Thank for any responses
HaOanh TranThanh

Personally I like to use "a" for a step that does not close the moving foot to the standing foot.
Example of this is in Samba basics and Bota Fogos, I would use 1-a-2, 3-a-4 if musics are not available at the time.

The use "&" is when your moving foot need to close to your standing foot. Such as in Cha-Cha, 2-3-4&1 or in the Jive chasses to the side, 3-&-4, 5-&-6.

Therefore, I wouldn't asign a music beat value to any of the "a"s and "&"s. It will largely depand on which dance you are doing.

As for Ballroom/Standard, there are "a" too. In Slow Foxtrot, when I do a basic three step, I like to refer the beats as "Slow-a-quick-quick" where this "a" is not a step but just when your right foot is passing the left and while it is briefly collected under your body.

Let's confuse you some more.. When you do the "right foot lunge and Spanish drag" in Tango, though "right foot lunge" only has one step, I would address the head movements of man as "quick-a-quick" where man turn his head to right, then back briefly to left and finally settles into the right again. Same goes with the "Spanish drag", though the very first step he would put his weight to the left foot(only one step), but as for the head movements again it goes "quick-a quick" as he would turn his head briefly to the left, looks back straight to his partner and finally settles his head back to the left again. Then the final step in the "Spanish drag" to form a PP, I would go "a-slow" though the music beat value for this final step is just slow, man and his partner will drag their feet (man's RF, lady's LF) slight forward and then settle in PP. There are two moves, so I will address the moving part as "a" then when both their weights are settled into man's RF and lady's LF to PP a "slow" is called.

Confusing?

I don't know if I agree with that interpretation. Based purely on the language you use there, if and "&" count is half of the beat before it, then the time value is half a beat. It's not half of a "slow", it's half of a "beat". A slow, of course, is two beats. Therefore, no matter what the time value of the preceding count, the "&" is always exactly the same thing: The 1/2 beat immediately prior to the following count.

The count of "a" has exactly the same characteristics as "&": It steals value from the prior count and occurs immediately before the following count. The difference, of course, is the amount of time it steals, which is either 1/4 or 1/3 of a beat, depending on the designated division of the beat. With songs which have a "swing" or "suffle" feel, all beats are divided into three equal parts, which are counted "one-and-a", and so the "a" has a value of 1/3 of a beat. With songs which have a "straight" feel, we divide the beat into either two or four equal parts. When divided in two, there is no "a"... we just count "1&2&"... etc. When divided into 4 parts, that's when we count "1e&a2e&a", giving the "a" the value of 1/4.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson

Now, the difference you mention comes because in dancing we don't always count the same way musicians would. This is where things start to get more confusin. In dancing we often count with slows and quicks instead of just by beat numbers. The general rule is that a slow = 2 beats and a quick = 1 beat. In dances counted this way we tend to keep the "&" = 1/2 beat all the time, whether you have a S& or a Q&. Those would be 1-1/2 beats, 1/2 beat or 1/2, 1/2 beats respectively. A teacher once told me that the "&" can be used to mean half of the beat before it, but that would make S& = QQ. If you look in the technique book where beat durations are specified, you'll see that S& is not 1, 1 (& = 1/2 of a 2 beat slow = 1 beat), it's 1-1/2, 1/2, so I don't completely agree with that. However, it does work like that for quicks all the time as far as I can tell. That's important because it helps explain the difference in tango.

Tango is one of the exceptions music-wise -- it has 2 beats per measure of music instead of the usual 4. This means that a slow in tango is 1 beat (not 2) and a quick is 1/2 beat (not 1). This leads to a difference in counting of Q&. When a Q = 1 beat, a Q& timing is 1/2, 1/2 since the & just splits the beat in half. It does the same when a Q = 1/2 beat, but that means that Q& = 1/4, 1/4. This is why a tango Brush Tap which is timed QQ&S is counted 1/2, 1/4, 1/4, 1. This is where thinking of the & as half of the preceding beat can help. As for waltz, it has 3 beats per measure instead of 2, but we don't count it in slows and quicks. Everything is even, we normally just count it in numbers the same way a musician would (123, 123, 123, 123). So the & in waltz is 1/2 beat, e.g. the Reverse Pivot danced the way the book says. I was taught that normally you don't want to give only 1/2 beat to a pivot like that so instead of a doing Some Figure / Reverse Pivot as 123& you'd adjust Some Figure so the timing is 1&23 so that you get a full beat to do the pivot. That's beside the point though.

Having written this, I realize that it's kind of long. I do hope that it helps explain things though.

--
James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall

A short PS since I had to make an edit anyway: Keh, you may be in the minority by not counting &s and a's as durations. As noted before, I'm pretty sure they took the idea from musical verbal counts and they have definite meanings there, they don't change with the song you're playing. As for splitting actions, I agree you can do it and I've been told to think that way on a few steps before. But I think I'd count them as &s and not a's because they're normally an even split of the beat. There we go, back to standard &s and a's that don't change with the dance.

--
James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall

[This message was edited by Dronak on 01-17-02 at 08:14 AM.]

[This message was edited by Dronak on 01-17-02 at 08:14 AM.]