What makes people want to dance to music but not to people talking, if speech also has a cadence?
In: Biology
Dancing is best suited for a regular cadence. In a dialogue there are pauses kind of at random (from a musical perspective). In a speech there are changes in tempo for emphasis. In a freestyle rap, there is a much more regular cadence and beat to get funky to
I’m not a musical expert or anything but if you think about it there are key distinctions between speech and music.
Some of these distinctions are but not limited to:
* *Tone*
* *Notes*
* *Sound*
It’s easy to dance to music because it follows a set of rules and patterns that are pleasing enough to hear, and in some cases, pleasing enough to even make you dance. Speech on the other hand is monotonous, usually not following any set beat and can have a variety of tones. People can be soft spoken or loud by nature. Music needs to follow a certain arrangement in order to work as you would expect. Even songs or tracks that sound very distorted and unharmonious still follow a set of rules and patterns that make it enjoyable nonetheless.
Keep in mind that not even all music is necessarily meant for dance. What you hear in clubs and raves isn’t the same as what you hear in say, an opera for example. Dance music follows an incredibly different set of patterns than something you would see in theatrics and plays.
Another good example would be the band Death Grips. They make heavily distorted music and use all sorts of samples and such, but they’re not just monkeys writing random notes on paper. They now how to best use those samples and how to bring out the most *”flavor”* so to speak out them. Something that flows with the beat and makes listening to it pleasing to those that are a fan of their genre.
Here’s the opening track for their album “Exmilitary” [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxa91EwFco&ab_channel=DeathGrips](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxa91EwFco&ab_channel=DeathGrips)
the beginning is just Charles Manson talking. Sounds good right? Well here’s the original sample of that transcript: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWTvZUdalio&ab_channel=RodrigoWolf](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWTvZUdalio&ab_channel=RodrigoWolf)
Now it doesn’t sound so good anymore does it? Notice how different those lyrics hit just by simply adding a beat and sounds that set the tone.
Think of things like an A cappella too. Even in this musical art, you don’t actually talk, but rather try to imitate or make certain sounds using your body and voice with different notes, tones, tempos, and beats.
**TL;DR:**Cadence is just one aspect of music, and speech just doesn’t follow any set of rules that music generally does. Music is orchestrated, planned, and thought out. It’s made with passion and created for expression by people who want to instill something powerful. Speech is… well… just speech. It doesn’t need what music needs. It’s just talking, it’s generally not trying to convey a message or make you feel something. If you want to tell someone something you just talk, that’s it. You don’t sing them what you want to tell them. Speech is for communication, music is for entertainment. You can combine both for something incredible, but one definitely doesn’t need the other in order to necessarily work.
You’ve never seen anyone dance to someone rapping without a music track in the background?
Rhythm is all humans need to set our toes tapping. 🙂 Once the rhythm is discernible, we are at risk of moving to the rhythm.
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