Songs that ‘change direction’

As requested here are a few songs that ‘change direction’ from the dancer’s point of view – i.e. switch from 1 to 5.

Some of these tracks change during or after the intro – others change back and forth during the song.  Here are a couple of things that might help:

• Musicians think in 4-beat bars
• Salsa dancers tend to work with counts of 8 (i.e. 2 x 4-beat bars)
• Lots of instruments in salsa music play patterns that repeat over 8 counts (2 x 4-beat bars) and so often sections in a salsa song will be an even number of 4-beat bars
• In the songs where there is a ‘change of direction’ a section of the song will be an odd number of 4-beat bars and so the count, from a dancer’s point of view, will appear to be 1-2-3-4, 5-6-7-8, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 5-6-7-8

Shout with any questions – either here or in class… enjoy!