Biit

[dchester]

In a recent thread Andabien coined this acronym BIIT="But is it tango?". We all know this dead horse has been beaten one too many times, or as subliminal put it,

, but I felt like I needed to add my 2 cents.

Teachers/dancers/maestros performing in front of an audience are, during that time, performing artists. Therefore it doesn't bother me if they take liberties with their dancing style or moves, or the music they choose. Their job at that point is to entertain the audience, or make them them think, or push them outside their comfort zone, or whatever philosophical mission they take upon themselves to accomplish in that performance. Even if they just want to mime steps to complete silence, I can appreciate that.

My problem is when a DJ decides to take that approach and force non-tango music on me. Or when fellow dancers decide to perform their fancy moves on the dancefloor that they are sharing with me. That is when I ask, BIIT? And "Can you guys let me dance my tango already?"

Thoughts ?

I'm also fine with performances not conforming to the rules of social dancing, and to be honest, it confuses me when people complain about that.

As for the DJ thing, as long as it's advertised what percent of traditional vs alternative is played (or you know the tendencies of the DJ), then there's no problem, as you have the option to avoid it.

My biggest pet peeve with DJs who play a lot of alternative music, is how they construct the tanda. They'll put three songs into a tanda that have absolutely no business being in the same tanda. I'm the type of dance that likes to hear what the first song is, before asking someone to dance. That only works if the first song gives you a clue about what kind of music will be in the rest of the tanda. I've even heard DJs put an alternative tango, vals, and milonga into the same tanda.

I was at a milonga a few weeks back, where an alternative tanda started. The first song (although I've forgotten what it was), had a "mood" that I'd describe as a connection song. I picked someone who I though had a good embrace, for what would be a slow, mostly walking/rockstep dance. I lucked out, picked a good follower, and the first dance was very nice. We chatted in between songs, and the next song started, "Borges y Paraguay" by Bajofondo Tango. This is NOT a connection song, as far as I'm concerned. While it's a great song, it gets very lively, and did not belong in this tanda. I asked the follower if she was familiar with this song, (which she was), and I warned her that I could dance this song the way I danced the prior one, and asked if that would be alright. We both talked about whether to just sit it out, but eventually she decided she was ready for the ride. The dance ended up being pretty good, but it was a shame that I couldn't have had another connection song with her, as her embrace was very good.

 

[newbie]

My problem is when a DJ decides to take that approach and force non-tango music on me. Or when fellow dancers decide to perform their fancy moves on the dancefloor that they are sharing with me. That is when I ask, BIIT? And "Can you guys let me dance my tango already?"

Thoughts ?

- For newcomers the beat is simpler to detect in modern, preferably non-tango, pieces.
- For seasoned people who have heard the Golden Age (yeat another marketing term, aka YAMT, see, it is easy to coin acronyms) pieces two thousand times, it is r e f r e s h i n g. (not putting emphasis on the word, just the forum displays *******ing when you write r e f r e s h i n g)
- Older people may not like how younger people dance. The young Gavito danced so fast that you could not see his feet (Ok I am quoting here, I did not witness myself), and the old and ill Gavito, it was like watching an oil painting (I did witness). Choose the milonga that suits your style. If you're a young Gavito, go to La Catedral, if you are an old Gavito go to El Beso.

 

[bordertangoman]

more Garage Tango

La Cumparsita by a budding young electric guitarist

@Dchester; there is connection music and non-connection music??????
now that needs a thread.

I cant see why Borges Y paraguay shouldnt allow for connection, after all the riffs it uses are quick but the tempo of the song is slow (if speed is thing that prohibits your connection)

or dont you get connection in milonga either?

 

[UKDancer]

Yes, dancing to unfamiliar music is enjoyable. And more difficult to dance musically. Dancing to well-known music is more enjoyable. Do you think those who have been dancing for decades have better or worse dances because they know the repertoire inside out? Are they less musical? Are their improv. skills lacking? Are they just doing "choreography"?

The well-known pieces appeal to me if I don't hear them too often, and I look upon dancing to them as an opportunity to relax a bit. If a DJ had just a 5-disc 100 Best Tangos compilation set, and nothing else, I would dance somewhere else.

Those that have been dancing for decades (relatively few in number, I suspect) are probably better dancers mainly through practice and their accumulated experience, rather than their familiarity with a limited repertoire. When I suggest to someone that knowing the music will help them, I mean that acquiring a familiarity with the genre, the style of each orchestra, and the development of that style over time, all helps to provide a context in which an improvisatory response to the music is in keeping with the subtle (and sometimes very obvious) differences that we hear. But if we can't hear it, it doesn't matter - we are dancers, not musicians, and nearly all the music that was produced by the great orchestras in the golden age was produced for dancing, and that it is still available today stands as testiment to its durability. If I can only appreciate the best-known favourites, that is my loss, not an opportunity to learn the pieces by heart (even if I may come to do so, anyway).

