I'm wondering if there is a word for drum rhythms that make you want to dance?

Question

I'd really like to find a word that means dancing to the sound of drums, percussion, or just the way you feel when music makes you want to dance!

Answer 1

Since this word (or words) would best be used to describe the audience-performer interactions, I would suspect that there isn't going to be an obscure word for this. That is due to the fact that the interactions cannot be academicised as it is between trained musicians and untrained audience members.

One of these words might be groove. Groove is commonly used between musicians but it is also a useful term for the audience-performer interaction, especially when it comes to who prefers the other to perform: i.e. dance or not. The problem with this word is that it denotes the role and position more than it does describing the rhythm.

The word dance can be used but it seems to be self-referential.

An older word for dance in the English language (Anglo-Saxon, really) is the word leap. While leaping is not particularly strongly associated with dancing nowadays, there are some words that to this day specify moves. However, there are synonyms of leap that are strongly associated with dancing such as hop. I refer you to such classic dances as the Lindy Hop, Bunny Hop. A club where everyone is dancing is referred to as hopping.

In fact, I suspect that if you instructed a drummer to play a hopping rhythm, they would know exactly what you are referring to.