I muck around with music a bit (I tend to sing for better keyboard players, although I did bash out tunes from Andrew Lloyd Webber for Dummies at the last singing party we had), and I also dance. I thought it'd be fun to try to get these two things together in my head, by working out how the music for ballroom dancing works. After a bit of Googling for pages written by people who know more than I do, here it is. Seeing as there are better musicians and better dancers than me reading this, they can correct me if I get it wrong.

Foxtrot

Foxtrot is in 4/4 time, between 112 and 120 beats per minute (according to these people). It's typically danced to Big Band music. The music emphasises beats 1 and 3. I think I can see that in A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, where the accompaniment either hits more notes on the treble clef, or uses the bass line to keep that emphasis. In Bobby Darin's version, the brass is hitting those beats in the intro.

The steps are typically 1 beat or 2 beats long, and we call them "quick" and "slow", respectively (if I'm writing it down, I'll abbreviate to Q and S). The basic rhythm of the dance is slow-quick-quick, which means the first two steps hit the emphasised beats. Some figures in the dance vary the rhythm, but the "slow" step, if there is one, starts either on beat 1 or beat 3. Here are the Hiltons giving us something to aspire to, with music and the slows and quicks, starting about 1:25.

( Waltz, Quickstep, Tango, over )

Clive put endings on stuff, so I've added the three alemanas to the rumba and something called the Whirligig in tango to last week's stuff, including a link to another one of those instructive videos where the commentator is clearly a bit too into the lady.

This week ( More waltz from Clive, foxtrot from Bruce )

The dancing lessons have stared again. Hurrah.

( Rumba (of which I found a video, yay; sadly I look nothing like the guy in it, boo), tango, waltz, reflections on being Batman )

livredor did a post on getting into Oxford, inspired by j4's original posting. It's almost a meme. So, here goes. Contains a picture of an 18 year old pw201, so cut for decency :-)

Portrait of the artist as a young man

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Wondering where to go

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Interview

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Churchill

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Summing up and application

For me, getting in to Cambridge was an illustration of what the very best of the UK's state school system can do for you. Hills Road was so good that I knew people who'd come there out of the private school livredor went to, their parents presumably calculating that there was no point paying for something they might get for free. I was also lucky in having parents who could help financially. This was in the era after grants, when you needed a loan to live on (I left in debt, but not as much as I would have otherwise).

I was aware of people there who matched the upper-class twit stereotype, but as a scientist in an out-of-town, brown-brick college, they didn't have much to do with me. I met a mix of people. I was lectured by some people I'd heard of. Most importantly, I found a niche outside of my college and subject, which is an important trick for staying sane (a couple of niches, in fact, the Christian Union and the dancers). Cambridge is huge and full of bright people, some a little shy or strange, trying to make a place where they fit. I am sure there are people who don't find a such a place, but from my experience, you'd have to try quite hard.

T'other Paul W stepped into the breach for both Clive and Bruce this week, and jolly good he was too.

( Doing our bit for heteronormativity )

Having dispensed with religion in my previous post, let's move on to the really important stuff, namely, dancing. In the Melyvn Bragg documentary, and in the acknowledgments for The Amber Spyglass, Pullman credits On the Marionette Theatre, an essay by Heinrich von Kleist. In it, you'll find the origin of the scene in Northern Lights in which Lyra fences with Iorek Byrnison, the armoured bear. There are also echoes of Pullman's attitude to growing up: Lyra loses the natural grace to read the aleitheometer as she becomes self-conscious, but is told she'll get it back if she works at it for many years.

I don't agree with Kliest's opinion that a marionette could be a better dancer than a person because a puppet is not self-conscious. If some dancers have their souls in the elbows, they at least have souls, unlike puppets. Watching a dance done well, I'm impressed partly because I recognise it's a human achievement to make it look good, not merely impressed by the fact that it does look good. It's hard to feel such a connection with a puppet.

Perhaps's Kliest's talk about self-consciousness applies more to doing a dance. There are times when you can lose yourself in it and become unselfconscious. Those are the good times. There are similar experiences in other fields. Programmers talk about the mental state known as flow, where they become immersed in the code, and find themselves looking up after a few minutes and realising hours have passed.

Why is this state so satisfying? Perhaps because the mind's usual background chatter is silenced. Unlike armoured bears, humans can't live in that state all the time, but that sort of break helps us keep our mental balance, as I'm sure any nearby Buddhists would tell you.

( That was a 2 shirt evening )

For the rest of you: I recently re-read Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, so I'll post about that soon.

Reggie's doing this, so I thought I would, mostly as an aid to my memory. ( You don't care about this if you're not a dancer )

Happy New Year to you all. December was busy. We visited my family in Yorkshire, saw gjm11, Mrs gjm11 and the new sprog, went to the CDC Christmas Dinner Dance, and to Safi and Mike's wedding. We had 9 people over to ours on Christmas Day, and I spent New Year showing people how to tie a bow-tie.

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You know it's been a good night when your feet hurt and you go through two dress shirts. The CDC Ball was fun, as usual. The demo couple, Marco Cavallaro and Joanne Clifton, were very good. Their tango in particular stood out as a great performance as well as being technically good (how does she do those head snaps?). Definite passion there. Not sure I've seen hair grabbing as a move in tango before. Wise to seek partner's consent before using, I think :-)

unoriginal1729 has great photographs. The consensus on Facebook about this one is that I am singing, and not that lauralaitaine has just stood on my foot. I don't remember singing during that one, although I do recall treating one fortunate lady to my rendition of "New York, New York" while carefully choreographing the fast "it's up to you" bit to be the weave and twiddly thing (technical term) that Clive's taught. Go me.

