How to Develop Improvisation Skills?

[newbie]

The lead has to know (more or less) what the accompaniment is going to do so the improvisations will fit.

Then it's a lower form of improvisation. More like, a variation on a given theme. It's one step towards improvisation but with still a long journey to walk. The more known-beforehand factors you add (dancing at your usual milonga with your regular partner on the same song that the same DJ always plays at the same hour), the more likely you are to lead the same dance.

Now if you like analogies with musicians, I've heard better than your lead "improvising" on a prepared tune played his orchestra. During a birthday party (our ballroom teacher's jubilee) the people who wanted to sing something were accompanied by an amateur pianist, also a pupil of our teacher's. He had no partitions (being blind) and wasn't even asking what the title of the song was. Instead, he would let the singer start alone, and once he feels the music he would start to play the piano by the ear, feeling what the singer was likely to do next (accelerate, slow down, change the tone, end) but never knowing for sure.

 

[dchester]

Then it's a lower form of improvisation. More like, a variation on a given theme. It's one step towards improvisation but with still a long journey to walk. The more known-beforehand factors you add (dancing at your usual milonga with your regular partner on the same song that the same DJ always plays at the same hour), the more likely you are to lead the same dance.

Maybe this is true for you, but it's a mistake to think it's true for everyone else.

Now if you like analogies with musicians, I've heard better than your lead "improvising" on a prepared tune played his orchestra. During a birthday party (our ballroom teacher's jubilee) the people who wanted to sing something were accompanied by an amateur pianist, also a pupil of our teacher's. He had no partitions (being blind) and wasn't even asking what the title of the song was. Instead, he would let the singer start alone, and once he feels the music he would start to play the piano by the ear, feeling what the singer was likely to do next (accelerate, slow down, change the tone, end) but never knowing for sure.

I'm not sure how this relates to dancing. The music can't change and adapt to how I dance (unless I suppose it's live music and the band leader is watching what I'm doing).

 

[Joy In Motion]

Technically, this goes against improvisation. Improvisation would be dancing on an unknown tango with an unknown partner. Memorizing the songs is somehow like preparing a choreography.

Yes, I would disagree as well, for a couple of reasons…

First, becoming extremely familiar with individual songs is the best way for you to internalize the structures of a musical genre so that you feel comfortable navigating with songs of the same genre that you’ve never heard.

Second, if you’ve been around the tango community long enough you know that the vast majority of songs being played at milongas are old ones that have been playing for years and years and will continue to be played for years. We play to recordings, not live music, and tango is different from some other dances in that most of the music is from the Golden Age and is not constantly being churned out by new artists. Alex Krebs even said in an interview with me that musicality in tango is currently being partly defined by the dancer’s ability to “memorize” a common repertoire of songs.

Memorizing songs does not mean you memorize specific sequences of steps to go to the musical features you have memorized; it actually means the exact opposite. Just like muscle memory allows you to forget about your movements and just let the dance flow, so too does music memory allow you to stop guessing and analyzing the music and just let it come out naturally. So memorizing songs does not take away from the improvisational nature of the dance as long as you have the right mindset, that each dance is different because of your partner and the unique connection you have with them in that particular dance, not to mention your own changing mood and creative interpretation in the moment. If anything, playing to the same songs allows for greater musicality in a particular direction because you can constantly find new ways of expressing the same types of rhythms, taking you deeper into the possibilities that exist. It’s very similar to “set plays” in sports. These are not intended to take spontaneity out of the game but rather to enhance it. It provides a common language to build on in order to create greater communication and connection instead of always starting from scratch.

 

[tangomonkey]

Then it's a lower form of improvisation. More like, a variation on a given theme. It's one step towards improvisation but with still a long journey to walk. The more known-beforehand factors you add (dancing at your usual milonga with your regular partner on the same song that the same DJ always plays at the same hour), the more likely you are to lead the same dance.

Not true at all - quite the opposite, IMHO. Improvisation is literaly variation on a given theme (and harmonic progression). There's a famous quote attributed to Charlie Parker: "I learn the changes then forget them.". In other words know the music so well you can be spontaneously creative in real time. Sure, if you always dance with the same partner at the same milonga to the same music you will become stale. No one has said boring routine is the way to improv skills. On the other hand, many of the jazz greats play(ed) in bands with the same musicians in little jazz clubs for years and still function(ed) unbelieavbly creatively and spontaneously.

