How to Choose the Perfect Song
for Your Dance Solo
How to Choose the Perfect Song for Your Dance Solo
A solo performance puts everything on display: your technique, your artistry, and your ability to command a stage alone. Unlike group routines where energy builds through formations and synchronized movement, a solo lives or dies by the dancer's personal connection to their music.
After working with thousands of competitive dancers and hearing feedback from dozens of adjudicators, we've compiled the essential framework for selecting solo dance songs that help performers achieve their best scores and most memorable performances.
Start With the Dancer, Not the Song
The most common mistake in solo music selection is falling in love with a song before considering whether it truly fits the dancer. Before browsing playlists or scrolling through Spotify, ask yourself these critical questions:
1. What are this dancer's technical strengths? Does the dancer excel at turns, leaps, flexibility, or emotional expression? The music should highlight strengths rather than expose weaknesses.
2. What emotional range can this dancer authentically portray? A 10-year-old performing to a song about heartbreak often reads as inauthentic. Match emotional content to the performer's life experience and maturity.
3. What energy level suits this performer? Some dancers explode with power; others captivate through subtlety and control. Choose music that amplifies natural performance qualities.
What style category will this solo compete in? Lyrical, contemporary, jazz, and tap solos each have musical conventions that judges expect.
The Anatomy of a Great Solo Song
Not every beautiful song makes a great competition solo. The best solo dance songs share specific structural characteristics that support powerful performances.
Dynamic Range and Musical Arc
Competition solos need musical journeys with clear beginnings, builds, and climaxes. Songs that maintain one energy level throughout become monotonous quickly. Look for tracks with quiet moments for interpretation and powerful sections for technical showcases.
The ideal solo song structure often follows this pattern: an attention-grabbing opening, a building first section, a powerful climax around the two-thirds mark, and a memorable ending. This arc gives choreographers material for variety and gives dancers opportunities to demonstrate range.
Memorable Moments and Musical Accents
Great solo songs contain specific moments that beg for choreographic punctuation. A lyrical pause before a crescendo, a rhythmic break that invites a turn sequence, or an emotional peak perfect for a leap—these built-in moments make choreography more impactful.
When evaluating potential solo songs, listen for three to five distinct moments that could become choreographic highlights. If a song flows without clear accent points, creating memorable choreography becomes significantly more challenging.
Appropriate Length and Editability
Most solo categories require routines between 2:00 and 2:45. If your ideal song runs 4:30, can it be edited effectively without losing its emotional impact? Some songs edit beautifully; others fall apart when shortened.
Before committing to a song, consider how it might need to be cut. Does it have repeated sections that could be condensed? Can the intro be shortened without losing the opening impact? Does the ending work for choreographic closure?
Emotional Lyrical Solo Songs
Lyrical solos remain the most popular competition category, demanding songs with emotional depth and meaningful lyrics. The best lyrical solo songs tell stories that audiences can follow, even when they can't understand every word.
Themes That Resonate
Universal emotional themes tend to score well because judges and audiences connect with shared human experiences. Songs about resilience, self-discovery, hope, loss, and triumph have powered countless award-winning solos.
However, avoid overused songs that judges have seen hundreds of times. A fresh song choice with a universal theme often outscores a predictable choice performed equally well.
Vocal Quality and Clarity
For lyrical solos where lyrics matter, vocal quality significantly impacts the performance atmosphere. Raw, emotionally authentic vocals often work better than perfectly polished pop production. Artists like Lewis Capaldi, Freya Ridings, and James Bay offer vocally rich tracks with emotional weight.
Powerful Contemporary Solo Songs
Contemporary solos push boundaries, allowing more experimental music choices and abstract emotional expression. The best contemporary dance songs often feature unusual time signatures, electronic textures, or unconventional song structures.
When selecting contemporary music, consider whether the song supports the conceptual framework of the choreography. Contemporary pieces often explore themes through movement metaphor, so music should enhance rather than literally narrate the concept.
Jazz and Tap Solo Music
Jazz solos demand rhythmic precision and personality-forward performance. Music should have clear rhythmic structure while leaving room for individual interpretation and sass. Broadway show tunes, jazz standards with modern arrangements, and rhythmically complex pop songs all work well.
Tap solos present unique challenges because the dancer's feet become part of the music. Choose songs with defined rhythmic patterns but some sonic space for tap sounds to shine through. Many successful tap solos use music with sections where certain instruments can be ducked or removed entirely during editing.
Avoiding Common Solo Music Mistakes
1. Don't choose songs that are too popular. If judges have seen twenty solos to the same song this season, yours needs to be exceptional to stand out.
2. Don't ignore lyric content. Listen carefully to every word. Inappropriate lyrics can result in score deductions or disqualification.
3. Don't choose music beyond the dancer's emotional range. Authentic performance trumps ambitious music selection every time.
4. Don't prioritize what you like over what serves the dancer. The goal is helping the performer succeed, not showcasing choreographer preferences.
Final Thoughts
The perfect solo song feels inevitable—like the music was written specifically for that dancer performing that choreography. This alignment doesn't happen by accident. It requires thoughtful consideration of the performer's abilities, authentic matching of emotional content to maturity level, and careful attention to musical structure.
Take your time in the selection process. Listen to dozens of options. When you find the right song, you'll know—and so will the judges.