[Tango-L] Why dancers should judge musicians in Tango nototherwise

[Chris, UK]

Astrid wrote:

> Dancers do not judge what is bad music. They only judge who is a bad DJ.

Well, hereabouts dancers judge bad music of any source - live band or DJ. 
Good music, too.

> The way to distinguish music is by the era it was written in and by the
> composer.

Does not work at all. Compare Gallo Ciego, written in the same era and by 
the same composer, in the very different versions by Tanturi and Pugliese. 

> there is also no modern distinction between "fantasia music" and
> "milonga music".

I guess that's because the traditional distinction is more than adequate. ;)

Chris









-------- Original Message --------

*Subject:* Re: [Tango-L] Why dancers should judge musicians in Tango 
nototherwise
*From:* "astrid" <astrid at ruby.plala.or.jp>
*To:* <tango-l at mit.edu>
*Date:* Wed, 28 Feb 2007 23:37:08 +0900

> AJ: "researching old music I do daily". "Sure I'd love to hear your idea
of
> the 4 styles."
>
Igor:> Good ! Thank you! Than I hope you can check those 4 very distinctive
musical
> styles of old music:
> I could call them Salon of 1920s, Canyengue, Orillero, and
> Milonguero-Apilado. Plenty of records available. As soon as music starts a
> dancer should unmistakenly point you to the difference. Of course, there
are
> pieces which remind 2 styles.
>
AJ:
"while you can have musical elements no one will sit down and
listen to dance"

Igor: Really?
Well, at least my partner will. Do I need other spectactors?


Gentlemen, methjinks, this discussion is getting more and more abstruse. So,
if I understood this correctly, we have here a dancer who says he makes
music with his body, and claims to sometimes make better music than the
musician, in fact, does not even need a musician to do so, and advocates
that dancers should decide what is good music and what isn't.
Then we have the musician who says, only a musician can really feel the
music, and those dancers who are able to feel it, are usually musicians as
well.
And then we have Igor again, who now says that he can dance tango by himself
while his partner can sit down and listen to him dance.

Hm. Astrid, scratching her head, will not argue with AJs point that
musicians usually are able to hear music. Nor, that a dancing musician is
able to hear the music, and maybe better than a dancing non-musician. Now,
whether what the musician hears he is able to translate into appropriate
physicial movements, is another story, however. And, as a matter of fact,
whenever I have danced with some Argentine I often saw at milongas
(standing, chatting, drinking wine), and he danced kind of lankily and
trying to dance rather than actually dancing, quite a number of times, the
man apologised to me, whispering:"Actually, I am the guitarrist (violinist,
singer, cellist, whatever) here, I don't really dance tango..."

Does this mean, that dancers know more about music than musicians know about
music? Or dance? (to add confusion to the already puzzling logic in this
thread)
No, it doesn't. Dancers do not judge what is bad music. They only judge who
is a bad DJ.

And now, Igor, as to those "four styles of old music":
these are four styles of dance, not  four styles of music. There is no
"apilado music". You can dance salon as well as milonguero/apilado to the
same music. Canyengue may be a dance as well as music, I am not sure [what
about the orchestra Sexteto Canyengue in Holland?] but who knows what
exactly was Canyengue anyway? Orillero is a dance (I doubt that they were
playing very different music in the suburbs than in the city centre). The
way to distinguish music is by the era it was written in and by the
composer. There is a further general disctinction between tango,vals and
milonga (which are dances as well as music, in case you still happen to be
awake after reading all this and will allow me to bore you a little
further), but no, there is also no modern distinction between "fantasia
music" and "milonga music".

Cheers
sigh
Astrid




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