by Matt Barber Author, Columnist, and Dance Professional
Is it really possible for a “musical moron” to learn how to ballroom dance? Allow me to start off with an emphatic: YES! Anybody can learn how to ballroom dance!
I, Yours Truly, Matt Barber, won a dance competition the year before I failed an introductory music class. If this musical moron can learn how to ballroom dance, then You can learn how to ballroom dance, too!
When I first started learning how to ballroom dance, I knew absolutely nothing about music, beats, bars, etc. In fact, at least one of my ballroom dance partners would argue a decade later, I still knew nothing about music! Regardless, my music knowledge, or lack thereof, never prohibited me from achieving quite a few remarkable dancing goals in my dance journey, and it shouldn’t stop You from taking Your ballroom dance lessons either!
I am of the sincere belief that there is very little about music that one absolutely needs to know in the beginning of his or her dance journey. In the beginning, learning the dance steps and the dance culture, via private lessons, group classes, and (shameless plug) Beginning Ballroom: Why’s, Do’s, Don’ts, and Shoes, is more than enough to fill one’s plate. It sounds awful, but the necessary information about music only seems to get added into the private lessons on a need-to-know basis. Trust that Your instructors know what they’re doing and that they will make sure You are introduced to everything You need to know, when You need to know it.
Thus, my advice is simple: don’t worry about what You don’t know, and practice hard the things You’ve been introduced to. It will all come together in time. So relax and enjoy the process!
About the Writer:
Matt Barber, author of Beginning Ballroom: Why’s, Do’s, Don’ts, and Shoes, first encountered ballroom dancing as choreographed routines onstage for musicals and began ballroom lessons in high school. At eighteen, Matt started training to be an instructor with National Dance Clubs as a side job in college; he went on to teach in the independent world, for Arthur Murray International, and for Fred Astaire Dance Studios. At the same time, Matt graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan and acquired an SB from Fordham University, his MS, and his business management and leadership training from Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business.
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