[Tango-L] syncopation

[Linda A.]

I know I should leave the topic alone--it's been
discussed ad nauseam. But Bruno's response
bothers me a bit; it doesn't clear up anything at
all.

Okay, first, a musical definition:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/57/S0965700.html

There's a measure of music that illustrates
musical syncopation, clearly I hope.  A good
tango example of musical syncopation are the
opening notes of Pugliese's Gallo Ciego.  (I
don't think anyone would dance directly on each
of those beats.)

>From a dancing standpoint, the concept of
syncopation is usually a bit more simplified.
Instead of ONE, TWO, one might dance
one-and-two-and, and those "ands" are (dancing)
syncopation. To steal from Alex Krebs, you could
use a sentence like, "I...am...late for work
(and)", which would fall over two measures of 2/4
"One, two/one-and-two-and" or one measure of 4/4
(One, two, three-and-four-and).  

These are not the only types of syncopation in
dancing, obviously, but I thought I'd touch on
the basic ones.

In short: what dancers call syncopation,
musicians often call double-time.  

Lastly, Bruno wrote: "As Tango music evolved
tango composers did not favor including
suspensions and unpredictable changes in the
tango music. It was more easy listening and easy
dancing."

I'm not sure which era of tango music you're
referring to, but a quick comparison of the early
and late periods of several orchestras suggests
quite the opposite.  Troilo and Pugliese spring
to mind immediately.

Cheers,
Linda

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