Music and Movement

On Sunday night, I walked into my dorm room for the first time in about 4 weeks, and I saw my roommate setting up here brand new ipod dock. She played a few songs, and we both instantly started joking about how we should have a dance party, right there in our dorm room (minus the strobe lights..) It's really funny, my roommate is a biology major and I'm a music major, but every time we hear any kind of music we both start breaking down to some really embarrassing dance moves.

The other day in class when we were listening to the Johnny Cash song, I was looking around the classroom and more than half of everybody there was tapping their feet or bobbing their heads to the beat "Folsom Prison Blues." It's an involuntary reaction to music we hear that we like. Sure enough, I consciously recognized that I was actually bouncing my foot as well. I think music is some type of endorphin, it gets our blood pumping in a new sort of way that makes us fidgety. That's the only sort of way I really know how to rationalize the phenomenon.

My all time favorite music to listen to is gospel music. And when I say gospel music, I mean the kind where the soloist is busting the microphone with her booming voice and the choir is dancing, stomping, clapping..and singing "Hallelujah" in the background. It gives me goosebumps to hear it! There's something so spiritual about it, like your inner core is pushing you to clap along with them. Jessye Norman, though, also does the trick.

Even though dance/movement and music can exist apart from eachother, I still think that they can become closest to their truest purpose when used together. For instance, if you are playing a certain type of tune in band, like a waltz or a march. The director, try as he might, is not going to get the same type of affect from the band if he is standing still while conducting. Music needs energy, and more often than not that energy comes through in the form of body movement.

In my own experience, I've had plenty of times when music demanded movement. The first thing that pops into my mind is Musicianship class. How many times have we stood up and stomped, clapped, and circle danced the rhythms in class? It's all about feeling the beat, we all have a heart that pumps blood through our viens, and to feel that is to feel the pulse. Singers have some pretty crazy warm-up activties, we spin our arms and sing upside down, but it's sole purpose is to connect us to our bodies, and that's done through kinestic movement. There is this connection with the brain to movement that makes things happen for us, music being one of them.

Concerning Native American music, one Navajo man in the video we watched today mentioned that dancing the way he does grounds him to mother Earth. It's a spiritual activity for them, just like all music that we love has some type of emotional/spiritual meaning behind it and what better way to try and explain that to ourselves than through tapping our toes?