I'm curious, is much music from the 1960's played at milongas where you are? There are no drums in the overwhelming majority of tango music that is played where I am, with the exception of alternative music.
How to improve musicality
- Thread starter JTh
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tangomaniac
Well-Known Member
I'm not a musician and only know the simple version.
If 4/4 time means 4 beats to the measure with the quarter note as the unit, 4/8 time should mean 4 beats to the measure with the eighth note as the unit. Since an eighth note is twice as fast as a quarter note, I expect a measure of 4/8 to be faster than a measure of 4/4.
Thanks for the score. I'm going to print it and try to follow it. I did get the rest at the end correct. That's the symbol that looks like a Z.
How would you phrase this? The idea that i am trying to express is something like: The idea that it is about "stepping on the beat" to describe the relationship between dancers and the pulse of the orchestra is incomplete, just like even the most basic rhythm guitar is more than a metronome, and as dancers we need to be paradoxically both more aware of the rest of the band, and care less about the beat than is commonly assumed.
opendoor
Forum Master
Another great resource is tango monkey's http://www.tangomusicology.com/wordpres/tango-time-signatures-and-the-beat/
The old hands around will surly know, but I find it helpful for those interested beginners, too.
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opendoor
Forum Master
I do agree, because as dancers we are interpreting the music: we can walk on the beat, or image the melody with our dynamics, or even invent a backing. There is a great quote of Gerado Portalea (a VU saint): Dance the violins, even they are not there!
Definitely does not require years. You don't need a music background either. It's just a matter of going out to the milongas as often as you can.
Sure, if you want to do choreography. When you feel the music, you can dance it
This could spark quite a discussion about timing of steps, but I would say that in general you want your "center" to be over the 'placed on the floor' stepping foot "on the beat," rather than beginning a step "to the beat."
Maybe that's what you meant?
And, yes, it takes lots of practice. Otherwise we would see more people actually dancing in time to the music.
Maybe that's what you meant?
And, yes, it takes lots of practice. Otherwise we would see more people actually dancing in time to the music.
Oliver
Member
Sometimes toward the end of the Sunday Practica, or at the alternative Milonga, or other smaller milongas.
Oliver
Member
IDK, I liked the rest of what you wrote. I just wanted to nitpick on the one thing because I'm pretty petty.
I had a teacher once say that we dancers were the percussion and I found it really unenlightening and limiting. But the sentiment of being a co-creative part of the band (the visual-kinesthetic part) is nice.
For once, a post with which I can entirely agree!
But have you ever seen it taught, and in a way
that people can comprehend and execute?
I heard it once briefly mentioned that the stepping foot
should be weighted but without any explanation of how
it should be done.
Don't look to tangoandchaos.org for much help either
because Rick McGarrey was very inconsistent.
In my experience you have to change your posture
in your embrace, the way your foot strikes and
your perceived timing of landing the foot relative
to the position of your body. The foot lands positively
on the beat giving you an immediate stability to
release the previously weighted foot and increasing
the time between the steps.
The travelling foot is actually delayed at the centre so that
the front of the foot can land on the floor to meet the body
weight as it arrives and thus the foot is immediately weighted.
The weight transfer is much faster and changes the emphasis
from one of slow and continuous weight transfers towards
a dance emphasising a connection with the beat yet with
repeated and extended centered axes.
It's that time "in the middle" which allows you to reflect
the music, to change how you move to the music, or by
omitting beats to not even move at all or very slowly.
Much more becomes possible in the moment.
A two footed dance (see tangoprinciples.org) becomes one
of repeated single footed axes. Getting this right for me
took much longer than I expected but it changed my
perception of the dance and how it was actually possible
to feel as if you were dancing the music.
That is the problem, isn't it? Like a lot of tango things it seems that to understand what people are trying to teach you have to already understood it
.For me - and this might be something that only works if you dance counterbalanced close embrace - what helped me to get to this concept (or what i think that this
concept is, or at least something quite similar) of the axis marking the pulse was to stop trying to be on the beat, but instead concentrating on facilitating the followers dance, and to create conditions where they can be on the beat. My own feet are taking care of my body by themselves, and if the the axis moves they move, but the relationship between my axis, their axis, and their feet is more complicated, and requires more attention.
That is the problem, isn't it? Like a lot of tango things it seems that to understand what people are trying to teach you have to already understood it
I think perhaps you are thinking or making it over complicated.
Both partners should be on the beat, we hear the same beat together;
being on the beat is the mark of any good dancer, doubly so for partners.
Together is best and hearing and responding to the beat enables that.
Much is mentioned about the physical connections and their varieties,
but the aural connection is universal.
So being on the beat should be second nature for both and
it is often stated that each partner is responsible for their own
axis and movement, even though the movement is initiated
by the man. Unlike other tango forms, this style of dance does
not ignore Beat 2 but acknowledges it.
I agree that your own feet position is relatively unimportant,
they go where they need to go. Your feet move after hers,
but her feet should also go wherever her body requires.
I'd have to go through my notes to find the AT people who taught this way.
In my other dance world, I think Skippy Blair has been consistently teaching this sort of thing for a long time. I remember how excited I was when I first heard her talking about the fact that "steps" begin before a beat, reflected by her counting of &a1...
Lauré Haile, too, mostly known for her involvement with early West Coast Swing, wrote an article about weight changes for (Dance Teacher?)magazine in the 50s or 60s (something else I'd have to check.)
Brought here from another thread from a post by
Who was commenting on a post by JournalInTime
"My coach said, "Forget about technique. You have that and I don't want to see that. I want to see the music. Let's work on emotion.""
(NO moderator magic required!)
I did this partly because I have sort of an issue with the judges on SO You Think You Can Dance which can be seen on YouTube. The judges are constantly evaluating the dancers on whether or not a story is being told, and whether or not they are 'in character.' I think this is mostly because they don't have a deep enough knowledge of a dance like AT to offer comments on how the dancers are doing with whatever it is they are performing.
For me expressing the music means that your movements look like what you hear - “See the music, hear the dance,” the motto of George Balanchine.
I'm not sure how showing emotion fits in with social dancing. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
I should have looked up the term for the severe, non expressive facial expression that was part of the "early" African cool look as detailed by Thompson in "Art History of Love...".
Bailango
"I did take a few musicality workshop (not many get offered). I tried to to privates for musicality. It didn’t do much for me. The musicality workshops did point me in a certain direction. For the past several years my main intention in dancing is about expressing the music."Who was commenting on a post by JournalInTime
"My coach said, "Forget about technique. You have that and I don't want to see that. I want to see the music. Let's work on emotion.""
(NO moderator magic required!)
I did this partly because I have sort of an issue with the judges on SO You Think You Can Dance which can be seen on YouTube. The judges are constantly evaluating the dancers on whether or not a story is being told, and whether or not they are 'in character.' I think this is mostly because they don't have a deep enough knowledge of a dance like AT to offer comments on how the dancers are doing with whatever it is they are performing.
For me expressing the music means that your movements look like what you hear - “See the music, hear the dance,” the motto of George Balanchine.
I'm not sure how showing emotion fits in with social dancing. Maybe someone can explain it to me.
I should have looked up the term for the severe, non expressive facial expression that was part of the "early" African cool look as detailed by Thompson in "Art History of Love...".
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