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

[Bruno Afonso]

Hi,

I believe you always need to take into account how much each person
you are teaching actually "knows and breathes" music.

There's a couple of aspects that are important to me:

1) A good leader should be able to interpret the music and dance
accordingly. (let's assume for now that the person has basic skills to
do that). One of the hardest part is to transmit that interpretation
to the follower in a non-imposing way. It's hard to search for
alternatives interpretations when it is not working with the follower
while you are in the middle of the music. But that's why we need to
practice more :-) Getting to know more and more the follower helps of
course.

2) Interpreting music at a non-basic level. After a while it's easy to
dance to the beat, as in a step in a beat or similar. The hard part is
to start playing with the beat. This playing w/ the beat allows you to
"flow" through the music and be creative and putting those flashy
moves of 15 "steps" in a musical context. One can imprint a slight
vals flavor in a normal 4/4 by swinging 3 on 1 beat or on 2. Why not
go for 3 + 2 and get a salsa'esq flavor for an instant?

When I started out I was amazed at how people could dance/ do moves
not on the rhythm. But I've learned that definitely not a lot of
people have the background experience to actually understand what's
happening at a rhythmical level or even tonal or timbric. We're all
different and we all can improve in multiple dimensions. The more we
listen and dance, the better we will get at it.

I've found that some followers don't enjoy so much as others when I
play a bit and don't do a "standard" interpretation. Others say they
love it. That's the tao of any human interaction I guess :-) I'll go
back to lurking mode.

peace
b

On 10/2/07, Tom Stermitz <stermitz at tango.org> wrote:
> I understand there is a problem, but disagree that it has to be a
> problem.
>
> Argentine Tango seems so improvisational and flexible that you can't
> find the structure. Specifically, the phrasing structure of Tango is 4
> +4=8. This is easy count and easy to match with simple steps. But
> when you have too many steps, you lose the musicality. That is why it
> is so hard to teach musicality to intermediate and advanced dancers.
>
> The cool thing is: IT IS VERY EASY TO TEACH MUSICALITY TO BEGINNERS.
>
>
> On Oct 2, 2007, at 12:40 PM, Endzone 102 wrote:
>
> > 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
>
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