 

[tangomonkey]

Those that have been dancing for decades (relatively few in number, I suspect) are probably better dancers mainly through practice and their accumulated experience, rather than their familiarity with a limited repertoire.

Sure, but I think their familiarity likely spans well over a 1000 pieces not 100...so it's not a limited repertoire. (FWIW, on a personal note, in my relatively brief tango life I have accumulated over 8000 tango/milonga/vals tracks, from the earliest available recordings to the most recent ones. I'd say I have listened to about 20% of them, know about 5% quite well, 2-3% I know intimately.Those numbers will rise over time...).

When I suggest to someone that knowing the music will help them, I mean that acquiring a familiarity with the genre, the style of each orchestra, and the development of that style over time, all helps to provide a context in which an improvisatory response to the music is in keeping with the subtle (and sometimes very obvious) differences that we hear.

Agreed, and well put.

 

[bordertangoman]

When I suggest to someone that knowing the music will help them, I mean that acquiring a familiarity with the genre,

i agree with the above

the style of each orchestra, and the development of that style over time, all helps to provide a context in which an improvisatory response to the music is in keeping with the subtle (and sometimes very obvious) differences that we hear. But if we can't hear it, it doesn't matter - we are dancers, not musicians, and nearly all the music that was produced by the great orchestras in the golden age was produced for dancing, and that it is still available today stands as testiment to its durability. If I can only appreciate the best-known favourites, that is my loss, not an opportunity to learn the pieces by heart (even if I may come to do so, anyway).

I dont agree with this;

having been to several musicality workshops (tango and jive)
and now wishing to develop the musicality of the people I teach, I think its about listening. That's what I did in my last beginners class. What they hear and its potential to be used in the dance is far more important than whether it was composed last month or the last century. I didnt tell the title of the tracks, or the musicians or the composer. I asked them what they heard; what instruments; what is giving the rhythm, the melody, the call and response; where are there changes, where does a phrase begin and end, where does it repeat. If they explore it themselves you give them the tools to improvise the dance with.
(and the results were very rewarding; first they listened and moved ot it solo; so the women's musicality was validated, then walking arm in arm, then walking and giros and the giros are danced by the woman and not led by the man and they had fun doing it)

Footnote: My ability to be familiar with a song surpasses my ability to remember who its by or what its called, and I suspect thats true for most people. you hear a song a few times and even if you dont like it your brain recognises it.

 

[UKDancer]

I dont agree with this ...

I think we just express ourselves differently.

By being familiar with the styles of the great orchestras, I mean that you learn to make musical sense of what you hear when you hear it: you do need to develop listening skills, above all, and then dance what you hear. If early D'Arienzo sounds like late Pugliese, you need to listen more, but you never need to know what you are hearing, just what it sounds like (ie know what you are hearing).

Now I don't think that process requires any sort of study of particular songs (but if you like that sort of thing, I've nothing against it), but rather that you develop a musical memory for the way that great tango musicians achieve their styles, and you start to dance, from within, in ways that point up the differences and bring out the nuance.

At best, this happens naturally as we develop as dancers, and if we get real help from teachers, then so much the better, but workshops can get bogged down in specifics (like a particular song), rather than generalities that have wider application.

Postscript: I have just realised that I didn't post what I meant to say: I cut out a bit, and now it says almost the opposite of what I meant - duh! I was writing about the (limited) value of analysis, or perhaps over analysis, and meant to say that whatever you could say, on paper, about a piece didn't matter unless you could actually hear it, and have it make a difference to the dance. I changed my mind about the analysis reference, and didn't recast what remained, so impying something quite unintended.

 

[tangomonkey]

Postscript: I have just realised that I didn't post what I meant to say: I cut out a bit, and now it says almost the opposite of what I meant - duh! I was writing about the (limited) value of analysis, or perhaps over analysis, and meant to say that whatever you could say, on paper, about a piece didn't matter unless you could actually hear it, and have it make a difference to the dance. I changed my mind about the analysis reference, and didn't recast what remained, so impying something quite unintended.

Well I was partially with you until this. If you can see it on the page you can hear it, and hear it more clearly and better than pretty much anyone else who hasn't looked at the printed music. It is inconceivable that the result could be otherwise. When I look at a score it instantly opens up. I hear it - the melody, the rhythms, the harmonies, the phrases. The eyes pick up much more, and more more quickly, than the ears alone. At least until the ears have heard it many times...an educated study allows them to hear more.

Study does make a positive differences in MY dance, and that's what I care about most.

 

[AndaBien]

... Footnote: My ability to be familiar with a song surpasses my ability to remember who its by or what its called, and I suspect thats true for most people. you hear a song a few times and even if you dont like it your brain recognises it.

