THE LIFE OF A DANCE TUNE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19199, 16 June 1924, Page 10

THE LIFE OF A DANCE TUNE.

What is the life of a fox trot to-day? A famous dance band leader told me recently that 20 times was the limit an average fox trot could be played without wearying the dancers. Twelve - playings was an ideal number. After that the piece “lost its edge.” This sudden allure and sudden loss of allure is one of the strangest things about latter-day dance music, which is at once primitive and complex. Once it becomes thoroughly familiar all the colour, everything in it that appealed to the ear, goes out of it. It does not only bore ; it also irritates. I have known keen dancing people to play a record over and over again because they liked it so much, and a week later, if yon put it on, they would ask you to take it off, and become really angry if yon insisted on playing it through. Six months is probably a good estimate of tile selling life of a first-rate piece. Brt it has to be a well-constructed, varied piece with a strong melody flowing through it. A merely “catchy” piece has a merry but very short life. Dance caterers, aware that old dance music loses patrons, spend an immense amount of money on keeping music programmes fresh. The insatiable demands of the United States and England keep the dance music composers and publishers busy. Thirty or forty new pieces appear every month, of which perhaps six will live for four months and sell well. Ami in order to make the new fox trots frt’sh-souncling the dominant characteristics of the music of every country, civilised and savage, are utilised, from the wailing of Chinese stringed instruments to the thrumming tom-toms of fcouth Sea Island tribes and the queer droning of Indian reed pipes. Compared wtih fox trots, waltzes have an enorpious life. The ear of dancers seems never to tire of an appealing waltz. Tangoes, too, have a life measurable in years rather than months. But a fox trot which was made a year ago is as dead as anything can be. And as season succeeds season and dancers become more and more soaked in fox trot rhythm, the life of dance music is likely to contract until, in order to keep people dancing, dance bands will have completely to change their music programme at the end of every month.