There are a few more of scribb1e's photographs here, although some of the ones that would have been good didn't come out because of the low light and rapid motion (q.v.).

I was a bit broken for the rest of the weekend and so missed all of the possible parties on Saturday. Sorry all. Watched Strictly Come Dancing instead, and agreed with the result (Carol Smillie was the weakest dancer, I think, and I didn't rate her samba this week as highly as the judges did). I am a bit worried that Craig Revel Horwood is mellowing in his old age, but it's possibly just that the increasing standard of the remaining dancers is giving him less opportunity to stick the knife in and twist it in that entertaining way of his.

( The wedding day )

The unofficial gallery is now full of everyone's contributed pictures (thankyou to you all). And you can also look at Tom's proofs (We'll be getting the digital originals, but I'll need to check with him about putting them on the web. However, if you'd like a copy of any of them, let me know).

So, I'm married. Yay.

Months of careful work, the lion's share of which was from scribb1e's mum, paid off in a day I think everyone enjoyed. We got exactly what we wanted: a happy ceremony and a big party surrounded by friends and family, with lots of dancing.

I've just been uploading some wedding photos to LiveJournal's server. These aren't the official ones, as they're not processed yet, so these are just the ones from the guests. However, we have some very talented guests :-) If anyone's got any more photos they're willing to contribute (I'll give you credit, obviously, as I've done for unoriginal1729), then let me know.

There's also a video of the first dance in the gallery, but LJ's screwing that up somehow. I suspect if you right-click on it and save it as an mp4 file, it'll work.

I'll write more about the wedding and Venice when I get a chance, but I must sleep now. Enjoy the photos.

Does anyone know where the picture of cat with the caption "Im in ur noun, verbing your noun" meme originates? Numerous examples exist on caturday, such as this one. I find them endlessly amusing, for some reason. I've been collecting them.

I'm disappointed that I've not had a single loony comment on my LJ from someone who heard the radio broadcast (although that might be because they couldn't find the website: some of the emailers to the show thought my surname was spelt "Right"). One thing that I forgot to mention was that "Nick from Cambridge" turned out to be nlj21 (who hasn't really deleted his LJ, it seems). The promised longer posting on the discussion will have to wait til they put the audio file up, as I can't remember what I said.

Had a dancing lesson today, which was fun. We've now got 4 sides for our first waltz at the wedding, so I plan to just do them over and over again until the audience dies of boredom. Somewhere along the line I've got into the bad habit of not lowering properly at the end of a bar before stepping off into the next one, which is is a bit embarrassing as it's a pretty basic thing. There were lots of other tips from the other Paul W, which I'll try to remember for the day, although I might be a bit too overawed when it comes to it.

Boingboing linked to From the Ball-room to Hell, a polemic against ballroom dancing written in 1892 by a dancing teacher who has turned from the evil of ballroom to the Lord. It's always fun to see the holy being somewhat excitable in their descriptions of depravity. Quotes from his work ought to form the basis of next term's CDC advertising posters.

She is now in the vile embrace of the Apollo of the evening. Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his, her bare arm is almost around his neck, her partly nude swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his, face to face they whirl on, his limbs interwoven with hers, his strong right arm around her yielding form, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears it not; he bends her body to and fro, but she knows it not; his hot breath, tainted with strong drink, is on her hair and cheek, his lips almost touch her forehead, yet she does not shrink; his eyes, gleaming with a fierce, intolerable lust, gloat over her, yet she does not quail. She is filled with the rapture of sin in its intensity; her spirit is inflamed with passion and lust is gratified in thought. With a last low wail the music ceases, and the dance for the night is ended, but not the evil work of the night.

The girl whose blood is hot from the exertion and whose every carnal sense is aroused and aflame by the repetition of such scenes as we have witnessed, is led to the ever-waiting carriage, where she sinks exhausted on the cushioned seat. Oh, if I could picture to you the fiendish look that comes into his eyes as he sees his helpless victim before him. Now is his golden opportunity. He must not miss it, and he does not, and that beautiful girl who entered the dancing school as pure and innocent as an angel three months ago returns to her home that night robbed of that most precious jewel of womanhood--virtue!

I'm not sure whether hardcore Christians still frown on ballroom. Nobody seemed to mind it when I was a Christian, but a more recent graduate told me that The Square Church regarded it as suspect. There are a lot of Christian dancers, so I assume that these days it's the lesser of two evils when compared to going clubbing and pulling strangers.

I must report that the only time I have taken a lady from a dance to my waiting carriage, it was all her idea and I ended up refusing her very kind offer because at that time I was in thrall to CICCU. This, my friends, is why we must erase them from the face of the earth.

unoriginal1729 has CDC Ball photos, as does this chap. It is apparently traditional to look serious and aggressive when doing the tango.

I'm not sure how you get depth of field and pictures of people in motion in low light. I suspect the answer is that you buy a very expensive camera, since my compact digital one just doesn't cut it at all at these occasions.