Now if you like analogies with musicians, I've heard better than your lead "improvising" on a prepared tune played his orchestra. During a birthday party (our ballroom teacher's jubilee) the people who wanted to sing something were accompanied by an amateur pianist, also a pupil of our teacher's. He had no partitions (being blind) and wasn't even asking what the title of the song was. Instead, he would let the singer start alone, and once he feels the music he would start to play the piano by the ear, feeling what the singer was likely to do next (accelerate, slow down, change the tone, end) but never knowing for sure.

In other words he created new music in real time, with a fellow musician. That is certainly an accomplishmnet (Bach and the fugue...), and maybe a form of improvisation, but it's not improvising as I would strictly define it. During the learning process (and that never ends) there are patterns (riffs) that get drilled into the musician's brain, melodic and harmonic. Sequences, if you will. During memory lapses or loss of focus it is easy to fall back on these known riffs, as it is when dancing. I suspect the pianist you describe (and one of the best keyboardists ever, Bach) rely on these patterns when confronted with on the spot music creation. Which isn't to say their skill is not formidable and impressive. An interesting story: Bach was asked by the King of Prussia to "improvise" a three part fugue on a theme provided by the King. Which he did, apparently brilliantly. He later composed "The Musical Offering", a series of fugues and canons (a type of complicated counterpoint) of incredible complexity and mastery of harmony and counterpoint. I'm sure that version far surpassed anything Bach made up on the spot. I suspect the pianist you described would feel much the same about his playing.

So, how does all this relate to developing improv skills for dancing tango? Develop a solid technique and the fundamentals, then forget them and feel the music. "Learn the changes then forget them." I'd say - for me, today - knowing the music produces better results, on the dance floor. I understand the points being made in favour of exposing one's dance to the unfamiliar. This thread is about developing improv skills and I will definitely practice dancing to unfamiliar music, remembering what Joy and Peaches wrote. Maybe one day I will be spontaneous and able to improvise to whatever I hear, familiar or not. I hope so.

All these statements are of course my opinion - probably not presented so humbly though...My Bad.

 

[tangomonkey]

Joy in Motion: once again, great points!

I was busy writing my diatribe (rant) and posted it after you had already posted your well-reasoned and presented arguments. If I had read yours first I may have discarded mine...

 

[AndaBien]

I think an important skill in improvising is the ability to create nuance. I’ve heard it said that old time musicians could play the same tune hundred of times, but never play it the same way twice. I think that really good dancers realize that any single step can be taken in almost infinite ways. By dancing at the level of nuance, they can create lots of variety and richness doing the most elementary steps. Conversely, dancing complicates steps makes discovering nuance more difficult.

Another skill that’s good for improvising is understanding the navigational characteristics of various step patterns. (I’m not referring to the sequences that are often taught in classes, but to those that every leader has in his repertoire). This is a bit like knowing where you are going to wind up after doing a riff. If you get stuck in a situation on the dance floor where you can only go to your left, and your partner is standing on her R foot, but you only have two feet of space to move in, what steps can you use, and where will you be when they are done? If your pathway becomes blocked, what are the various ways you can reverse direction, and what will be the end result of those possibilities? A good way to practice navigational skills is to dance on a very crowded dance floor.

 

[tangomonkey]

AndaBien: your post reminded of the link I posted earlier to a tango blog entry entitled "Improvisation - it just doesn't happen". (Found by googling "deliberate practice" + improvisation + tango)

http://tangosalonadelaide.blogspot.com/2009/01/improvisation-it-doesnt-just-happen.html

The author concludes:
"For me, genuine improvisation will only occur when I connect with the music and I connect with my partner. From here, I'm transported into the dance by the music, with my body drawing from a relatively small bag of movements that have been embedded after several thousand uses."

It's the "relatively small bag of movements" I'm trying to understand. I get relying on muscle memory - let the body take over and stop planning during the dance. And that there is nuance and subtlety in each step. But what happens to creativity and spontaneous expression? Does reducing your dance to a "small bag of movements" restrict or enhance it?


Have people found that consciously restricting their steps gives them a more rewarding (improvised) dance?

 

[Joy In Motion]

AndaBien: your post reminded of the link I posted earlier to a tango blog entry entitled "Improvisation - it just doesn't happen". (Found by googling "deliberate practice" + improvisation + tango)

http://tangosalonadelaide.blogspot.com/2009/01/improvisation-it-doesnt-just-happen.html

The author concludes:
"For me, genuine improvisation will only occur when I connect with the music and I connect with my partner. From here, I'm transported into the dance by the music, with my body drawing from a relatively small bag of movements that have been embedded after several thousand uses."

It's the "relatively small bag of movements" I'm trying to understand. I get relying on muscle memory - let the body take over and stop planning during the dance. And that there is nuance and subtlety in each step. But what happens to creativity and spontaneous expression? Does reducing your dance to a "small bag of movements" restrict or enhance it?


