music or no music ?

[twinkletoes]

im always hearing people say that the noise you make with your tap shoes is like the music, does this mean that a tap dance would work with no music but your shoes making the music instead!? if any one has tryed this or seen it done please tell me what it was like

[mazzy]

hi
i have never seen anybody do tap without music - i'm not really sure how it would work. what some people do though, is have a tacit in the music (the music stops for a bit then starts again). if you keep in time then it can sound really effective but i think you definately should have some form of mucic even if it's just a backing beat or something! hope this helps

[Fred Astaire]

A tacit can be very effective, and the loger the tacit is the more impressive it becomes because it takes a lot of concentreation to make sure that you dont alter your speed so that when the music comes back in you are on time.

I have seen some people dancing without music and it can work very well - it only really works for very confident dancers though because the silence means that every beat you make is exposed.

Good luck with it

Fred

[Lucy]

your beats are like the music when you tap dance but i think what people mean is that your beats are the same a the music and that if listen to the song then you will know what step to do. i think music is important but i love the idea !

[tapper89]

Hi,

I'm at University of Birmingham, and on the committe of the Dance society (BUDS) there.
Our Advanced tap class, which I am part of, always performs in our annual show without music, and all our lessons are done without music. It is really quite difficult to keep everyone in time, and it takes a lot of practice, but I think if you can do it without music, it sounds so much better, and you can hear every tap, which is kind of the point of tap imo.

xx

[samantha]

I have tapped without music and it does work really well. But as people have mentioned it does need to be done well and by dancers that can pull it off! As you need to keep in time and trust everyone in your group to do it right.
If you perform on your own then you only have yourself to worry about, I suspose this can be a good thing or a bad thing.
I love tapping without music and seeing what sounds you can make. Any excuse to tap is good for me!
I have also danced many a tap dance with a tacit and it does take some serious concentration and hard work, but really good when it works.

Have fun with it.

[Fred Astaire]

In response to Tapper89 saying :-

and all our lessons are done without music

Do you find that a large group of peole tapping together over long periods of time have a natural tendancy to speed up?

How do you deal with this?

Fred

[sammy x]

i thinkl its good when a dancer is dancing there is bits in the music where its just quiet soo the tap dancer can add their own beat into that bit

[tapper89]

In response to Tapper89 saying :-

and all our lessons are done without music

Do you find that a large group of peole tapping together over long periods of time have a natural tendancy to speed up?

How do you deal with this?

Fred

I find this can be the case, but we tend to have one person, usually in the middle at the front of the group to try and keep the speed constant, and we all basically try and keep in time with the people either side of us/infront of us (if we're not in the front row).

I think it just takes a lot of practice, and everyone needs to get used to counting in their head throughout the whole dance for it to work + our teacher can count VERY loudly, so when we start to learn a dance we can just listen to his counting untill we get the general speed we need for each section of the dance.

xxx

[anne_lee]

im always hearing people say that the noise you make with your tap shoes is like the music, does this mean that a tap dance would work with no music but your shoes making the music instead!? if any one has tryed this or seen it done please tell me what it was like :D

Hi Id watch some dance doing tap in youtube.
and yes it is possible and entertaining to these modern generation we had