Finding the Groove: What's the Best Kind of Music to Dance To?

Have you ever heard a song and felt like your feet just had to move? Scientists and professional dancers say that certain kinds of music trigger a natural urge to dance. From funk and hip-hop to classical music, experts are exploring why some songs make us groove while others leave us standing still.

Choreographers Faye Stoeser and Dannielle "Rhimes" Lecointe both know this feeling well. Stoeser says house music makes her move no matter what. Lecointe feels hip-hop deep in her gut, describing it as having many rhythms — "a heartbeat, a pulse, a ricochet" — that she feels all over her body.

When it comes to the most popular dance songs, data gives us some clues. A platform called DJ Intelligence found that UK DJs were asked to play Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" more than any other song last year. In the US, "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars tops wedding playlists, while a poll once named Daft Punk's "One More Time" the ultimate dance track.

Not all professional dance is built around music, though. Back in the 1940s, American choreographer Merce Cunningham actually rehearsed his dancers in complete silence. But right now, a wave of new shows is putting music back at the center of everything.

Nahum McLean and Darius Drooh, co-founders of the dance company BlacBrik, say they never start choreographing until they have the right music. Their current show, "The Brown Suite," is built around the music of James Brown — known as the godfather of funk — along with songs by Etta James and Sam Cooke. McLean admits that sometimes he gets so caught up in the beat that he forgets to work: "I get lost and distracted because I'm like: This beat is so funky!"

So what makes funk music so hard to resist? McLean says it comes down to the bassline, the percussion, and the horns all working together. He has noticed that audience members tap their feet without even realizing it, calling it "an involuntary reaction." In other words, their bodies respond to the music before their brains even catch up.

Scientists have actually studied this. Oxford professor Morten Kringelbach tested how people respond to funk drum beats with different amounts of syncopation — beats that fall between the main pulse of a song. He found that James Brown hits the perfect middle ground between too little and too much syncopation.

Researchers use the word "groove" to describe the quality in music that makes people want to dance. In a 2012 study, scientist Petr Janata found that Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" was the grooviest song he tested. Scientist Daniel Levitin explains that Wonder varies his playing just enough to keep things fresh, even with a very steady beat — what Levitin calls "ear candy."

Brain scans have shown that groovy music lights up an area called the basal ganglia, which controls movement and feelings of reward. Scientists have also found that groove is stronger when a song has a clear pulse, a heavy bass, and a tempo around 120 beats per minute (bpm). Hannah Ekholm, who leads dance company Ekleido, agrees: "One hundred and twenty to 126bpm, that's when it's really groovy."

But a thumping bass isn't the only path to feeling like you want to dance. Anna Rose O'Sullivan, a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet, says Tchaikovsky's music for "The Nutcracker" makes her feel like she could take off. She adds with a smile: "Tchaikovsky wrote some bangers."

O'Sullivan also notes that hearing a live orchestra makes a huge difference. She says the orchestra is like an engine for her, and that hearing music live unlocks something she can't find in a rehearsal studio. Science supports this too — physical vibrations from sound, whether from a club speaker or a live orchestra, make people want to move their bodies more.

In the end, there may be no single best type of music for dancing. BlacBrik's Drooh, who has an African dance background, says he and McLean can find a rhythm in almost anything. "You can put on Beethoven and we can find a boom-taka, boom-taka!" he says — proving that the real secret to groove might live inside all of us.