Have people found that consciously restricting their steps gives them a more rewarding (improvised) dance?

Two things: combination and deviation.

Just a few moves lend themselves to infinite possibilities in terms of combinations. The inventiveness of dance is not in coming up with grand new things but in finding unique ways of combining what one already has. Think of poetry. Poets don’t invent new words; they use words they already know and find a way of combining them that not only is unique but has rich associations and context. When some excellent leaders get in a zone, on occasion they will confine themselves to a single space and just do combinations of forward, back, and side steps for the follower around themselves – and it is not only musical but brilliant, and it feels like a deeper connection because limiting yourself in one area amplifies perception / experience in another.

Deviation comes with the how. Take a basic pattern. Every single person has slight but significant variations in how they will do it, and the same person can also find various ways to alter the quality of the pattern in his/her body and the partnership based on the music, the connection, and his/her own unique emotional and creative response (which of course becomes manifested physically). And this is true even if everyone has good technique. I first learned the principle of deviation from Carl Seashore’s book, In Search of Beauty in Music. The idea is that in research studies there is startling commonality in how the world’s best musicians play, both technically and expressively. This would be similar to the idea in dance that technique needs to be consistent to enable communication and connection. It also indicates that expression and musicality aren’t just a matter of anything-goes; there is definitely a base-layer of technique to musicality as well. This doesn’t inhibit individuality; on the contrary, the premise of this principle is when multiple people are given the same template to work with, the differences can shine forth with much more clarity than if everyone were doing something completely different. Imagine, for example, if the sport of gymnastics did not have a particular structure that everyone agreed to. You could theoretically do whatever you want on the balance beam or the bars, for example, and that might be kind of interesting for a while. But it is the fact that all the gymnasts have a common repertoire of techniques and movements to work from that allows their uniqueness and creativity to really shine through. It never does become boring. When you read about research on creativity, you find the words “form” and “limits” creeping up over and over again, because these are enablers of creativity, not roadblocks. The same is true in dance on so many levels. One might hypothesize that you could much more easily be creative if you weren’t dancing with another person in tango, but dancing with another person (not to mention the embrace) provides a unique limit that produces a very unique form of creativity. Irreplaceable. The same with improvisation in the dance. The limits are what make it what it is.

 

[AndaBien]

...Have people found that consciously restricting their steps gives them a more rewarding (improvised) dance?

Definitely! It is often said in the design world, “embrace constraints”, because it contributes to creativity. If one can create a design using any colors, any font, any material, it’s easy to get lost in the choices. If a designer must use only “Baby Blue” and some god-awful font, it may require some real inspiration to come up with something brilliant. But, it can be done.

It’s easy to be creative when leaders can employ any step, any timing and any emotion to give a dance. Try giving your partner a dance when you can use only forward steps and side steps: no ochos. After you’ve become totally bored with the initial possibilities you’ll begin to create new possibilities using the same steps - possibilities that you’ve not thought about before.

By narrowing your choices to the most elementary steps, you really begin to think about new ways to use them.

 

[tangomonkey]

Joy and AndaBien:

Yes, I essentialy agree with all your statements. I interpret "template" to mean "tango", "waltz", "symphony", "12 bar blues", "iambic pentameter"... However, a poet doesn't say "I know 20,000 words but for this poem I'm only going to use the few dozen that have produced great works for me in the past." A composer does not use only three or four of the 11 notes available in the diatonic scale to create their melodies and harmonies. A poet or composer is doing something much different than the dancer. They are creating, not interpreting a composition, within the limits of the form (template). The jazz musician improvising on old standard is closer to the tango dancer. An improvising musician is working within the harmonic sequence, part of the "template" of the piece, but isn't restricted to only a few pre-determined notes he/she can comfortably play. Even though he/she can play those notes with great nuance and variety, in various combinations.

The tango dancer's template is to dance with a partner, in an embrace, to music in 4, performed in a moderate tempo, for 3 minutes, using steps considered appropriate within the history and traditions of tango. The "small bag of movements" is supposed to be those the dancer has become most familiar with through "dedicated practice" and constant use. Do what you know, in other words. I understand the concept of nuance and infinite combination and the value of setting limits, but to my mind exciting things can happen when you reach beyond your comfort zone. Can't they?


Thinking about imposed limits brought to mind the great 20th century composer, Igor Stavinsky's comments, in his Poetics of Music:
"My freedom...consists in my moving about within the narrow frame I have assigned myself...My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningfull the more narrowly I limit my field of action...Whatever dimishes constraint, diminishes strength...The more constraints one imposes, the more one free's one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit."


