Listening to music to improve dancing skill

[Gssh]

[*]Step smaller to dance faster

I would claim that the opposite is true, and i think this is one of the more important concepts that needs to be worked on when walking.

Speed=distance/time.

As we are walking on the beat _time_ is fixed, but we can dance any _speed_ we want by changing the length of our steps and the _distance_ we are traveling. A lot of people get stuck on their natural/habitual step length, and because of that experience some songs as fast or slow. I think it is a great exercise to take a mid tempo tango, and play with the speed of the walk by varying the distance we are traveling, i.e. dancing slower by stepping smaller, and dancing faster by stepping bigger. This allows to flow with any ronda and to avoid the frustrating stop-and-go traffic jam patterns. It also opens a nice space for playing with speed - really slow doubletimes, really fast single times, accelerating and decelerating along with the melody while staying on the same beat.

Also milonga is polyrhythmic in nature!

And it swings the beat, too! "Proper" traspie is swung, not double time. (well, only for the messy people who don't like their milonga tidy/lisa )

 

[JournalInTime]

Learning explicit music theory, while fun for some dancers, isn't necessary to have good musicality – much as learning physics isn't necessary to be a good golfer, acrobatic skier, or whatever. A person can develop intuition for all the physics they need to shoot a ball or tumble through the air without going 10 years into physics the way I did, and a dancer can develop intuition for all the music theory they need without going 10 years into that.

 

[Tango Distance]

Please don't reduce rock music to the main beat.

I was guilty of exactly that. Learning dance has helped me appreciate music more.

milonga is polyrhythmic in nature!

Good point! I meant the dance motions, and it is a good point the music often has multiple rhythms going.

those are all good examples of things you can learn explicitly, or simply absorb through lots of listening. I'd recognised and danced to call-and-response long before I encountered it as an explicit concept, for example.

Yes, some people you can just hand a guitar, and they are playing amazingly well a week later with no lessons. Other mere mortals, like me, need a little professional help.

it swings the beat, too! "Proper" traspie is swung, not double time

That's good to learn! I'll be listening for that.
Faster = smaller steps is for the tempo, faster = bigger steps is for travel speed.

 

[pianistamediano]

Learning explicit music theory, while fun for some dancers, isn't necessary to have good musicality – much as learning physics isn't necessary to be a good golfer, acrobatic skier, or whatever. A person can develop intuition for all the physics they need to shoot a ball or tumble through the air without going 10 years into physics the way I did, and a dancer can develop intuition for all the music theory they need without going 10 years into that.

Definitely not; and adding on to that point, followers have told me about plenty of musicians and DJs who were poor or mediocre dancers. We might have a vastly greater understanding of the underpinnings of music and specific expertise pertaining to our instrument/s of choice, but it only means that compared to other dancers, ceteris paribus, we have a greater skill ceiling when it comes to musicality. It doesn't actually mean that we're automatically musical dancers, or indeed good dancers at all.

I may have a massive headstart in terms of listening to and comprehending tango music, but I've spent years working mostly on making my body move the way I want it to to reflect the music in all its aspects. This is where developing and refining one's proprioception and kinaesthesia come in, as well as both fine and gross motor control. All these and more are pre-requisites for being a good dancer. It's certainly non-trivial, and musicians who don't work extensively on these things will just waste their advantages.

 

[Be Present]

My experience is I got more benefit from musicality training than listening to music. My humble advice would be to right upfront get some musicality training (youtube videos, festival classes, local teachers, and the swing folks have good stuff). You'll be able to better listen and benefit from the music then.

• Always had music playing, knew 100s of rock songs. Only learned the main beat. I could "dance" on the main beat at night clubs. This is a case where lots of listening occurred, but I only figured out very rudimentary musicality on my own (like stop when music stops).
• I took a ballroom class, it didn't go well, so it doesn't really count. Tango was my real first exposure to formally learning to dance. I often really struggled to pick up even the main beat, I had to watch the instructor or listen to his clapping. It took about 3 months for me to generally be able to pick up the beat in Tango songs. I did little listening outside of class. I did learn fairly early Vals is 3 beats and other Tango music is 4.
• I then took some Tango musicality classes. Wow, what an eye, uh, ear opener! Some things I learned:
  • Call and response
  • ABAB etc song structure
  • Bridges between A and B or call and response sections
  • Step smaller to dance faster
  • Dance with more turning for Vals (molinettes and ochos), and simpler and faster for Milonga music.
  • Dance on the 1s for Vals, and things like 1.31..1.31 to get fancier. 123123 is often too fast but maybe for a slower Vals song.
• I also did swing lessons. My studio was big on musicality (maybe all Swing studios are?).
  • Swing music swings the beat: Beat Beat Beat (middle beat there is delayed a bit).
  • Beats are often in groups of 32, and build to a max, and then calm down to start over.
  • "and" is a very powerful concept. In my rock and roll dance days, it would be 1 2 3 4. After Swing lessons I learned many songs are 1 2 3 and 4 (and indicates an extra double time beat or note). Wow! Now I hear it all the time! Just knowing this puts one ahead of many night club dancers.
• The polyrhythmic nature of Blues Dancing is awesome. It doesn't really transfer to Tango, but it is fun to do at concerts (you can do it without moving your feet).
• Maybe 5 years into my Tango journey I got my first musicality compliment, now 11 years in I get that regularly. It definitely took me a while. It's one thing to hear the musicality opportunities, it is another to work them in and lead them!
• This has helped me appreciate more and dance better to rock, pop, blues, and other music as well as Tango music.

