Feel the Music...

Our computers and mobile devices are truly engineering marvels. Their speakers are good and some are even very good for listening to music. When we listen to familiar or even composed music, our brains help us hear a coherent song by integrating across any dropouts or noise in our environment. 

When we add Zoom to the mix, movement facilitators and artists do their best to transmit good quality sound to participants. However, Zoom is optimized for low-latency delivery of speech, not for high quality audio. The services that are optimized to stream music over the Internet can provide a great option and the latency for those we tested makes them impractical for our music / dance improv class format. Therefore, we are conducting these classes via Zoom. If you are new to Zoom, click here for information on how to download the Zoom app and use Zoom basic features.

If you've already downloaded the Zoom app and attended a Zoom meeting or two or more... note the Zoom upgraded their app in late May. If you haven't already done so, be sure to download Zoom 5.0 here (for computer) or via your mobile device app store.

To hear the music, you can use your computer or mobile device & built-in speakers.

To better hear the music, to maybe catch the subtleties of a vibrating string or resonance of the guitar body or the lilt of the singer's voice, to possibly feel the music vibrating in your body, we invite you to use an external speaker or headphones to give you better audio quality.

Wireless / Bluetooth speakers or headphones also allow you a greater range for physical movement.

Speakers or headphones connected directly to your computer or mobile device (i.e., wired) generally produce a better sound than wireless / Bluetooth connections.

Standard headphones and external speakers using a 3.5mm jack run a standard analog signal. This means devices have to turn the digital files like MP3s into analog internally, this is done with a digital-to-analog converter. Many movement teachers use external digital-to-analog converters (DACs) to convert the digital music on their computers to analog before sending the sound via the studio sound system.

If you have an external DAC (e.g., Dragonfly), you can use that to connect your external speaker or headphones to your device to improve the sound quality even more. 

If you have a newer mobile device, the lightning port is 100% digital, meaning audio is sent to the headphones that use a lightning connector in pure digital form. A 3.5mm-to-lightning adaptor allows you to use your analog headphones or speaker with your newer Apple device. You can also connect your Dragonfly DAC to the lightning port using an adaptor.

A computer or mobile device fixed in a location that allows you to be seen while you are moving is preferred. This is so that you can be seen by our musicians and also by the other movers as we respond to and dialog with each others' movement. A computer is preferred for our improv classes so you can see more of your fellow participants on the larger screen

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In addition to being in the moment, listening to the music, and actively engaging with the rhythm & melody, we also feel the sound vibrations that resonate through our bodies when hear music. And those sensations can be a source of inspiration for our movement.

However you join, relax, enjoy, and know that while you are being inspired by the music and the other movers, you are also being a source of inspiration.