[Tango-L] traditional tango music

[Tango Society of Central Illinois]

On 9/28/07, meaning of life <kushi_bushi at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> hello all
>
> after one more miserable practica, i am curious, am i the only person on
> earth who finds much of the traditional tango music, whiney and uninspiring.
> personally, i find my self spending most of my time looking for a beat and
> inspiration in what usually sounds to me like a "bag of cats being
> mistreated". given my choice, i love dancing to gotan project, and some of
> the other "nuevo" stuff, as well as some "non-traditional" music, more like
> west coast swing. am i alone in this and should just stay home?
>
> there is a posibility that the local d.j.'s and other selectors of music
> just hate cats, or are tone deaf, or just play that crap just to get me to
> leave.
>
> just curious



Uh, this is a joke, right? You're writing to a tango list expecting people
to sympathize with your distaste for tango music?

And thank you, Manuel, for your pointed response. Well stated, indeed.

Assuming 'just curious' is serious, this attitude, which is not unique,
represents an incredible paradox in tango which I believe exists in no other
dance. Let's see, we hate the music on which the dance is based and we still
want to call it tango? Can you imagine someone dancing foxtrot to salsa,
salsa to country-and-western and Texas 2-step to tango? Other dancers in the
genre would think you are mighty odd indeed. However, dancing tango to
disco, house, trance, new age (elements present in neotango) or to rock and
boleros is not considered odd by some, even preferred. What is really odd is
that what makes tango so very very special is the music. A lot of other
dance music seems so emotionally shallow in comparison, yet tango is so rich
in entrapping you in the emotion of the vocalist, the bandoneon, the violin.
Ask porten~os who dance tango and they will tell you that tango is all about
music and emotion. The music they are talking about is the classic tango of
Di Sarli, Canaro, D'arienzo, Calo, etc., not the vapid meanderings of Gotan,
Libedisky, Wilensky and the like.

It would seem to me that people who do not appreciate tango music but want
to mimic tango steps to non tango music should call their dance by another
name, lest we walk into one of their pseudo-'milongas' and feel the ultimate
disconnect between the passion we feel from tango and the blasphemous music
stealing its name.

Ron