Practical musicality:

• I'm not going to claim this is the "one true way." Also, I think many people here on DF pick up on these things easier than I did/do, and their posts often have more assumed knowledge.
• Listen to the music, and practice with your fingers or dance steps in your head -- even while doing other things.
• Listen for 3 vs. 4 count to identify vals vs the rest quickly.
• Step smaller to dance faster. For call and response, for some songs it works to step slower for one, and faster for the other. To go really fast, I take literally 1 cm or even 0 cm steps.
• Another fun call and response thing is to do more turns for one, and more straight movements for the other.
• Find a song with a 1 2 3 and 4 beat. For a Tango step with a double time in it (like molinettes) do the double time during the 3 and 4 in the music. Other steps can work this way, like a rock step, or stepping twice with the same foot.
• Side steps are super versatile for musicality. You can do them really slow (harder to do for walking steps), or repeat a side step if you made a mistake and need another step to hit the last beat.
• Stop for stops in the music.
• Try to do something neat for the last note of a phrase or the end of a song. For example, end in a cross, or bring your feet together with emphasis. BTW, this doesn't have to mean you've perfectly planned ahead 12 steps (though that is nice if you can do it!). As it gets close, you can pause for a beat, do a slow step, or do a double time step to get in sync with getting the perfect finishing step on that last note.
• Some songs have what I call a "whoosh boomp" rhythm. It works well to take a big step with the left foot, for the "whoosh" and a short one with the right for the "boomp." It also works for ochos, do bigger, slower steps in one direction, and smaller faster ones for the other direction. I also do it with rock steps, pause on one foot, and then quick dab the other, rather than doing equal time.
• Exaggerated contra-body can work well for music that calls for big, marching steps.
• You can mix things up for interest: Do the "and" thing every other measure, or stop for a really fast burst of notes.
• Try dancing on different instruments. Nirvana is the leader dances on one instrument and leads the follower to dance on another instrument. I don't think I'll get there ever!
• I am surprised how many good dancers I see (in the sense of knowing and doing well many steps), but they only dance on the main beat, except for the standard double time steps in standard figures.
• I am surprised how many dancers only dance fast, and never slow it down, even briefly.
• FWIW, I think opening the embrace can be a good musicality and variety thing (ducks rotten empanadas being thrown at me...).
• One of my favorite songs for musicality is this version of Poema:

These are great suggestions! I have class tonight. I am going to vary the stepping.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

"Proper" traspie is swung, not double time.

What do you mean by "swung"?

 

[Rabbit]

What do you mean by "swung"?

Stepping on accented off beats

A lot of milongas also do have passages where a regular double time fits well though

 

[opendoor]

Stepping on accented off beats..

But that would be different to what Gssh meant. As offbeats still are the accents at double time (i.e. eighth notes). I think that Gssh meant cross-beats (polyrhythm), i.e. an accentuation that mixes 3/4 and 4/4 time, like it is done in Lindy Hop.

 

[Paja]

Chanson only open discussion and "old gang" is sharing experiencies.
My journey - when I started with AT in 2008, I prefered Neo Tango - GOTAN project, Bachofondo, Tanghetto Otros Aires.. And I really hated old songs especially with yelling violines (I still hate these in fact). Later I learned how to dance milonga and vals and I love this music. Milonga songs took me deeper into history and I was amazed by candombe. Also old canyengue style songs and older music like Orquesta tipica victor I love. And today I am listening everything. I just play on YT some virtual milonga when I do housekeeping job and listen.

 

[opendoor]

..just play on YT some virtual milonga when I do housekeeping..

Please share the playlist and the url of your YT channel!

 

[Paja]

I reccomend to search on YT for Live Virtual Milonga by SabelotodoTango. This guy mixed during COVID year 2020 several streams, 2,5 hours long each, with cortinas, typicall tanda pattern TTMTTVTTM... And on top of that, there is name, orchestra and year, so you can then search for more versions of songs you like.
This guy is whole time on camera, you can see him mixing songs, or sometimes he dance with his lovely wife. I found this YT channel of this guy last year and since then I use his milongas for practicing or listening tango.

