How to improve musicality

[ArbeeNYC]

You can tell them that's how you perceive it, or even tell them that's how the majority of Argentinians dancing in in BsAs in a given era perceived it and interpreted it. Even show them some video of some maestro dancing to that music. Without further data, or means of getting that information, they believe you - and interpret it that way.

This makes no sense. I mean, I don't believe you, why should someone else believe you that your subjectivity is the one they should experience? Can you describe the "emotional range" you experience when listening to Recuerdo or Una Vez, or ... ? Telling someone that "this is a sad song about love and loss" is not describing your emotional response to that song.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Individual tango songs rarely trigger any special emotions in me because I didn't hear them when I was younger, and this applies to most of the living tango dancers.

Let's be realistic, this only applies to you not to anyone else.

 

[itwillhappen]

Let's be realistic, this only applies to you not to anyone else.

Correct. Of course, I just meant that hardly anyone of the current tango generation heard any significant amount of tango music when they were young. Simply because in the 60's the chapter was closed, the master tapes and press discs got shredded, the radio broadcasts largely stopped. That the box was reopened for a niche in the late 80's was unexpected due to the success of the tango musical on Broadway.

Personal emotions, i.e. rather unspecific memories of feelings, can of course be triggered by many things, including elements in tango music. For me, however, it is much stronger with the rock and pop music of my youth. And rationally it doesn't make much sense to become sad, for example, because someone who has long since died is singing about events that actually didn't happen in that way, and if they did, the actors would also be dead long ago.

 

[Rabbit]

And rationally it doesn't make much sense to become sad

Indeed, it's hard to actually be sad dancing to beautiful music with a well matched partner, even if the music is melancholic. If I do movements to express a negative emotion in this circumstance, it's acting.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Correct. Of course, I just meant that hardly anyone of the current tango generation heard any significant amount of tango music when they were young. Simply because in the 60's the chapter was closed, the master tapes and press discs got shredded, the radio broadcasts largely stopped. That the box was reopened for a niche in the late 80's was unexpected due to the success of the tango musical on Broadway.

Personal emotions, i.e. rather unspecific memories of feelings, can of course be triggered by many things, including elements in tango music. For me, however, it is much stronger with the rock and pop music of my youth. And rationally it doesn't make much sense to become sad, for example, because someone who has long since died is singing about events that actually didn't happen in that way, and if they did, the actors would also be dead long ago.

Well, depends on when you were born. Some of the older generation of dancers in BsAs did listen to tango growing up. However, if you are currently 30 or 40, then you probably listened to other music when you were young, as I did. But the music is certainly more deeply rooted in porteño cultural than anywhere else.

Rationally, I don't know. However, people become sad, nostalgic, emotional for all sorts of things that they did not experience personally. That's what great art does. People cry at operas today, but none of them are Egyptian royalty from the Old Kingdom. Greek tragedies still move us. So does Shakespeare. Or Bach. You may *relate* to rock & pop more directly but that doesn't prevent you from being affected emotionally by other forms of art from other periods of time. Or maybe it does, I don't know.

 

[LadyLeader]

If a song touches my heart it has also an impact on my movements.
It would not feel right to use light milonga type of steps, sequences if the tango is waking up dark tones within me. Or the opposite.

 

[Brummbaer]

If a song touches my heart it has also an impact on my movements.
It would not feel right to use light milonga type of steps, sequences if the tango is waking up dark tones within me. Or the opposite.

I agree. But what if you're a novice still struggling with some moves and appreciation of the music forms, and you don't have the vocabulary?

 

[JournalInTime]

If a song touches my heart it has also an impact on my movements.

Same here. Ideally, we don't dance the same way to all orquestas, nor to all tangos by the same orquesta, nor – depending on the DJ – to all tangos in the same tanda. "Musicality" for dancers is "fitting movements to music." Sometimes it's in how we dance the movement, the movement's speed, shape, size, etc.; other times it's in what movements we choose in the first place.

I agree. But what if you're a novice still struggling with some moves and appreciation of the music forms, and you don't have the vocabulary?

This is an eternal dilemma.

I'm no fan of classes that focus on vocabulary rather than fundamentals like posture, embrace, technique, collaboration, traffic management, and above all musicality. At the same time, it's a lie when teachers roll out the old "You can dance entire tandas nicely with just walking!" line for beginners. Experienced dancers who are years beyond beginners can walk a lovely tanda, but that quality of walk with all its variations and expressions is for advanced- to master-level dancers.

If you want to teach beginners musicality, you need to teach them enough ways to fit movements to music that they can dance musically. We've all seen the beginners who try to dance the mood of, say, a complex Pugliese tango using only the basic walk, cruzada, and ochos taught in their first lessons . . . it just doesn't work for them. Ditto trying to express staccato Biagi, or trying to keep up with D'Arienzo. So, I think some vocabulary beyond a few basics is necessary to teach musicality. I just don't think launching into a huge, confusing vocabulary makes beginners more musical.

