[Music] hi we're Alex and desire and welcome to this little segment we call Bachata musicality yes what are you listening to what's going on with bachata music what are those instruments what are those sections so and also why is it important to understand a little bit more about the music is because the music is there first and that's what we dance to so the more you understand about what's going on in the music the better it will be and easier for you to interpret the music decide what uh how you're stepping how you're moving with
what intention so all of those things matter right the timing the uh energy behind the movements so in B to start off we'll name the five basic instruments that every Bach should know yeah five main instruments you have three guitars you have the rinto which is the primary guitar the lead guitar uh most notably that's the the guitar that you'll hear most often with the melody right you have the Segunda the secondary rhythm guitar you have the bass the bajo and then you have the two other instruments The Gua that's kind of like the cheese
grater kind of instrument and then the Bongo that's right and The Bongo is a instrument that we really use a lot of us kind of naturally hear The Bongo timing to really identify and establish the four four um time signature in the music so Bachata even though as dancers we count 1 2 3 4 5 six seven8 from a musician standpoint the music is just four four so it's 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 four beats per measure so what we're going to do now is we're going to show you some examples of
uh the how prominent the instruments are some songs uh it's a little bit more difficult to hear the instruments because they're all layered together um but we will show you kind of your favorite uh Dominican Bata songs so that you can understand where the um first we'll start off with Theo so just listen so the first layer uh and this is a skill set right to be able to F tune uh with your ears what you're listening to the most obvious beat that you hear is the that is the rinto that's the lead guitar and
it's always it played differently depending on the song but in terms of a more traditional sounding classic sounding Bachata you will identify the rinto because in a lot of Dominican style bachatas it kind of how the music introduces itself the the rinto is very very prominent uh for example like inos by [Music] Rodriguez so those are are actually the ones that we connect to a lot when we're uh listening to Dominicans da Bachata Now The Bongo the is also kind kind of clear instrument that you could hear you do have to pay a little bit
more attention so now what we're going to do is just kind of uh listen very closely The Gua will have uh constant ticks especially in the beginning during a Rhythm Section that we call the which by the way uh de talk to them about the three different Rhythm sections so there's three different Rhythm sections in b and it's important to know each instrument has a different role to play or a different sound in each Rhythm Section so the three different Rhythm sections are the Deo the Maha and the Mambo right three different Rhythm sections and
not all the time can you kind of identify them as the Verse Chorus the bridge kind of so to speak but roughly uh you can kind of associate them in those musical chunks like that um the theel like Alex said uh or like I was just saying every instrument plays uh something different in each Rhythm Section but first most notably at least for me it's easier to identify the D by The Gua because it has an obvious change and that's it goes from tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick into
the Maha which it slows down kind of lifting the energy a little bit to tick tick tick that's right so the energy rises in the music it elevates and usually the Maha is found Maha which by the way means to smash or to smush uh it's usually found in the chorus the Deo typically in diverse um and again the Maha in the chorus so we're going to listen to a song called byga and I want you to pay close attention we're GNA actually maybe go clap it out or with our laps where the D is
again you're looking for kind of a metallic sound in the music so here we [Music] go tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick uhhuh now it will change to the m is it for the [Music] chase again it's difficult to to to hear sometimes when the song is a little faster and it's also really really even more um noticeable when you are actually hearing live music absolutely a lot of the bachatas that we listen to which is also an important note kind of the way we distinguish in terms of the styles of Dominican Bachata
or more modern sounding Bachata is that the synthesization that happens Within the Music so um these are produced in studios there's a lot of great technology out there you have now ai that's producing oh my God not the AI but going back to to The Gua right I love it and the third Rhythm Section is the Mambo right the the Mambu is the kind of well we identify it's not the Maha and it's not the theel right but it's the the extreme lift of the uh of the song right the highest point in the song
and quite often times people are like oh especially in more of a Dominican traditional bachata song they're like is this mer right because the music is lifting so much and The Gua just can go off right it can start playing and and grooving in its own way um um and it's really really a high point of the song let's take an example of the Mambo section um again like Des said each instrument plays a specific role or plays a specific pattern uh within each Rhythm Section so when again the uh the Segunda the rhythm guitar
it will be really really hard to show you with uh just a regular song because it is really hard to hear the B is kind of the same in all the songs boom boom boom boom but the Rhythm uh guitar is definitely harder because it's layered between the bajo and the re which is aing ding ding and the other instruments but what we can show you though is an example of the Mambo section the heightened um energy part of the song uh This song is called aena by Frank Rees and actually to even help you
