Song and Dance

One summer I was studying with a very famous teacher and played for him, in the master-class, my transcription of the First Cello Suite by J. S. Bach. He had a conservative side and since my transcription was in A major rather than in the usual D major, he refused to take it seriously. The next morning at breakfast he apologized for giving me a "song and dance" and asked me to play it again for him. The second time he gave me some good ideas.

This phrase, "song and dance" reminds me of something so fundamental about music that we usually forget it. All music is really based, on the most fundamental level, on either the activity of singing or dancing. In most pieces of instrumental music the two are fused together so closely it is sometimes hard to separate them. But it is an interesting thing to do, nonetheless. This is pure song:

So is this:

This is pure dance:

And so is this:

But much instrumental music fuses the two fundamental ideas, melody and rhythm, together: