DWTS Music Director Says Pros Are ‘Very Specific’ With Music Requests

Dancing With the Stars’ music director and composer, Ray Chew, works intently with the present’s skilled dancers to rearrange the songs performed stay within the ballroom every week.

“They’re very particular about a variety of issues that they’re searching for,” Chew, 66, completely instructed Us Weekly of the DWTS professionals on Thursday, October 17. “They might be searching for just a little sound that occurs [at the] 29 seconds [mark] to allow them to do some arm [movement].”

Chew added that the professionals choose up on moments in songs that “no person else hears,” which informs their choreography.

“They’re like, ‘Effectively, I must do some motion on that,’” he defined. “There’s a variety of very, very particular issues that they search for. And it’s very, very difficult at instances. However I really like the problem.”

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When requested to select which of the season 33 professionals — Witney Carson, Jenna Johnson, Daniella Karagach, Brandon Armstrong, Alan Bersten, Rylee Arnold, Val Chmerkovskiy, Sasha Farber, Gleb Savchenko, Britt Stewart, Emma Slater, Pasha Pashkov and Ezra Sosa — have the strongest opinions about their music, Chew stated he couldn’t choose only one.

“All of them,” he stated. “All of them are world class winners. They’ve come from everywhere in the world … and once they converge right here, they’re very aggressive.”

Chew famous that each one the professionals inform him “precisely what they need” in “a really respectful manner.” As he works on the preparations for the songs that the professionals and their movie star companions carry out every week, the professionals present him with “revisions and modifications” proper up till present time.

As soon as the love present is over, the work begins over again.

“As quickly as we end the present is after I get my large pile of stuff [for the following week],” Chew stated.

Earlier than Chew joined the DWTS staff in 2014, he served as American Idol’s music director from 2010 to 2013. He instructed Us that he had extra freedom with music preparations on Idol, whereas with DWTS he’s making an attempt to recreate the songs’ recorded variations as intently as doable.

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“Once I was doing American Idol as a music director, I may do the model of a well-liked music the way in which I type of interpreted it. … I didn’t must go and analysis each article and particle that was within the authentic. I may do it with the model of my band. I used to be free to type of implement and add some various things so long as it supported the contestant,” he defined. “With [DWTS], I’ve to go and discover that little sound that was at [the] 1 minute and 15 seconds [mark] from the unique [and recreate it].”

Chew refers to that strategy of breaking down a music to the sum of its components earlier than creating a brand new association as making an attempt to “unbake the cake.”

“I’ve to determine what’s within the sauce,” he stated. “[You] go to some advantageous restaurant and also you style this excellent gravy sauce. Now, think about for those who needed to sit there and decipher what’s in that sauce. It may take you 5 minutes to truly make it, however hours making an attempt to determine what’s within the sauce. And that’s the steps we now have to do, as a result of no person is sitting there giving us that data.”

One other distinctive problem of DWTS is that Chew must be ready to make any music applicable for any model of dance, whether or not or not it’s a rumba, cha cha or Viennese waltz.

“With any music, we are able to make it into any model. And that’s my job,” he stated. “There was nothing earlier to this present the place I needed to take the music ‘Get Down On It’ and make a rumba out of it.”

Along with arranging, Chew performs a task in choosing songs for every week’s theme. Some themes to date this season have included Soul Practice Night time and Hair Steel Night time.

“It’s a staff effort,” Chew stated of the music choice course of. “You may have the community and you’ve got the movie star visitors. You may have our nice choreographers who additionally dance the factor. It’s a giant staff, and all people type of chimes in on that.”

Chew stated that though the movie star contestants get “a variety of enter” in selecting which songs they’ll carry out, they don’t all the time get their want. Generally, the present gained’t have the rights to a music {that a} contestant needs to bop to.

“Earlier to this yr, all Prince songs have been off the desk,” he stated. “I believe it is likely to be totally different now, however there are specific classes [we don’t do], like artists who won’t allow you to use their music. A variety of that stuff determines what can and can’t be used.”

Whereas DWTS is maintaining him busy, Chew has a number of different initiatives within the works as properly. After coproducing the 2018 documentary Two Beats One Soul together with his spouse, Vivian Scott Chew, Ray is trying to increase the movie right into a sequence. Two Beats One Soul shines a light-weight on Cuban tradition and brings collectively artists from each Cuba and america.

“It was a cultural trade,” Ray instructed Us of the unique movie. “It spurred the concept of us doing a sequence that will happen in other places across the globe, and never solely internationally, however domestically.”

Chew additionally teased his subsequent album, My Journey, which is due out in 2025, and his upcoming gig directing an all-star lineup of artists at Carnegie Corridor’s Night time of Inspiration on December 14.

“It’s a congregation of cultures and other people coming collectively in a singular environment that brings secular and non-secular music along with totally different totally different genres of music,” he stated of the New York Metropolis occasion. “[It’s happening] on a fantastic stage with a 150 [piece] mass choir and 64 piece orchestra.”

Dancing With the Stars airs concurrently on ABC and Disney+ Tuesdays on ABC at 8 p.m. ET. You may stream episodes on Disney+ the subsequent day.

Two Beats One Soul is now streaming on Black Expertise on Xfinity and Xumo.