Swing Dynamite Blog
Thoughts and news about swing dancing in Ottawa
Dancing Sharpens the Mind
[ No Comments ] Posted by Mercedes on Oct 20, 2011 in Learning Swing Dance, Nifty Not Totally Swing Related
I recently read this article about “dancing making you smarter”. That title is a little misleading in the sense that what the highlighted research shows are the surprising benefits of dance on the mind. Social dance, as it turns out, sharpens the mind through improving its memory, the ability to think spontaneously and to reduce the risk of developing dementia in later years. The article offers the stats and explains, in comparison with other brain teaser activities and sports, how dancing is different.
Swing Clothing: Vintage Or Reproduction?
[ No Comments ] Posted by byron on Oct 13, 2011 in Vintage Clothing
The swing site Yehoodi has a great article on choosing clothing for a retro swing look. Should you go vintage or with a modern reproduction?
Of course not every swing dancer goes retro for dance nights, but it’s a fun side to old school swing styles.
Less Organized, Better Swing DJ
[ No Comments ] Posted by byron on Oct 06, 2011 in Swing DJ Tips, Swing DJ's Corner
Can you be a better DJ by being less organized?
Christian Bossert has an interesting article about his personal method of organizing his music through iTunes. (Of course, iTunes itself should not generally be used for DJing, but that’s a topic for a different article.) It’s not how I do it but certainly worth a look if you have a geeky mind and do a lot of swing DJing.
But for my own time at the turntables, more organization isn’t necessarily what I’m looking for.
Even though digital music offers a lot of organizational advantages over CDs and vinyl, I find that it’s harder to get into the same groove that I did when DJing from CDs because–ironically enough–things are too cleanly organized.
I kept spinning CDs for years past when most swing DJs had moved to MP3′s, for reasons ranging from sound quality to the superiority of physical controls. But there was an added bonus: intuitive organization. With CDs, finding a song meant I had to choose a binder, find the right section of the binder, and then the right track on the right CD. My organizational system was very fuzzy and intuitive. After all, if you have one album with songs ranging from slow blues to fast traditional Jazz, and another featuring slow blues, some Louis Jordan covers, and some WCS-friendly tracks, your categorization system needs to be flexible and intuitive.