more with the instrumentation uh it's a live version so let's see if we can find the Mambo section here [Music] [Applause] this is the noce up [Music] down sometimes out so like this one you can [Music] the now here [Music] [Music] W it's so good it's so good Bachata so if you're watching this video you probably love pachata just as much as us we love pachata and sharing our passion with others and guess what there's other people just like you and me online this community is amazing we learn from each other enjoy amazing Bata from
the comfort of our own homes at the dance club so we hope you join our team today link Below in Bachata we have also the influence in terms of the music it's influenced by three other genres of music uh Bolero son and meren and in this particular song you really see the influence of Mer because it almost gets so high in energy that you begin to kind of just really sit into those hips and really rock with the music but again knowing noting that each Rhythm Section has the five instruments playing their specific patterns um
how is that again just bringing it back tying it back to the dance when good I I was just going to say that here uh it's important to understand like the lifts and the feels of the music um and that would correspond to how we're dancing right yep and it's really important to note that because we're dancing to the music we always want to match that intensity or that energy right because some bachatas are more flowy drifty right the instrumentation is not so pronounced or uh so heavy um and so we want to reflect that
in our dancing and not just with our feet but also in our lead and our follow right we don't want to dance rough or hard or anything like that if the song is going more um fluid more continuous but even if the song is really spirited and you're really feeling that that punch in the music don't punch anybody in the face don't punch anybody in the face but you still when we dance at least there's still a controlled aspect to our movements right and I think for for people who might not be uh who haven't
come to know Dominican Bachata on their first like the first part of their Bachata Journey like if you started with maybe other styles of dance and you're trying to figure out how to match the music in more of a bachata classica way I would invite for you to turn up the the basic movements that you already know and find more body movement in your your movements um maybe adding different uh Textures in the hip maybe different energies in the the the Cadence of the steps that you're using because the music is especially in this style
of music is not flat at all so for you to dance flat the entire time what does flat mean with the same energy right you don't want to start the the dance off at a 100 because then you have nowhere to go right you don't want to start dancing the holes song at this level and you just maintain the same thing because the music changes we we know that we have the three different Rhythm sections the Maha the D the Mambo right so the the Cadence and then the the nuances in the dance the energy
that you are transmitting through your frame to your partner should definitely change also we also describe kind of Two Worlds of dancing the street world and the afro Latin dance studio World Ballroom World whatever you want to call it and so it it is really important to note that the music doesn't change the same songs that we're we're using are are played everywhere all over the world especially now thanks to UNESCO who declared Bachata intangible Heritage we can enjoy awesome bachatas even when we're in very foreign countries very far countries like China or South Korea
and so what one thing is important to note is that because we dance this differently in different parts of the world it's important to know get a a really good musical ear to understand for example not just the the instruments but also get uh in tune with your timing in our kind of Afro Litin dance studio World We tend to dance uh at the top of the beat so we begin initiating our steps on one um or accenting the one two 3 5 six seven where in other parts of the world it is very socially
acceptable to dance on different timings so if you're used to stepping on one with your left leg maybe in other parts of the world you'll see people will start stepping on two or on three or on four which is okay which is okay but it is really important for you to identify where that is so that you can easily adapt and adjust to other dancers the whole point of dancing social dancing is connecting with your partner right and connecting with the music and so if you're connected with your partner and you're connected with the music
who's to say what is really right or wrong right it's all about what feels good and what looks good for you so um the the other point that I was going to say is about context right some moves there's two options here right you could hear you could try to hit something right on the nose what do I mean by that if the song goes bu bu bum maybe you use your flare pet right maybe you use out Cha Cha Cha but maybe you didn't want to hit it in that way and you kind of
wanted to leave some kind of negative space there out and know I I don't know but it's either twofold it's like you wanted to hit that or you didn't want to hit that if you know what you want to do right but sometimes when we dance um I'm just speaking now honestly when we dance or when I dance with a partner and they're interjecting other styles or forms of dance in the the dance that don't match the energy uh they're interjecting new moves that don't match the energy of the song then it just kind of
just doesn't feel as good right they're trying to hit music but it's the energy is not matching so I I think that's one way that you can definitely uh come back to the dance is by maintaining like the feel of the music thank you so much for joining us that was it for Bachata musicality just a brief introduction into the music a little bit more about interpreting the music we hope you enjoyed this uh little segment and we will see you next time bachos [Music] a [Music]
