[Tango-L] Igor's Question: a woman's perspective

[Endzone 102]

On 10/2/07, Tom Stermitz <stermitz at tango.org> wrote:
>
>
> Teaching Musicality.
>
> So, when I teach I am highly focused on showing the men where the
> beat is and where the musical phrasing is. Change the music, repeat
> and rinse. It takes repetition and time, as this is a strange foreign
> genre to most. Basically, if they don't know the music, then they
> have to be shown exactly where it is, and how to make their movements
> relate to it.
>
> Musicality is when your energy matches the musical energy, the surge
> at the beginning of the phrase, the suspension at the end, the flow
> and "wave" of the waltz, the staccatto of D'Arienzo, the walk of Di
> Sarli, the drama of Pugliese.


   This tends to be the thing I find most guys around here struggle with.
In ballroom dances, there's a known timing that you can find in the music.
With Argentine Tango, there isn't.  AT is more about feeling the music.
That's a difficult concept to get across sometimes, especially when you're
also trying to teach them how tango works.  This gets more problematic when
the music branches out away from traditional tango music.

-Greg G