| Dance music is music composed, played, or both, specifically for social dancing. In principle includes a huge variety of music, from waltzes to rock and roll and country or tangos. As of the late 1970s, however particularly for people who frequent nightclubs the term dance music has come to more specifically refer to electronic offshoots of rock and roll such as disco, house, techno and trance. Generally, the difference between a disco, or any dance song, and a rock or general popular song is that in dance the bass hits "four to the floor", at least once a beat (which in 4/4 time is 4 beats per measure), while in rock the bass hits on one and three and lets the snare take the lead on two and four. Dance music in the traditional sense, are musical forms supposed to serve as an accompaniment for a dance (at least formally). It can be either the whole musical piece or a part of a larger musical arrangement. An example of traditional dance music in the United States is Old-time music which is played at Square dances and Contra dances. alkimia xb alex bartlett djf symsonic alkemia In the Classical era, the minuet gained dominance, usually as a third movement in four-movement non-vocal works such as sonatas, string quartets, and symphonies. The waltz also arose later in the Classical era, as the minuet evolved into the scherzo (literally, "joke"; a faster-paced minuet). Both remained part of the Romantic music period, which also saw the rise of various other dance forms like the barcarolle, mazurka, and polonaise. In the Baroque period, the major styles were noble court dances, which were often derived from folk dances. Examples include the allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. |