If you’re doing it right, everybody will be dancing.

- Daft Punk

I find that different types of music appeal to people through different avenues. All good music makes us feel more in touch with our humanity and elevates our spirit. But some music makes us want to move and dance, some tugs at the heartstrings, and some helps us get lost in the recesses of our thoughts. And most music does a combination of those things. Because I am a dance musician, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about (and learning from trial-and-error) what inspires people to move.

Over the years, I’ve come to feel that music is “of” the Body, the Voice, or the Mind. Styles or individual pieces of music tend to skew mostly towards one type. Here are some typical characteristics:

Body: Steady or driving rhythm; repetetive melodic/harmonic/gestures; rhythmic destabilization; often simple formal structures

Voice: Human voice is the focus; instruments support/complement the voice; melodic; intelligible words/text

Mind: Often instrumental; complex forms

Just because some music is body-oriented doesn’t mean it will be good for dancing. I find that rock and roll, which I consider to be heavily body and voice focused, doesnt’t tend to motivate dance movement, at least not in a modern dance context. I think its rhythmic stablility (thin of the kick-snare kick-kick-snare rhythm) tends to ground people and inspire in-place movements like bobbing, swaying, bouncing, head nodding, but not horizontal movement through space.

In dance class, I tend to make music that motivates the body to move, and when composing/designing for choreography, my music can bring in more mind or even voice appeal.