[Tango-L] Some live tango music tips from a musician's perspective.

["Christian Lüthen"]

Great posting, Bob, 
you're absolutely right!
Thanks!
Greetings from Rotterdam, Holland,
Christian



-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Datum: Mon, 28 May 2007 12:46:18 -0500
Von: "Barnes, Bob" <BBarnes at mpr.org>
An: tango-l at mit.edu
Betreff: [Tango-L] Some live tango music tips from a musician\'s perspective.

> Hi-
>  
> My name is Bob Barnes and I'm the
> accordionist/bandoneonist/bandleader/arranger for Mandrágora Tango in Minneapolis
> (http://www.mandragoratango.com).  We've been playing a weekly Milonga every Sunday night for over 5 years.
>  We've learned through experience what works for dance and what doesn't. 
> Here are some lessons that our band has learned over the years.
>  
> 1) If you want to be a Piazzolla cover band, a milonga is not the place to
> do it.  I founded Mandragora and learned Bandoneon to play like Piazzolla.
>  All the folks in the band came to tango through Piazzolla.  We all fell
> in love with classic tango by following Piazzolla's roots.  If you look down
> your nose at D'Arienzo and DiSarli for being too "simple", you probabbly
> should stick to playing Piazzolla at jazz clubs and coffee houses.  
>  
> 2)  Tango is classical music you can dance to: you need good arrangments. 
> The arranger is, by far, the most important member of a tango band.  Every
> note in a tango band is written down.  It is possible to buy existing
> arrangments for Orquesta Tipica (4 bandos, 4 violins, piano & bass), Sextetto
> (2 bandos, 2 violins, piano and bass) or "Piazzolla Quintet" (Bando, Violin,
> Bass, Guitar and PIano).  If you have a different combo, you are out of
> luck.    It takes me about 16 hours of work to arrange one 3-minute tango. 
> As you can see, the barrier to entry is really high.
>  
> 3) You can only go so far "a la parilla".  Music can often be distilled to
> a melody line and chords.  Jazz players call these "leadsheets" and play
> off of them all the time.  When tango players do the same thing, it's called
> "a la parilla" (on the grill).  If you a duo or trio, you can play this
> way and make up arrangements ahead of time (i.e. "Violin starts, then the
> bando comes in, then the violin takes over....).  The more people you have,
> the more impractical this gets.  Plus, you will never capture the subtleties
> of a good arrangement.  For the first 3 years of my band, we played "a la
> parilla" and it just wasn't tango enough.
>  
> 4) Some people just prefer live music.  Play for them.  There are lots of
> "dance gypsies" in our town who can go and hear a live band every night:
> Salsa, Cajun, Blues, Swing, various ethnic music, etc...  They may not devote
> themselves entirely to tango, but they do devote themselves to live music.
>  Feed off their energy.
>  
> 5) You can never satisfy hard-core tango geeks, so don't even try.  We
> have all met folks that believe that there has been no real tango since 1945
> or who can debate at length why Tanturi is better than Biagi (or is it the
> other way around?)  Mandragora can not compete with the greats of the golden
> era.  We are all non-Argentine Hispanic-Americans who have lived most of
> our adult lives in Minnesota.  We didn't grow up in tango culture.  At best,
> it is a "second language" to us.  We could devote our lives to reproducing
> every nuance of a DiSarli arrangement, but it would just be much easier
> for you to dance to the real thing on a CD.  All we can do is be respectful
> of the tradition.  We try to make sure that the percent of dancers who love
> what we do is much, much higher than the percentage of purists who say it's
> not real.
>  
> (When I started Mandrágora Tango, 2 DJs tried to explain to me that what
> I was doing could never be tango and that I was wasting my time.  Luckily
> for us the dancers though otherwise.)
>  
> 6) Different DJs specialize in different sounds.  Why not bands?:   Some
> DJs play electrotango, some are heavy on Guardia Vieja.  Some even play
> Piazzolla (gasp!).  Why don't you look at a live tango band as a different
> breed of DJ (albeit one with a much, much smaller repertory).
>  
> 7) Keep the tempo steady and you'll always have them dancing.  Know the
> differences in playing for concert and for dance.  Keep a strong 2 or 4 beat
> and resist the urge to make dramatic pauses and tempo changes. The main
> problems with Piazzolla for dance is that the tempi change abruptly and the
> beat is seldom 2x4.    Many of our tunes can work for both concert and dance.
>   In concert, we make dramatic pauses and play with the tempo.  For
> dancing, we keep the tempo much steadier and emphasize the strong beats much
> more.  
>  
> 8) Live music attracts new dancers.  We play a lot of "evangelizing" gigs:
> we'll play at some street fair, jazz club or music festival and bring a
> few dancers.  Civilians see the dancers and decide to take lessons.  It's
> hard to get non-dancers to stop by a dance studio to see a demo.
>  
> 9) When a band plays in BA, the first 2 or 3 songs are for listening.  If
> you absolutely have to play undancable stuff, play it first and call it a
> concert.  (Your mileage may vary on this one)
>  
> 10) This may sound weird and touchy-feely, but if you want to connect to
> the dancers while playing, focus on just one couple and try to play what
> they are feeling. 
>  
> A band can't be all things to all dancers, but it can try to be many
> things to a lot of them.  
>  
> -Bob
> info at mandragoratango.com
> http://www.mandragoratango.com
>  
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> Tango-L at mit.edu
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