How to improve musicality

[opendoor]

..prefer.. late D'Arienzo and Pugliese, Salamanca, Varela..

So do I but for musical reasons! Only certain music moves me! I'm picky.

 

[JournalInTime]

I still suspect that your technical reservations are covering up the musical ones. Most electronic transfers of shellacs are based on wrong equilibration curves (in combination with heavy filtering and corrections).

So would you say that modern orquestas deliberately emulate tango music as they hear it in bad recordings, and therefore play those sounds live? Because when I hear live tango music with no electronics present – just a bunch of musicians playing acoustically – it still sounds squeaky to me unless they're playing fairly late compositions. I'm not saying that couldn't be due to them playing what they heard and not what was intended, but I've always been under the impression that the sheet music survived and they're playing what was written . . . which is squeaky.

 

[opendoor]

It all depends on "squeaky" now. Perhaps our hearing customs and our built-in hearing curves differ, too? (Unfortunately due to age) But we are commenting on a musicality thread, so I focussed on the arrangements. Quartets and quintets actually sound different than an OT. The OT sounds different than a Gran Orquesta de Tango. Loudness is a factor, but also style, technique and frasing. I played one year in a tango orquestra and the directors placed great value on reproducing the original playing technique of the instruments (Tango orchestras had their own techniques and frasings that were not common in european salon orchestras). Another point is ability and skills. In a quartet you hear every voice and therefore every mistake. But the pitches and the overall spectrum are hardly different from the grand orquesta. For me (not native speaker) "squeaky" means without midths.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

But once tango clicked, then suddenly the music made sense.

Same here. Didn't happen immediately but, after a couple of years of practicing and listening it began to make more sense. Now, I find it to be some of the most sophisticated and beautiful music of the 20th century.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

But isn't that a technical aspect? I think worn and hissy records say nothing about the quality of the tune and the arrangement of the production. It rather says that people liked these pieces and made heavy use of the records!

True, but that's a bug not a feature. We listen to them because we dont' have clean, non-squeaky recordings.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

. It's pitched unusually high and has a sort of jangly quality in all but the most lyric compositions.

Often it's because the sound system is not good enough to reproduce the full range of frequencies. On a professional system capable of playing low bass frequencies without distortion, the music can sound very different--fuller and richer. You really get to hear the upright bass and low frequencies on the piano.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

These are the standards of comparison.

Maybe try comparing it to a backup band in a nightclub in the 1940s.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

One reason why I prefer later tango – late D'Arienzo and Pugliese, Salamanca, Varela, et al. – is that it started to drift toward a symphonic sound that carried better over radio and TV broadcasts, and that appealed to enough listeners to get broadcast in the first place. It's less squeaky for reasons that have little to do with recording quality. By comparison, even the best recordings of La Guardia Vieja are my "go change my shirt" music. I like most tango music, but I prefer the less-squeaky kind that makes the windows vibrate a little.

How Vieja? De Angelis is not squeaky, nor is Canaro. Some very early music can be, often because of the recording quality. But I've heard remastered Carabelli that sounds quite good.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Because when I hear live tango music with no electronics present – just a bunch of musicians playing acoustically – it still sounds squeaky to me unless they're playing fairly late compositions.

In my experience, it's often because there are not enough musicians in the orchestra. You really need a minimum of eight to make a really good tango orchestra. Ten is even better. That adds some bottom to the sound.

 

[JournalInTime]

How Vieja? De Angelis is not squeaky, nor is Canaro. Some very early music can be, often because of the recording quality. But I've heard remastered Carabelli that sounds quite good.

I'm talking 1895-1925. Carabelli, yes . . . and Firpo, Lomuto, and OTV. Canaro, De Angelis, De Caro, Donato, Fresedo, et al. are much too late; that's all early Epoca De Oro.

 

[JournalInTime]

Maybe try comparing it to a backup band in a nightclub in the 1940s.

I'm talking about the average Joe in the street here, not someone who already knows it's tango music, when it's from, and what to compare it to. Take a random person who has never heard a tango but who listens to music streaming from musicians active right now – or who goes to the symphony – and play tangos from the 1910s, then the 1920s, then the 1930, and so on. Ask them to describe what they hear. This is what new dancers whom we might to describe as "unmusical" are hearing.

 

[LadyLeader]

I'm talking about the average Joe in the street here, not someone who already knows it's tango music, when it's from, and what to compare it to. Take a random person who has never heard a tango

Tango music can be a truly negative experience for some of them!

We had a spontaneous outdoor milonga at a small lake. After two hours he arrived, not aggressive but furiously frustrated telling us - I came here with my tent for some relaxation but your music is horrible, so monotonous. I cannot take it anymore!!!!!!

 

[itwillhappen]

Most electronic transfers of shellacs are based on wrong equilibration curves (in combination with heavy filtering and corrections).

More than 80% of what I hear and play nowadays are carefully done transfers from sources like Tango Tunes or Tango Time Travel or contemporary recordings.

 

[JournalInTime]

Tango music can be a truly negative experience for some of them!

We had a spontaneous outdoor milonga at a small lake. After two hours he arrived, not aggressive but furiously frustrated telling us - I came here with my tent for some relaxation but your music is horrible, so monotonous. I cannot take it anymore!!!!!!

Sounds familiar.

The studio where I dance twice a week, practice once a week, and rent the floor for privates with my coach is in a semi-industrial loft that backs on a residential quarter. It is long and has lots of windows. It gets hot, but they aren't permitted to open the windows because the neighbors have lodged complaints. Not because the music is loud – the local house parties are far louder, and audible through the thick windows! – but because the music is "weird and awful." It's just ordinary tango music.

There have also been complaints about tango music at outdoor events. Salsa, zouk, samba, and other dance events in the same parks get zero complaints. Tango events get complaints because the music strikes people as discordant.

With due respect to those who blame things other than the musical style, it's the musical style. Ordinary folks expect drums, dominant bass, claves, etc. in dance music, with lots of repetition. Something like Biagi is just intolerably bad to their ears.

 

[itwillhappen]

I'm talking 1895-1925. Carabelli, yes . . . and Firpo, Lomuto, and OTV.

It depends. I plan to play next tandas Firpo '35-37, Lomuto '37-42, OTV '31-37.