[Tango-L] Live music

[Korey Ireland]

Keith,
thank you for your thoughtful and inspiring reply.  I hope musician's  
and dancers alike are interested in bridging this "divide" and I  
think you offer insights that help.

some questions:



>
> How many orchestras loosely follow a tanda-type playlist?
>
>

I'm curious.  I've bounced this question off a few knowledgeable  
tango-philes and have yet to find a complete answer, did the idea of  
tandas exist for live bands in the 40s or is this something that came  
later with DJs?  What a strange thing to ask the bands to emulate a  
format that may have originated from tango's lean years when the  
dance couldn't support live ensembles....



>
> The ones who are not so discriminate, for whatever reasons, about what
> they dance to do not see the "dancers" (for want of a better  
> description)
> point of view.
>
>

This needs more parsing Keith.  There is more then one type of  
"dancer."  In fact, I'm coming to believe the difference is really  
less about one's depth of understanding and more about one's  
personality type.  Some of us like surprises, some like  
predictability, or control.  Dancers who like surprises take often  
delight in live music.  Whether they are newbies, or seasoned  
veterans.  Perhaps with seasoning comes a deeper appreciation of the  
classics and more empathy for the predictable, but where the  
personality embraces the unknown, there is still room to enjoy live  
music.


>
> There are a heck of a lot of fine musicians playing around who  
> don't get
> what the difference is between beautiful music for listening and  
> beautiful
> music for dancing.
>
>

Some of them are trying earnestly to figure it out, I hope your  
comments will help them.



> So, without wanting to annoy anyone, I say:
>
> Perhaps there should be more musicality workshops
> taught by dancers to help musicians figure out how to play tango  
> music of
> today when they are hired to play for dancers.
>
>
>

Bravo.  Its a great idea.  Now we can all debate about who is  
qualified to teach such a workshop :-)

Actually we're brainstorming about an orchestra tipica training  
weekend here in KC, and I suspect there will be some extensive  
consideration of the issue of "dance-ability."  Perhaps this list  
could generate some concrete and constructive advice that we might  
undertake towards making this project more dance friendly.  Please,  
somethings besides recommending that we listen to the DJ hit list,  
believe it or not, for many musicians this is the starting point....

Can dancers tolerate tempo changes (like we often find in Pugliese,  
Troilo, Calo)?
Are syncopas (used by every golden era dance orchestra) ok?
how about breaks (cortes) where the beat drops out for a moment?
I'm particularly interested to know if these musical surprises only  
work if the dancers know the arrangement/recording.

Well, Tango-L, are you up for doing something constructive?

-Korey