Finding the happy medium is the challenge. One thing that would help a lot is if instead of teaching a new step or two every class across, say, 15 classes and six levels (hundreds of steps), 3-4 classes at a time were devoted to just one step at a time, showing how to change its speed, shape, size, level, system, direction, and so on. I remember watching a beginner's eyes pop out when I showed him six or seven ways for a leader to accompany follower ochos, and how to stop mid-ocho to take little sidesteps.

 

[Brummbaer]

If you want to teach beginners musicality, you need to teach them enough ways to fit movements to music that they can dance musically.

Absolutely. One of our teachers uses warm-up walking sequences to musical phrases. Others teach a move within a sequence sometimes set to some musical phrase (listen out for when to do it). Of course you can then unravel that and use your own entry and exit around some phrasing.

Also to take a move/sequence and use it to different styles, or indeed dances (milonga, vals).

It comes down to experience, but sometimes you can fast track that.

 

[JournalInTime]

Absolutely. One of our teachers uses warm-up walking sequences to musical phrases. Others teach a move within a sequence sometimes set to some musical phrase (listen out for when to do it). Of course you can then unravel that and use your own entry and exit around some phrasing.

Also to take a move/sequence and use it to different styles, or indeed dances (milonga, vals).

It comes down to experience, but sometimes you can fast track that.

I'm famously averse to sequences for the reason that whatever cues you tell beginners to listen for, most try to fit the whole thing to all music, however bad the fit. You can definitely disassemble, vary, or use only part of a sequence to better mark the music – but as you point out, that takes experience. Beginners lack that experience, and end up doing things like trying to jam eight steps into five counts. Perhaps worse, beginner leaders don't know when or how to shrink, curve, insert pauses into, or abort sequences to react rapidly to floor conditions at the milonga.

I truly believe that a focus on how to adjust and vary steps should be taught sooner. Rather than "Here are 20 steps and 10 sequences for this session," I'd prefer to see "Here are 5 steps, each with 5 variations, for this session." For instance, parallel cruzada open side, cross-system cruzada open side, parallel cruzada dark side, cross-system cruzada dark side, and cruzada from nothing (as your first step from a cold start) . . . or if that seems too hard, all parallel cruzada open side – but simple, multiple ("forced" milonga-style crosses), cross-uncross-recross, curved to open side, and curved to closed side. To a beginner, those are all different steps, so they'll get their "cool moves" fix. No need to mention that it's just different expressions of the same move!

 

[JournalInTime]

(Of course, I'm speaking as a leader who – as a beginner – had his mind totally blown when after months of practicing the classic cortado that sends the follower along a somewhat curved line past my right side and back against the line of dance, a new teacher berated that as the "rude cortado" that causes collisions. He then taught us to curve it into a tight semicircle that takes far less space . . . and to advance as we lead it so the follower goes where we were formerly standing, not into another couple. It seemed so cool! But it was just the same darn step with more torso twist and a slight forward component to the movement. I suppose that not everyone would've been as blown away as I was.)

 

[Brummbaer]

I'm famously averse to sequences for the reason that whatever cues you tell beginners to listen for, most try to fit the whole thing to all music, however bad the fit.

I agree, but it depends how it's being explained. If you know that this part of a sequence is an entry, and there are other options, then the particular element (timing, placement, etc), and then a resolution (exit), or a lead to something else... then it can work. And even with different music styles.

I truly believe that a focus on how to adjust and vary steps should be taught sooner.

Yes. We've been fortunate with teachers. But I do concede that some novices/improvers want sequences (that's dancing, isn't it?) then intermediates start to take them apart (ah, I want to be innovative), advanced (classic: I want to improve my basic walk). Elementary moves on their own are akin to learning scales but never playing a piece of music.

 

[JournalInTime]

Elementary moves on their own are akin to learning scales but never playing a piece of music.

True. Beginners at the milonga are most noticeable because they're the ones doing walk, walk, freeze, rush into a cross off the music, ocho, ocho, ocho, argh how do I stop the ochos?, freeze, walk more. They're just doing moves. It gets worse when someone shows them a gancho or volcada: freeze, stand in the wrong place, do the thing brusquely and off the music. So, sequences do help reduce that.

Which said, I regard that as being less about teaching musicality and more about teaching floorcraft. All the freezing and awkward maneuvering into position is bad for the milonga's flow.

 

[LadyLeader]

I agree. But what if you're a novice still struggling with some moves and appreciation of the music forms, and you don't have the vocabulary?

This kind of situation, this inner wish for better tools, has always motivated me to train more! It was so when I started and it is still so

My ignorance saved me from the worst pain at start - I didn't know how it could be after some years. I suppose it can be a lot better after 10 more years from now!

 

[ArbeeNYC]

At the same time, it's a lie when teachers roll out the old "You can dance entire tandas nicely with just walking!" line for beginners. Experienced dancers who are years beyond beginners can walk a lovely tanda, but that quality of walk with all its variations and expressions is for advanced- to master-level dancers.

Yet few people seem to grasp that fact. And fewer places train you to do it (both lead and follow).