I'm like that. I've been hearing tango music for over 15 years and I recognize much of it, but often I can only guess at an orchestra. As often I can't even guess. I do know the general differences between the tango decades, and I am influenced by it in my dancing.

I was the same way with Rock N Roll music, when I was growing up. I knew he music, but I often couldn't say which band it was.

 

[UKDancer]

If you can see it on the page you can hear it, and hear it more clearly and better than pretty much anyone else who hasn't looked at the printed music. It is inconceivable that the result could be otherwise. When I look at a score it instantly opens up. I hear it - the melody, the rhythms, the harmonies, the phrases. The eyes pick up much more, and more more quickly, than the ears alone. At least until the ears have heard it many times...an educated study allows them to hear more.

Study does make a positive differences in MY dance, and that's what I care about most.

Well you can't see it on the written page. There are no published scores of the interpretations of the great tango orchestras. You can look at the available piano reductions all day, every day, but your ears are the only things that are going to let you hear, say D'Arienzo's 1935 and 1954 versions of El Choclo and find them very, very different.

My ears are my guide. The music was composed, arranged and then performed to be heard and to be danced to. It is only accessible in that way. We can hear in a simple way or in a sophisticated way, and no one can know quite what impression any art makes on anyone else. If it takes the visual clues of a score (and one actually unrelated to the arrangement) to unlock what was there to be heard in the first place, then you don't listen long enough, or hard enough, or perhaps the performers failed in communicating their interpretation. That seems self-evident to me.

 

[dchester]

Well I was partially with you until this. If you can see it on the page you can hear it, and hear it more clearly and better than pretty much anyone else who hasn't looked at the printed music. It is inconceivable that the result could be otherwise. When I look at a score it instantly opens up. I hear it - the melody, the rhythms, the harmonies, the phrases. The eyes pick up much more, and more more quickly, than the ears alone. At least until the ears have heard it many times...an educated study allows them to hear more.

Study does make a positive differences in MY dance, and that's what I care about most.

Well you can't see it on the written page. There are no published scores of the interpretations of the great tango orchestras. You can look at the available piano reductions all day, every day, but your ears are the only things that are going to let you hear, say D'Arienzo's 1935 and 1954 versions of El Choclo and find them very, very different.

My ears are my guide. The music was composed, arranged and then performed to be heard and to be danced to. It is only accessible in that way. We can hear in a simple way or in a sophisticated way, and no one can know quite what impression any art makes on anyone else. If it takes the visual clues of a score (and one actually unrelated to the arrangement) to unlock what was there to be heard in the first place, then you don't listen long enough, or hard enough, or perhaps the performers failed in communicating their interpretation. That seems self-evident to me.

What one person experiences when they see or hear music likely is quite different from someone else's experience. You both are likely right on what you experience, but that doesn't mean it applies to anyone else.

That being said, my experience is much closer to UKDancer's.

 

[tangomonkey]

Well you can't see it on the written page. There are no published scores of the interpretations of the great tango orchestras. You can look at the available piano reductions all day, every day, but your ears are the only things that are going to let you hear, say D'Arienzo's 1935 and 1954 versions of El Choclo and find them very, very different.

True enough for music with no sheet music available. Study what is available - no detailed written score with all the parts is necessary. Obviously it ultimately comes down to listening. (Well, ultimately to dancing...). That in no way negates the value of studying the piano reduction. The rest is mostly a matter of hearing instrumental changes, melodic alterations, counter melodies, rhythms used in the accompaniments, etc. Small stuff in comparison to form, melodic phrasing, rhythmic pattern in the melody, harmonic progression... (but very important).

Anyone seriously reading the El Choclo would not so quickly write off the value of analysis. The music as Villoldo wrote (or yes, as the piano reduction has been published) has been studied in great detail from many angles. Each orquestra's interpretation has been analysed and the differences making them distinct has become obvious even to newbies. Phrasing, melodic, harmonic, rhythmic techiniques have been explored. How they are used in El Choclo is very common to tango music overall. From a study of a single piece of music much has been accomplished. More than any casual listening to tango music over months or a year or so would have accomplished.


I have D'Arienzo's recordings of El Choclo from 1937, 1948, 1954, and 1962. Please tell me what the differences are. I'd really like to hear what you have to say about that. If you don't have them PM me an email address - I'll get them to you.

 

[tangomonkey]

What one person experiences when they see or hear music likely is quite different from someone else's experience. You both are likely right on what you experience, but that doesn't mean it applies to anyone else.

That being said, my experience is much closer to UKDancer's.

I assume your experience is the majority one. How could it be otherwise?

 

[dchester]

I assume your experience is the majority one. How could it be otherwise?

If it is, it's probably because most people have experience with listening to music, but not as many have experience with reading music.

 

[tangomonkey]

If it is, it's probably because most people have experience with listening to music, but not as many have experience with reading music.

Yes, that's what I meant. And even fewer have experience and training in musical analysis and analytical listening.