Raise your hand if you haven’t heard that the Clave is the most important instrument in Cuban music – and in Salsa in particular. Yet, during lessons and when you go out dancing, ultimately, all you need to know is how to dance On1. Are you sure there isn’t anything else interesting for us dancers when it comes to Cuban music?
Let’s start from your perspective
Most likely, in class, you’ve been told that Salsa is danced On1, and you’ve easily started dancing with the help of the teacher counting the steps for you – the famous “1-2-3 5-6-7.” Let me say this right away: I’m a big supporter of this teaching method – for beginners – because it makes the lesson accessible, efficient, and effective. After all, we all dance primarily to have fun: as dancers, we’re interested in dancing, and this simplification allows everyone to hit the dance floor right away!
However, counting also has its limits! One in particular, which is important to keep in mind, is that those who dance while counting tend to move in a very mechanical way. What does that mean?
Dancing is a form of communication that takes place through the movements of your body. Nonverbal communication is crucial because it conveys emotions authentically and truthfully. And this is where the musical component comes into play, capable of creating emotions that we dancers perceive and express through our body movement.
Each of us experiences these emotions uniquely, both in quality and intensity, which is why it’s essential for the dance to express the emotion we feel, reflecting the same intensity that each of us carries inside. This is the key to everything: developing an inner connection and make every movement meaningful.
When this inner connection is missing, movements tends to be “cold,” performed exactly as they were learned in class, without any internalization. Those who learn to dance by imitating their instructor still have fun because it’s the easiest method to begin with. Not surprisingly, the most popular teaching formula is to teach choreographies that students must imitate, and the teacher just corrects those who move differently from them1.
For beginners, it’s entirely normal to want to imitate their teacher and focus on choreography. At the beginning, after all, one learns to became aware of their body and moving like the instructor is a way to feel reassured that they are doing things correctly. So, those who are interested in dancing purely for fun/leisure and without deeper commitment can absolutely be happy with this method.
However, it becomes reductive and limiting for those seeking a different perspective in dance. Just “moving” is one thing; truly experiencing dance in all its nuances is another!
In dance, there are no shortcuts.
As mentioned earlier, it’s important for you to have clear goals. As long as you only want to learn a few moves – or execute steps with more confidence – you can easily enjoy dancing with what you already know. On the other hand, if you want to experience dance in a more exciting way you must accept that it’s necessary to train your musical ear.
Why? Because our body moves according to how we perceives rhythm and melody. In Cuban music, this means learning about important instruments like the Clave and the Congas, for example, and doing so from a dancer’s perspective. This means identifying the accents of these instruments and knowing how to mark them appropriately with the steps, or (better), using steps to cover missing accents and so blending fully into the music. This requires developing an “inner rhythm” and knowing how to express it by dancing.
This is why those classes that are predominantly theoretical, or based on a choreography build on a specific song like in workshops, well, simply don’t work: students do not learn anything in this way.
Instead, you need to learn to isolate each instrument and dance by focusing solely to it. Over time, pieces come together forming the complete movements. For you as a teacher, this means playing only the Clave and explaining your students how to step in the presence of just the Clave, playing the Congas and explaining them how to dance in the presence of just the congas. And so on. Once the student master sufficiently each individual instruments, it’s time to move on to combining two or more of them – for example, the Clave and the Congas together. The learning path is complete when the student can recognize and master all the instruments (or at least the most important ones) – though is not really necessary to reach such a deep knowledge.
For students, a path like this takes some time – and practice – but it’s really easy if you have a convincing and compelling explanation! The good news is that you can achieve great results without even going so far: you need only the key instruments (Clave and Conga) to get already to the next level.
Conclusion
Each of us is attracted to Salsa for different reasons, so there are no “right” or “wrong” approaches. The importance of building a background in rhythm and musicality depends on how much one wants to improve.
We all have musical tastes that lead us to prefer some songs over others. This means that we are already capable of feeling emotions through music even without ever having formally studied Cuban music. This doesn’t mean that deepening the knowledge is useless: rather, it allows us to appreciate details and nuances that make us feel emotions more intensely, enjoy the dance more deeply and dance to our best potential.
Rhythm and musicality are often seen as demanding or uninteresting topics. In my opinion, this happens because most rhythm and movement courses focus on the wrong things, which have little value for dancers – leaving the feeling, at the end of the course, of having gained nothing concrete. A real shame, because “Salsa” music is truly beautiful, and that beauty should be enhanced rather than buried!
Rhythm and body movement always go together, and treating them separately is a major methodological mistake.
Remember that the improvement process isn’t just “vertical,” meaning limited to master a single aspect more and more. Instead, it’s also “horizontal” and involves numerous elements which, when combined, shape the dancer as a whole and define his/her unique essence.
My advice is to change your perspective: don’t focus on “what I need to do to ..” but rather think about the dancer you will become as you internalize the various nuances of the “Salsa” rhythm and music!
1. One important observation is that this principle applies at any level! Even the most advanced course, if based primarily or exclusively on choreographies to memorize and imitate, will continue to bring dancers to a level which is well below their true potential.