 

[tangomaniac]

Hi, beginner here, enjoying the journey so far.

I have heard people say that to progress in tango music you need to listen an awful lot to tango music. Why is this and is there a particular 'way' to listen, or can it just be background music as i go about my day? What kind of music in particular, as there are many types of tango songs?

I'm a leader if that makes a difference

Argentine Tango music is completely different from other forms of dance music. Every ballroom, latin, swing, and hustle music has a definite cadence that repeats the entire dance. Foxtrot is Slow-Slow-Quick-Quick. Cha Cha is 2-3-4&1. AT music doesn't have a repetitive cadence so you can't count it like other dances. Every orquesta typica sounds different. DiSarli is probably the most emotional orquestra. Pugliese is well known for his heavy pounding, like La Yumba. You have to become familiar with a lot of orquestras. But first, you have to understand music. I'm fortunate because I took 3 years of music theory and 3 years of piano lessons in high school where I learned the difference between notes and beats. (They aren't the same.) Leaders have to fit figures to the music, like jigsaw puzzle pieces smoothly entered into the puzzle.

Read the article on page 8 of this magazine to understand music better. https://www.thedancecalendar.com/_files/ugd/bda0a7_f14e0b3dcd7345a8a2729c05e439f0e8.pdf

Read the article on page 8 of this magazine to learn about fitting figures to tango music. There are separate articles for vals and milonga.

https://www.thedancecalendar.com/_files/ugd/bda0a7_4a1a2667b4884ce590a41cb8ba4dc6ec.pdf

 

[Tango Distance]

I see how Tango is different from Ballroom music. Is Tango still a different thing, or would you say Blues music (Blues Dancing) and music for Swing Dancing is similarly complicated?

Argentine Tango music is completely different from other forms of dance music.

 

[Bailango]

Argentine Tango music is completely different from other forms of dance music.

It may be different but when it comes to degree of understanding music, the salsa music is more difficult. So if your point is about difficulty of music and dancing to it, tango is a difficult dance to less difficult music. Salsa is simpler dance to more difficult music.

so you can't count it like other dances

Count what? You can dance without counting.

You have to become familiar with a lot of orquestras.

I can’t speak for you and the others. For myself I don’t agree. I am still not familiar with orchestras. I might be familiar with some music but if you ask me which orchestra it belongs or what is the name of the tango song, I am likely to draw black. Because I didn’t put any effort into it. I know it is a tradition among tango dancers to learn their orchestra etc. However I haven’t found correlation between musical dancers and encyclopedic knowledge of orchestra. It may be necessary to DJ but I don’t DJ.

When we dance and we want to be musical, we wish to express the emotion of the music as we perceive it. The emotion can relate to rhythm, melody, etc.

We all learn and pick up things differently. Musicality as understood by a musician is different than musicality that a dancer needs to express. Because dancer has to use movement and coordinate it with a partner to express musicality. That requires accommodating to the partner. Otherwise I can go solo dancing to EDM at a night club very musically. Or I can also dance alone to Tango music and express my musicality. But tango that we enjoy is a partner dance.

But first, you have to understand music. I'm fortunate because I took 3 years of music theory and 3 years of piano lessons in high school where I learned the difference between notes and beats.

It is interesting for sake of curiosity. I have tried to learn about music theory. About beats, notes, scales, tonality, harmony, polyrhythm etc on my own. I doubt I grasped more than 10% to 20% of it because I did it in my free time. Not as a rigorous study.

I don’t know what you mean by understanding music. But you can teach beginner dancers how to dance to the music without having to understand musical structure. You can focus on a few things in music that standout louder like accents, etc.

I have seen it done in beginner classes and it does work.

So no, if you are a dancer you don’t need to understand music. You need to understand movement. You need to understand mapping movement to what you hear. You need to understand movement when there is another person right infront of you.

(They aren't the same.) Leaders have to fit figures to the music, like jigsaw puzzle pieces smoothly entered into the puzzle.

There is definite way in which jigsaw puzzle pieces fit. There are infinite ways to fit a movement to a passage of music. Whether you choreograph is dynamically on the spot (improvisation) or you program it before, you are still trying to fit a sequence of movements (figures) to the music.

Let’s leave apart those who don’t try and are only executing movements irrespective of the music. Among those are many who understand music. But as I said there is no correlation when it comes to dancing.

 

[Bailango]

I see how Tango is different from Ballroom music. Is Tango still a different thing, or would you say Blues music (Blues Dancing) and music for Swing Dancing is similarly complicated?

Tango music is different from salsa music which is different from blues and jazz which is different from flamenco which is different from classical.

You get my drift. Each music genre can be a study of its own. And these are the music genres in the west. Most people know little to nothing about the music genres in the East or Africa (a lot of it has been co-opted in Afro-Cuban music which has also influenced Tango).