[Tango-L] Live music

[Neeraj Korde]

Hi Korey,
Interesting post. Here are some of my own thoughts...

> >
> > 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.


This can be extended to the art of DJing in general too. On one hand the DJ
is guessing how to manipulate the crowd or how to adjust to the crowd's
need. On the other hand the crowd is thinking how the DJ will adjust to
their tastes or how will he surprise them. So my theory is if the DJ plays
'good' music without making obvious mistakes(like playing 2 vals tandas in a
row, or 2 really fast tango tandas in a row) the crowd will enjoy it. If the
tandas adapt to the crowd's energy graph that is good. If not then that will
still be taken as a 'pleasant surprise'. Of course as I recently discovered
there is lot more to DJing than the way I put it here. But overall I still
believe this is true.

>
> > 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)?


For tempo changes I would think familiarity with the music is important.
Personally I did not like Pugliese in the beginning because he kept changing
his tempo. But after getting more familiar with his music I totally love
him.

Are syncopas (used by every golden era dance orchestra) ok?


Ok? they are awesome I think. The more the better. After taking a string of
musicality classes I understand how important the role of syncopas is in the
golden age orchestras. Disarli donato use syncopa or syncopa like sounds
extensively. If you can play with them like demare does, you rock.

how about breaks (cortes) where the beat drops out for a moment?


Breaks are something that make a song danceable in the most obvious way. I
love them.

I'm particularly interested to know if these musical surprises only
> work if the dancers know the arrangement/recording.

Depends, if it is in a predictable pattern the dancers will get them
immediately. If is in a non obvious pattern like bigi then the dancers will
be thrown off but will enjoy it. If they are random the they will like them
over time.


In general i think anything from the golden age is tried and tested and
should be a good candidate for consideration in modern orchestras. Of course
you can have your personal stamp on it but for most cases I think golden age
music is not just 'good sounding' but also more sophisticated than most
contemporary tango even in a plain mathematical way.

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

-Korey


you bet
Neeraj