People listening to different musical styles (e.g. beat-heavy music versus atonal music) often exhibit different body movements.
Dance that is felt (i.e. is done instinctively) and not contrived (i.e. acted out consciously) is the purest form of dance to watch, because the music is being felt by the human and expressed without any inhibitions or desires to modify it. A contrived form of dance would be someone standing in a dance club performing the 'big fish, little fish, cardboard box' routine.
Some of the more easily indentifiable body movements are made up of the head, body and appendages.
- They occur in one of three directions: up and down, side to side, back and forth.
- They can be either fluid (an even speed), or jarred (a contrast of a fast movement with an accompanying slow movement).
- They can be either patterned/rhythmic or chaotic.
- They can either be linear (and travel along an axis) or rotational (and rotate around an axis).
Rock Music:
e.g. Rage Against the Machine,
- Head movements: 'Head Banging' is common place. The head jars in one direction quickly then moves back into starting position slowly.
- Body movements: the movements of the body coincide with the beats of the music and because rock music is tonal and not atonal, there is a lot of jarred body movements. Principly the movements are back and forward, and not side-to-side or rotational.
- Appendage movements: the arms and legs do not seem to be used very much or if they are used it is in sharp jabs typically pointing upwards or forwards, not side to side.
Indy Music:
e.g. Coldplay.
- Head movements: often the head lolls gently side to side. No sudden movements or forward motion. Perhaps a slight 'figure of eight' pattern side to side.
- Body movements: the same as the head movements.
- Appendage movements: the same as the body and head movements. Often the appendages are used to embrace a fellow listener.
Dance Music:
e.g. Darude.
- Head movements: Because of the atonal nature of the music, there's more rhythemic movement and pattern along all three axes, and rotational movements as well.
- Body movements: Similar to the head. The hips and shoulders are more likely to move as independent organs, which is unlike Rock music when the hips and shoulders would move in unison.
- Appendage movements: Because the hips and shoulders move independently, so to do the arms and legs move independently and with greater 'freedom' than tonal/beat-heavy Rock or Indy music.
(All music is like a drug. Tt has an effect on the psyche which becomes manifest in the actions of the body and the thoughts/character of the person. Treat music more like a drug than as a form of entertainment.)
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