How would I write that if we were discussing it and which bits are part of which steps
eg
SSQQS Progressive side step reverse turn?
SQQS QQS Rock Turn?
"By the book," the prog. s.s. rev. turn is: QQSSQQSQQS (just omit the first SS from your above).
By the way, I'm going to use the widely-accepted 4/4 standard for timing in tango here where S=2, Q=1, not 2/4 as is the official ISTD standard where S=1 and Q=1/2, so this thread won't degenerate into an unproductive argument over beats, as this has already been covered in a recent thread.
The prog. s.s. rev turn figure itself as I wrote it above is 14 beats, so it does not both begin and end on phrase with standard tango music. See below.
I think I read somewhere that Tango was written is 2 connecting measures, ie 8 beats, making a phrase. So the first bit makes 1 phrase but then ???. I can live with that - I'm just begining to accept that I can't dance in numerical counts, but I would kind of like to know I get to the end of that section in 32 beats (8 measures,4 phrases). Is that naive?
Before we added more to the routine, we did that twice. When we dance it, I have no idea what happend in class, too much going on in my head, but at home, I use Carmen (Habanera) which has such distictive 'phrasing' and I naturally pause at the end to make the missing two beats, but I have no idea if that is correct or if I should find those 2 beats elsewhere.
Figures in quickstep, bronze american foxtrot, int'l tango, swing/jive, among others, frequently feature this lack of phrasing to the music for individual figures. The best thing you can do for now is just to get used to it in your tango. If you have your routine used in your group class, by all means, stick to it for learning's sake, and just forget about it, as it's normal. I know you want individual figures to phrase correctly, and it's actually a VERY good thing that it bothers you that it doesn't, because that means you have a strong connection with the music, which is much better than not realizing this and saying "huh?" when we talk about phrasing.
So with our sequence of 14 beats for the prog. s.s. rev. turn, we can do a couple of things if we wanted that specific part to fit well into the 2 basic phrases we are likely to hear (4 measures = 16 beats = 2 phrases).
+ We can start on the '1' with the QQS[...], and we'll have 2 beats to do something with at the end: either hold in place for 2 beats (one 'S'), or we can do something else, like a walk, which will take up 2 beats (again, a 'S'), or a link, which will take up 2 beats (QQ).
+ If your other foot was free before the figure started, you could do a walk first (a 'S', on the '1'), and then begin the figure (on the '3') and you will finish on phrase.
+ You could do a prog. side step (QQ) and then do the figure, and finish on phrase.
The take-home message here g, is to just not worry about phrasing for now. Learn the figures and how to do them, and realize that you will frequently end up not finishing on phrase. American Tango figures all begin and end on phrase which is nice, but often what really causes it is simply adding a walk, a progressive side step, or some basic element to fill in the gap. Once you get comfortable with the dance, you will see where you can put in basic elements like these into your international tango to make it phrase as you'd like.
