[Tango-L] Musicality. What is it?

[Huck Kennedy]

Igor Polk writes:
> Huck Kennedy: "You will be seriously handicapped unless
> you always know exactly which note, phrase, etc. is coming
> next in the song."
> 
> You are "seriously handicapped", if you can not dance
> tango ( musically ! ) to an unfamiliar song !

     Reading is fundamental.  I did not say one cannot
dance musically *at all* to an unfamiliar tune, but rather
that one is seriously handicapped.  That means you can't
dance the song nearly as musically as you could if you did
know the music intimately.

     The reason for this is that you have to listen to
the unfamiliar song analytically while you are dancing,
and consciously figure out what the music is doing and
where you guess it might go next.  Contrast this conscious
analyzing process with the unconscious, straight from the
heart without thinking musicality you can dance with if
you know the song intimately.

     Add onto that the lack of an emotional investment
in an unfamiliar song (which is the other half of the
musicality equation and just as important, if not more
so), and you are just as I said, seriously handicapped.
That doesn't mean, however, that you can't dance with any
musicality at all, and will just plod around clumsily like
Frankenstein's monster.

Huck