Minute Masterclass Episode 163

Welcome to your one-minute masterclass. I’m Andrea Trench, founder of DiscoverDance and creator of the Foundations Course for Early Childhood Dance Educators and the DiscoverDance Experience Membership. Today, we’re talking about performance music. A complicated piece of music can set your students up for failure before the choreography even begins. Choosing music that has a simple time signature will help dancers connect with the music and therefore help memory retention as the learning progresses. There are three types of music I recommend for preschool and under classes. First, I highly recommend new dancers perform to music that tells the dance. These are action or directive songs. The next stage of development can perform to music that tells the story and dancers match their movement to the story. From there, you can choose music that allows the dancers to tell the story. In this stage of development, the presence of both lyrics and instrumental music encourages the dancers to continue the story throughout the song.

For more information, to enroll in the Foundations Course, or to join the DiscoverDance Experience and access our full training on Improving the Choreographic Experience with specific music recommendations for each stage of development, visit DiscoverDance.com.