Now that's a guy all for setting limits! Interestingly, he wasn't a dancer, but he did write some famous ballet music.

 

[AndaBien]

..but to my mind exciting things can happen when you reach beyond your comfort zone. Can't they?...

The whole purpose of what I am talking about is to go beyond ones' own constraints. Embrace the constraints, but find a way to be unrestrained by those constraints.

 

[Joy In Motion]

Joy and AndaBien:

Yes, I essentialy agree with all your statements. I interpret "template" to mean "tango", "waltz", "symphony", "12 bar blues", "iambic pentameter"... However, a poet doesn't say "I know 20,000 words but for this poem I'm only going to use the few dozen that have produced great works for me in the past." A composer does not use only three or four of the 11 notes available in the diatonic scale to create their melodies and harmonies. A poet or composer is doing something much different than the dancer. They are creating, not interpreting a composition, within the limits of the form (template). The jazz musician improvising on old standard is closer to the tango dancer. An improvising musician is working within the harmonic sequence, part of the "template" of the piece, but isn't restricted to only a few pre-determined notes he/she can comfortably play. Even though he/she can play those notes with great nuance and variety, in various combinations.

I see what you're saying. I'm thinking of limiting yourself to a more confined template only as an exercise, not as the way you dance socially on a regular basis. Jazz musicians tirelessly practice individual elements in order to be able to seamlessly integrate them into the fabric of the music as a whole. But obviously they wouldn't do that during a live jam session. So I think we are both saying the same thing if we agree to separate the discussion into regular social dancing vs. practicing, although every once in a while it can be incredibly fun to place a limit during a social dance with a partner you have a great connection with just to see what you can do together - assuming your partner seems to be into it. And the same can apply with ignoring some of the typical limits just to see what happens - of course this takes a lot of skill and a great connection.

The tango dancer's template is to dance with a partner, in an embrace, to music in 4, performed in a moderate tempo, for 3 minutes, using steps considered appropriate within the history and traditions of tango. The "small bag of movements" is supposed to be those the dancer has become most familiar with through "dedicated practice" and constant use. Do what you know, in other words. I understand the concept of nuance and infinite combination and the value of setting limits, but to my mind exciting things can happen when you reach beyond your comfort zone. Can't they?

Yes and no. The interesting thing is that when you grasp for things you often find them slipping through your fingers. When you start with the mindset of just getting comfortable and feeling the groove, you will start with what you know and quickly find the unexpected bursting out during your dancing - without any conscious control. And there are definitely moments where you feel the dance pushing you forward and reaching for things you never thought possible. Sometimes you can try for this even if you don't have that natural feeling happening, but a lot of times the whole thing can just fall apart if you are trying too hard. It's a delicate balance.

Thinking about imposed limits brought to mind the great 20th century composer, Igor Stavinsky's comments, in his Poetics of Music:
"My freedom...consists in my moving about within the narrow frame I have assigned myself...My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningfull the more narrowly I limit my field of action...Whatever dimishes constraint, diminishes strength...The more constraints one imposes, the more one free's one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit."


Now that's a guy all for setting limits! Interestingly, he wasn't a dancer, but he did write some famous ballet music.

Agreed. That's great stuff. You may also enjoy reading Stephen Nachmanovich's book, Free Play. He writes brilliantly about the power of limits.

 

[tangomonkey]

So I think we are both saying the same thing if we agree to separate the discussion into regular social dancing vs. practicing.

Probably. But the quote from the blog said limit your steps during the dance in a milonga, and that was what I was questioning. AndaBien makes some good points about doing exactly that. I really don't have enough experience dancing in a milonga to say what is right one way or the other. I definitely see the benefit in limiting my steps and discovering what can be done with them. I'll work on that.

When you start with the mindset of just getting comfortable and feeling the groove, you will start with what you know and quickly find the unexpected bursting out during your dancing - without any conscious control. And there are definitely moments where you feel the dance pushing you forward and reaching for things you never thought possible.

Ah, maybe one day...

 

[tangomonkey]

Just to correct a dumb error I made: there are 12 notes in the chromatic scale, not "11 notes in the diatonic scale". No doubt I've made other "dumb errors" in my posts, as yet unidentified - by me anyway...

 

[newbie]

Maybe this is true for you, but it's a mistake to think it's true for everyone else.


I'm not sure how this relates to dancing. The music can't change and adapt to how I dance (unless I suppose it's live music and the band leader is watching what I'm doing).

#1 It's true for everyone, it is called determinism

#2 It doesn't relate. You were the one who started disgressing about musicians.