That's odd. I thought you were trying to say what tango is and what it isn't. That seems like a definition to me.
I agree with you completely on the above statement.
Teaching Musicality
- Thread starter AndaBien
- Start date
That's odd. I thought you were trying to say what tango is and what it isn't. That seems like a definition to me.
I agree with you completely on the above statement.
Yes, you are right. I just know what can be danced.
But it's the same of many other dances - dance music
should move you to dance the dance of the music, whatever it is.
Your comment tells me that you didn't at all understand my comment, (and it also makes me wonder about your understanding of music). Therefore let me attempt to clarify.
Waltz music is 3/4. However, rock music could be a waltz, as could Classical or many other genres. This is what makes waltz music unique. As long as it's a 3/4 rhythm, it is waltz, even if it falls under some other genre as well.
Tango (depending on how it was written) could be 4/4 or 4/8, possibly even 2/2. However, many other forms of music could make this same claim (like foxtrot), but that would not be tango. There is more than just the rhythm, that defines tango music.
The tempo, the "feel/emotion", the instrumentation, and other aspects come into play, to define tango music (but this isn't true about waltz music). Most dancers identify the type of dance, not simply by the rhythm, but by several aspects (and typically it's done at a subconscious level, so no conscious thinking is involved). Thye just know it, possibly without even understanding how they know it. It's something that is felt.
We all have our limitations, and yours don't apply to others any more than my limitations apply to anyone else.
One singer that some people here seem to like dancing tango to is Tom Waits. While some people really seem to like dancing to his so called music, I can't do it. I can dance to lots of alternative music, but his is not one of them, and to be honest, I have no interest in learning to dance to his noise.
My point in saying this, is that we both are similar, in that we both have limitations in what we are willing to do. In that aspect, I can relate to what you are saying. The only real difference between us (and probably a lot of others) is that we limit ourselves in different places.
Angel HI
Well-Known Member
And, the bottom line is that this is different for every individual.
This is the problem. "The" dance of the music is so convoluted. It is created of culture, tradition, geography, demographics, style, steps, and even just plain likes and dislikes. With very rare exception, no music/rhythm demands that only one dance be danced to it. We do so by either or all of those things previously mentioned.
This is why I have said in many threads previous that musicality cannot be taught, and is largely a moot point of discussion. Musicality, though having some requisites, is a feeling; it is what the music says 'to me'. This might be different from what it says 'to you' or 'to him' or 'to her'. Because one person doesn't call a particular piece "dance music", another might not be able to be still when hearing it. Neither person should be called "wrong" for what they 'feel' because you (not meaning anyone in particular) don't feel it.
To dance a Swing to a tango might be considered to be very wrong by either or all of the aforementioned inputs, but one cannot say that it is "wrong" for another to feel like swinging when 'they' hear a particular song.
MHO, move on from this discussion. Musicality is as individual as the individual, and has as many different meanings as there are dancers.
Angel HI
Well-Known Member
This is not entirely true; why might be addressed below.
This suggests that you don't understand much about music. Musicians and educated dancers know that in every dance music save for waltz, there are at least 3 danceable rhythms (these are well known as the 3 common rhythms - base, low, and high). It is this that allows dancers, U.S. and otherwise, to dance different dances to the same 'song'. If you cannot hear or understand these rhythms in a piece of music, then you are limited in your dance possibilities, but that doesn't make others who have this ability wrong in their choice of what to feel, what to hear, and what to dance to.
Though I understand completely what you saying, and agree that a great deal of it has merit, please read the reply to JohnEm. It speaks to persons dancing to what/how they feel rather than to what either one person, group, culture, tradition, etc. dictates that they should dance to.
Peaches
Well-Known Member
But surely, while you can't teach someone how to feel music, you can teach them to listen to it more fully? To hear the different layers, and how they relate...or to notice things like phrasing or things like staccato v. legato playing? And then to learn how those musical devices can contribute to different feelings? Furthermore, you can teach ways of moving in such a way as to capture or express those musical elements, yes?
While that's not musicality-as-feelings, it can function as something as a proxy. It provides the tools to express the emotion.
So...while the actual feeling can't be taught, you can reasonably teach something that will get you close and allow actual feelings to be expressed.
Angel HI
Well-Known Member
Absolutely correct. And when 'this' is what is taught in Musicality classes, I have no issue.
That is what I have in mind regarding teaching musicality. For me, musicality is understanding music and fitting ones dance to the music. How that is done is up to the individual.
Perhaps well known by other names? This is a new one on me.
I'm not going into your disagreement with jantango but I do take issue
with this. I have never seen or heard of what you call the three common
rhythms. But there terms such as meter, pulse, up beats, down beats,
off beats and back beats. probably there are many others. You seem
to forget that this is a dance for two partners linked by the pulse of the
music. Clearly they have to hear the same clearly. If the man picks
something else esoteric there's no guarantee his partner will hear it.
You may be talking choreography which can play with such things, a
partner dance on a social floor with a variety of dancers cannot.
For me, you are attempting to make the dance too complicated.
The bottom line is this is a social dance of changing partners,
changing music and changing floor conditions. Freestyle dance individually
and you can pick whhat you like, dance with a partner in the embrace
and to have a successful dance you'd better be sure you're both hearing
and dancing the same beat.
No choreographers, the show derived dance, performing teachers make
it convoluted. But the basic dance rhythm of one body and four legs
dancing the music is anything but convoluted.
Solo dancing ok, social partner dancing in the embrace definitely not.
It's why D'Arienzo was so popular with dancers, he brought back the
dance pulse and played it distinctly.
Move on after you've opened this can of worms?!
Still in relation to the title of the thread there may be some consensus
that musicality cannot be taught. I prefer to think of it being absorbed.
I would have to object to that statement, so there is no consensus.
sixela
Well-Known Member
I have a problem with some of it, but I confess that even though I usually dance to Golden Age tango, my interpretational instincts used to dance to "Little Drop of Poison" aren't that different as those honed to dance to GA music.
Let's face it, tango's _main_ rhythm is a simple 4/4 with one weak, one strong and two off-beats. The best GA music has a complex polyrhythm layered on top of it but you can't dance to a polyrhythm (you simply pick a rhythm to follow and hop lanes, and someone else might hop lanes entirely differently and thus interpret it differently, without being "wronger" than you are).
It means that the dance that goes with it _can_ be danced to lots of music (even a fat officer beating the drums on a Roman trireme as long as he has two drums), even though it might not be as interesting as it is when danced to the very best music that was made _to_ dance it. But even I am sometimes surprised at how interesting tandas danced to non-traditional music can be (I confess I'm a risk-taker there: after all if the music makes it all uninteresting all you've wasted are 12 minutes of your life).
Of course, that it _can_ be danced to lots of music doesn't necessarily mean it should, but I think that's very personal (unless you believe that we should treat tango as a religion with an orthodoxy and guardians of it, rather than, well, a social dance).
I personally like GA music a lot (probably more than anything else), but I find it rather presumptuous of jantango to decide for others what they like or find interesting.
Attributing intent to people who make other decisions is a dangerous game to play, at least if you're really interested in finding out the truth rather than feeling 'right' in the face of a world full of people who're 'wrong'.
sixela
Well-Known Member
The _basic_ beat, yes, but there's ample opportunity for the leader to pick something in the polyrhythm and make it clear to the follower stepping should follow it (that's why we have an embrace, so that things like that can be _lead_) and if the dance goes well the follower even has ample opportunity to adorn while picking things for it that _she_ hears but the leader chooses to gloss over.