Dear Mistep,
This is certainly a vast subject, and since I don't have any examples of what specific music and dance styles you are talking about, I will address the subject generally, and perhaps others will join in and we can have a discussion on the subject.
First of all, there are many ways to count music. There are the ways that musicians do it, that are usually based upon musical principles. Then there are the ways that dancers do it, which to many musicians, sometime seems not to be related to the way musicians hear the music.
Dancers sometimes count the number of steps (usually up to 8 or 16 counts) or the number of weight changes.
Teachers teaching beginning dancers will often count in 4's or 8's in a way that is based upon how they hear the measures of the music, but not exactly related to the actual instruments or vocal passages, which may be syncopated. Let me give you some examples.
East Coast Swing.
A teacher may count with words, such as
Triple step, Triple step, rock step.
Or with numbers such as:
1 & 2, 3 & 4, 5 6
Swing music is usually divided into 4/4 time signatures (this is musician speak I am lapsing into now). And there are 4 quarter beats per measure. For those who don't know what this is, this means that the music is given a mathematical underlying structure, upon which all the other rhythms can be written out so they make sense to a musician who wants to understand the rhythm of the music.
A measure is often called a bar by dancers and musicians.
Any way, the basic step in East Coast swing takes up 1 and a half bars (measures) of music, leaving a half bar that hasn't been danced to yet.
What dancers and musicians both agree is an important thing to listen to in the music is the downbeat. In the above example, the downbeat would be the first quarter note in the music.
So, if you were starting out a basic step in East Coast Swing as a leader, you would probably listen for the downbeat to start your counting. The 1 of the dancers step below is also the downbeat. But next down beat comes on 5 of the rock step.
1 & 2
Triple Step
3 & 4
Triple Step
5 6
Rock Step
Now I am going to continue counting with numbers, but according to dancers count just to make a point.
7 & 8
Triple Step
9 & 10
Triple Step
11 12
Rock Step
The next downbeat would come on 9 then in the third sequence below; it would come again on 1.
1 & 2
Triple Step
3 & 4
Triple Step
5 6
Rock Step
So, you are only dancing the first step of the basic pattern to the downbeat every other time you dance the pattern.
Now what makes this more complicated is the fact that intermediate patterns have more than 6 dancer counts. For example a whip has 8 dancer counts.
And also in swing and other types of music, the musicians may not be playing the downbeat on a regular basis, so as a dancer, you won't actually hear it very often. The musician will be aware of the music structure, but be playing all over the place in the measures, especially if the music "swings" and is interesting to listen to.
More advanced dancers will be aware of the structure of the rhythm in the music and time their syncopations with a particular instrumental or vocal solo, or improvise their own rhythm as though they were a soloist themselves. But, most dancers don't have the musical vocabulary to tell you what they did in relation to the music. They are just gifted at hearing the music and doing it, but can't describe it well to others.
If you are the type of dancer that hears the down beat (whether it is played by the musician's or not) and say you are a beginning dancer, you may be very confused by the second repetition of the triple step, because you are waiting for the down beat to begin your second pattern. Some beginners I know pause for two beats and begin each basic step on the downbeat. If this is your particular way of doing things, you might find it easier to look for the downbeat every two basic steps and/or to count 1 through 12.
What guides you in dancing to the music at a beginning level is developing an internal metronome that gives you even rhythms and figuring out where the steps fit with that internal rhythm.
I know most dancers don't ever go into this level of analysis over count. They often do it by feel and when talking to others encourage them to feel the music.
But, I gave these examples because then you can see that the issues of counting and rhythm are really quite complex. And because of this, if you have someone criticizing your dancing and how you hear the music, you can know that they may not even understand how they do it or how to explain it to you.
I remember a comment that Ron Montez (an accomplished teacher and ballroom dancer) made in a workshop of beginners learning East Coast Swing. He was teaching basic patterns and then had everyone do them so he could see if they had learned what he taught. One of the beginners did their pattern to “the beat of a different drummer”. Ron said, "That was a very interesting variation. It wasn't what I want you to do as a beginner in this class, but I might use it in the advanced class later today." Everyone laughed.
I appreciated his comment because he wasn't putting the beginner down for the way he heard the music and because he acknowledged that the more advanced you get with dancing, the more you play around with the rhythms in the music.
Dancing and loving it,
Karen
[This message was edited by KarenL on 08-22-03 at 03:10 PM.]
So it is possible to learn it as an adult.