Dance fever

Admit it; you’ve made a dubious decision at a wedding. We all have, it seems that nuptials have an extraordinary power to make otherwise sane individuals behave in deranged ways. Perhaps it was those apricot pants that you thought would be perfect on you for your brother’s wedding? Maybe it was that person across the table from you who became incredibly attractive after your fifth glass of champagne? Or possibly it was that decision to dance solo to Nutbush City Limits while the rest of the wedding party watched on in polite amazement? If it was this latter impulse that you are currently regretting then new research may have explained why you just couldn’t help strutting your stuff on the dancefloor.

For the study, researchers from Oxford University and Aarhus University (Denmark) began with the observation that there is some music that people find it hard to resist moving their bodies to. The researchers wanted to understand how the structure of music might relate to this desire to dance and so surveyed people from around the world. The people were asked to listen to a range of drum beats and indicate which ones were more pleasurable.

The results showed that drum patterns with a medium degree of syncopation caused the most pleasure and the greatest desire to move to the beat. Syncopation is a disruption to the regular flow of the rhythm of the music putting stresses or accents where they wouldn’t normally occur. The fact that medium syncopation levels are appealing suggests that a degree of predictability with occasional variations allows for the most pleasant movement of the body to the music.

So, at the next wedding reception when you have not been able to resist strutting your funky thing and riding your shaky boogie to the amusement of the rest of the wedding-goers, don’t blame it on the wine, blame it on the syncopation.