Tap and Step Dancing: Passage 4

00:01 Our next passage is entitled Tap and Step Dancing.

00:05 This is a humanities passage which, while very highly detailed, is going to be focusing on connections between ideas and not so much building up just a single thesis.

00:18 Don't read it like a social science's passage where you just focus on objective fact, but focus on how the author likes to connect the various ideas we'll be examining.

00:27 The author states that tap and step dances were those composed chiefly of motions of the feet which resulted in combinations of various sounds.

00:36 As these ties back into the title of the passage, I think this is a nice introductory statement.

00:42 Then in blue we have George H. Primrose, the famous American minstrel who have embodied a lot of the techniques we're about to discuss.

00:51 I then highlighted in a unique color of the titles of each paragraph, which you can maybe do with the strikethrough feature if you want a different type of highlight.

01:01 And we have buck-dancing that we are told is done to syncopated rhythms and you must get the right accent on those syncopated beats or taps.

01:11 I think this in a single sentence both connects buck-dancing to the oblique picture while also giving it its distinct features.

01:19 So I think it's both connecting and distinctive.

01:22 If we can jump ahead to straight tap, we have to remember that all of your counts begin with the left foot.

01:30 So, beginnings are always extremely important and so I think this is important to understanding straight taps.

01:38 In the same discussion of straight taps, we are told that on the eighth count put the flat of the left foot down on the floor shifting your weight to the left foot. Okay? I think this just sharpens my mind, visual image I have of how straight tapping is carried out.

01:56 Lastly, we discuss front taps. The front tap goes front. It gets its name from the direction it takes.

02:02 It's a very literal statement of how the tap is carried out.

02:07 The final sentence of the paragraph states "Now you have had a straight-tap and front-tap with both feet." And you can see that the author was building up to you a connection between learning these 2 types of taps and presumably these are essential taps to learn and why not learn them together.