Are You Using Music As Background In Your Classes?

Most instructors choose their music carefully.

We check the tempo, pick tracks the class will recognise, and build a playlist that flows from warm-up to peak to cool-down. That is good practice, and for most of us it is where music planning stops.

But there is a layer underneath tempo and familiarity that impacts every class: ENERGY. The feel of a track. What it does to the pool and the people in it. And it is the part most of us never consciously plan.

Let's look at music differently. Not as the soundtrack playing in the background, but as one of the most powerful coaching tools you have.

What Your Music Is Actually Doing

From the moment your class starts, the music sets the pool's energy, shapes how hard the workout feels, and tells members, before you say a single word, what kind of effort is required.

"Where words fail, music speaks". Hans Christian Andersen's line gets at something every instructor has felt. The right track lifts a class without a cue, and the wrong one can flatten it just as fast.

Music influences heart rate, perceived effort, mood, and willingness to challenge themselves. It can make a demanding exercise feel achievable and a moderate exercise boring. It is a physiological lever you can use for the whole class. The question is whether you are using it on purpose.

Why Energy Gets Overlooked

Most music planning happens on tempo and recognition. Does the BPM suit the movement? Will the class know the song? Both matter. But a track can be the right tempo and have completely the wrong energy for what you want your class to do.

A song can be 'the right bpm' and still pull against what you are trying to create. Too mellow for a power set. Too frantic for a recovery block. Too dated for the audience. The tempo fits. The feel does not.

When you are only planning for tempo, you are managing half of what music does. The energy, which is the part that members respond to most, is ignored.

Why This Is Important For YOU

When your music and your class plan line up, the class feels cohesive. Members move with you and leave feeling they got a great workout and that it was enjoyable.

Getting this right is a skill you can learn, not a knack you either have or you do not. It is one of the things on the table at this year's Aqua Immersion.

Learn how at Aqua Immersion 2026

Why the Pool Environment Changes Everything

In the water, music works a little differently, and that is worth understanding.

Aqua movement is often at a different tempo than land-based exercises. The water has resistance, turbulence, and buoyancy; the beat and the exercises are completely different in an aqua class. Often, your verbal cues are competing with splashing and acoustics. Music plays a more significant role in the pool, not less.

The right track can inspire intensity when your voice cannot be heard by everyone. It can assist with exercise transitions, hold a rhythm members feel rather than hear clearly, and create the lift that keeps a class moving enthusiastically. Used well, music becomes part of how you coach the water, not just being background music.

An Expert Insight Worth Sitting With

Strong use of music comes down to three things working together: intention, intensity, and energy. Most of us have a feel for one or two of them. The real skill is combining all three intentionally, so the music is not just playing alongside your class but actively driving it.

That is the difference between a set of exercises and an experience, and between a good class and one that members talk about and come back for. Deliberately building that synergy is exactly what Vanessa unpacks in her session.

See how it is done at Aqua Immersion 2026

Master Your Music at Aqua Immersion 2026

Understanding what music does is one thing. Knowing how to pair it with intention, intensity, and energy, and how to use it for cueing, creativity, and long-term results, is another.

That is exactly what Vanessa Leone covers in Music Mistakes to Masterpieces: Your Key to Unforgettable Classes, one of the sessions at the Aqua Immersion Virtual Conference on 13 September 2026.

Vanessa is a seasoned Movement Therapist and hybrid trainer who presents at international fitness conferences and brings a deep, education-led approach to everything she teaches. In this session she will show you how to pair music with real intention, build synergy between sound and movement, and use music as a tool for cueing, creativity, play, and the kind of class members keep coming back to.

The Aqua Immersion Conference also includes sessions on performance training in the water, brain training, deep-water wall intervals, and preparing your own body to teach. 6 AusActive CPDs, 8.5 REPs NZ CPDs, and 30 FitRec points for signing up for the conference.

Early bird pricing is available until 11 August, and lifetime access to recordings is included, so you can revisit the content whenever you need it.

If music has been something you set and forget, or you have never been quite sure how to make it work harder for your class, this is a practical, focused session worth your time.

Save your spot at Aqua Immersion 2026