaller unit = pairing of each two bars. And a larger unit = grouping of each 8 bars. Sometimes the intermediate grouping of 4 bars is quite apparent, other times less so. But all of these exist at the same time.

I can't help it if you can't hear the musical phrasing. It's as clear as day.

There's a four bar intro, and eight bar phrases. Like many melodies, the tune can be viewed as a 4 bar question and a 4 bar answer, and each four bar part-phrase can be subdivided again, but there comes a point where you have no meaningful music left, just separate sounds.

It just won't do to claim that the music is in two bar phrases, just because that fits the way that a dancer has grouped basic figures into a routine: the music hasn't altered, and would be same if some idiot was dancing foxtrot instead. Use your ears, not your dance technique. Your ears will confirm that the music has eight bar phrases. There are no musical double-bars at any earlier interval - I don't need to see the score to tell that - I can hear it. The threads of melody pass straight through each pair of bars, and indeed, through the four bar subdivisions too.

Use your ears.

"It just won't do to claim that the music is in two bar phrases"

Except that it most certainly is in two bar units. And also at the same time, it is in eight bar phrases. And to a greater or lesser degree also 4 bar units. And beats, and pairs of beats, and subdivisions of beats...

"just because that fits the way that a dancer has grouped basic figures"

You misunderstand. These things divisions are all present in the music, regardless if the dancer chooses to reflect them in the dancing or not.

"Your ears will confirm that the music has eight bar phrases. There are no musical double-bars at any earlier interval"

There most certainly are - often spoken of as strong measures and weak ones. That is a MUSICAL concept, not a dancing one, though dancers would do well to pay some attention to it.

"The threads of melody pass straight through each pair of bars, and indeed, through the four bar subdivisions too."

Yes, but they also reflect these subdivisions even as they pass right through them.

Someone mentioned jazz. Get the chord changes for any common jazz tune and look at them; you'll see both the 2 bar pairs and the 4 bars sub-units very clearly reflected in the harmonic rhythm. An improvising soloist will make use of that, and so should a dancer.

"Use your ears."

Exactly, only you aren't yet using yours enough.

You could subdivide every beat into triplet figures, and say that there were nine counts every bar, and that the phrases were built in multiples of eighteen, but you would still be missing the obvious fact that the music has a four bar intro and eight bar phrasing.

Do you have any idea what a double bar is? Strong measures & weak ones? What?

"You could subdivide every beat into triplet figures, and say that there were nine counts every bar, and that the phrases were built in multiples of eighteen, but you would still be missing the obvious fact that the music has a four bar intro and eight bar phrasing."

No one is denying the presence of eight bar phrasing. However, we are pointing out that several other powers of two, especially the two bar unit, are reflected in the STRUCTURE of the music at the same time.

Your hypothetical triplet divisions usually are not, though I'm sure someone has written something where they would be.

"Strong measures & weak ones? What?"

Yes, the pairing of measures is a very important local structure in music. Think of it as the odd measures introducing and the even measures concluding. You may have to hunt up some sheet music and look at things like baseline accompaniments if you can't hear this yet, but it will be quite clear when you look at the progression of chords that make up the harmonic rhythm - measures are treated in pairs.

In some types of music, for example what we dance viennese waltz or tango to, it's extremely obvious, and we are quite in the habit of paying attention to it, in no small part because we commonly reflect that in our dancing. But in other music it's there too - we just may not be so much in the habit of listening for it.

These are concepts in the music itself. They'd be there even if no one was dancing to it.