I have mentioned some of my favorite places for listening and finding new salsa music (ex. Pandora). A new online music store has just propped up called Lala.com. While I tend to buy my music on the iTunes Store or Amazon, this new website improves the immersion of being able to listen to full length songs and playlists of your choosing (unlimited times*) while you browse for others. One of the more interesting things about Lala is the fact that there is a distinction between a Web-Song (a song that lives on lala.com/internet for $0.10) and the actual downloadable MP3 (for $0.89). While I always prefer to download my music for my iPod, the price for a web song is great for experimenting or going through musical salsa phases.
While they are lacking a few general salsa albums that I’d like to see, they tend to have a better selection of salsa, Latin, cha-cha and bachata music than other stores. I even found out about a new genre called ‘Bachata-Rap‘!!??! If you are picky about choosing what music to buy, especially when you are doubtful of the artist, this store is a great place to listen to the full track before adding it permanently to your latin music playlist.
One of our users on the forums posted a great link to a website that makes it very helpful for beginners to understand some of the salsa intruments and their particular rhythm in a song. Very useful to understanding the salsa beat! This is probably the number one cause of salsa frustration.
I love it when salser@s mix their technical skills with salsa. In this case, this developer mixed his computer programming skills with the understanding of the periodic pattern of a few salsa instruments. You can play with his interactive player here!
We have known that for some reason the forums have dwindled from their height in popularity in the summer of 2007. Could it be because of the economic recession? Probably not, but we know that the old addicted2salsa forums do need a bailout plan as well.
After much work, I have finally finished a draft of what I think will be a new format in salsa communities. This is a mixture of a ‘facebook-feed’ mixed in with Twitter. I hope this new micro-messaging style of website helps make it easier for salseros and salseras to share video clips, ask about specific song names, post thoughts about frilly dresses and skirts from Gone With the Wind controversial salsa dress codes and much more.
Let us know what you think, so that we may improve it for you.
Ever had problems with leads not doing the ‘job’ properly? Maybe placing their hands in the wrong places or forcing you to do moves that you hate (like terrible dips)? SalsaDynasty has an answer for you! They have come up with a great product for all of the ladies dealing with ‘these every day issues’ at the salsa night club. I’m sure the ladies would appreciate it if it came pocket sized and in addicted2salsa red.
What other products do you think would be great for the dance floor? I can think of one : maybe something that will prevent leads (men) from staring at a follow’s chest during a whole song?*
Salsa Dancing. What is it that makes it popular today? Why is it that people who salsa seems to be happier, in better shape and in a better mood compared to others? From these questions we see that there are two major roles dancing salsa plays in people’s lives: they are healthier and they have a great social life.
We all know, having heard or read somewhere, about the health benefits of dancing. Here are some of the more prominent ones to be considered:
It’s a great cardio activity that is fun; it’s a lot easier to spend three hours dancing than it is to spend forty five minutes on the treadmill.
You burn 450 calories per hour while dancing. Isn’t that amazing?
Your balance and posture improves.
You loose weight.
Your flexibility increases.
It helps develop better circulation.
You will have better coordination.
You gain long-lasting energy as your metabolism increases.
It helps you work through or reduce other major health problems (e.g., depression).
Esteban Conde
So if these reasons alone aren’t enough to understand why people pick up salsa dancing, let’s analyze the social aspect of it. We all come from different walks of life; some better than others, but for the most part the one thing people mutually seek is the feeling of being important, of having a purpose and belonging somewhere (e.g., to a community or group of people with common interests or goals). That is where dancing comes in: the means to a better end, building confidence and a sense of self that will drastically improve your quality of life. So how does salsa dancing help fulfill this ultimate goal?
