Why do dancers count 5678

Improve this question. Fabio Beltramini Fabio Beltramini 1 1 gold badge 2 2 silver badges 5 5 bronze badges. This is a great question. I remember from my theatre days that strict adherence to the 8 beat dance phrase often ran amok of the the musical time signature. I will watch the responses with interest, though suspect we are talking about Broadway practice emerging from the Princess Theatre days, into the heyday of the Broadway musical. Which was the Princess Theatre? I know of the Palace Theatre, as the home of American Variety.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. Improve this answer. Phillip Siebold Phillip Siebold 2 2 silver badges 5 5 bronze badges. I play for dancers so here's my take: The musicians are counting each bar with four beats per bar measure but actually there are only two accented louder beats per bar, on the "1" and the "3". This is sometimes true, but not always. So I don't think this really explains the observed use of 8-counts. Because of the way we write it down, musicians tend to count in bars-worth.

But, just like dancers, we PLAY in 2, 4, 8 bar phrases. There's no basic difference, bar the shouting :- — Laurence Payne. Joe Chase Joe Chase 1. The units of the beats are found in the bottom number. Some songs have one verse before the chorus, others use two verses to set up the chorus. Some songs have one verse after the chorus, others have two verses after the chorus to wrap up the story.

A refrain is a line also can be the title that is repeated at the end of every verse. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Arts What is an 8 beat rhythm?

Ben Davis November 25, What is an 8 beat rhythm? How do you count 8 counts in a song? For dancers, the helps all dancers in the group to start coordinated on the next beat i. An 8-count sheet looks much like an Excel document, with 46 rows of 8-counts for a mix or routine, and 27 8-counts for a routine.

Each row going across represents an 8-count just like you count at practice , and each of those 8 boxes is one beat of music as you travel from left to right. You know, when they want to begin another round of practicing some routine.

Does it have anything to do with the way musicians always say 1, 2, 3, 4? The tempo they say 5 6 7 8 gives the dancers the tempo speed at which they will dance. Dances are typically choreographed to phrase to the music. Most songs have some sort of intro section before the main phrases or verses begin.