Hi Cindy….

It is true that the “Understanding of Music” is not always taught right away and yes it would make it easy eventually for a student to understand the timing way sooner than later…. Here is what I do for my classes ….My first 5 mins. of every class is a music lesson…. The first thing a student needs to understand before any clave or conga is how to just count PHRASES to the music…. (12345678) if they don’t know how to count in phrases then the rest would not make sense … I always explain that you want to start by listening to how the music is phrased first as it’s the guy that really has to know so he can start on time… I explain “like dancers do the 5,6,7,8 count off” is why we do that so we start on the 1…. Once they understand that and I quiz them by counting just 8’s to music, we then move onto showing the basic. I do teach the NY On2 123,567 and explain why we call it on 2 and what it means by the break action or the rock…. Then I do describe what it means to break on 1 so they understand… most couldn’t care less in the beginning but as they go out dancing they’ll understand why and what’s the difference… as we go on I will either explain on the next lesson or two about the clave and congas and I usually sing it as we do the warm up so they can here it in the music (ba, ba ,ba instead of numbers)… sometimes I’ll even break down the numbers of clave (2, 3, 5 & 8 or 1 & 4, 6 7 ) to show how we use the accent of the clave within our basic…. And for the congas… which goes better with the classic timing of 234,678   I’ll explain the high beat of the conga matches the break action… and the low beat 8& and 4& which is the most easily heard in latin music is where we hold…. In the beginning most students will think your speaking gibberish but as you repeat yourself through each class they’ll start to get it… I do quiz them if there a repeating student such as counting or clapping clave timing or just even counting the phrases… I also explain how it is common to count and not listen to the music when doing so- so I make them sing it in a way so they go together with the music…. And I always start off my class with, “If you don’t understand the music then it’s quite hard to dance to it…”  I hope this helps and if you have any other questions feel free to ask… or call!

Take Care, Jami