[Tango-L] arrastre (musical)

[Jake Spatz]

Huck Kennedy wrote:
> I truly admire Jake for the way he's plunged these last few years via 
> research into the deepest depths of tango,
Thank you, Huck. But let me mention that my "research" (hardly) is 
/supplemental/ to dancing.
> but I'd be willing to bet that if you asked 99 out of 100 tango 
> teachers, including the best from Argentina, what an arrastre was, 
> they'd reply that it was a foot drag and wouldn't have the slightest 
> idea that it was also a musical term.
Not remotely true, IME.
> Dancers, even and especially the best ones, don't know diddly about 
> technical music theory.  Hell, they don't even know what syncopation 
> means (they think it means double-timing something), so how are they 
> to be expected to know what an arrastre means in the musical world?
(a) I and plenty of others do not belong to this stereotype.

(b) I've had debates with 'classically trained musicians' over 
syncopation and other terms. The terms are only technical (and fixed in 
their definitions) up to a point, because there are always multiple ways 
to describe musical phenomena. Moreover, rhythm is rhythm, and belongs 
as much to poetry and dance as to "music proper." Musicians do 
occasionally bristle at the notion, but that's what makes it spicy to 
converse with them.

(c) Not even /musicians/ need to know "technical music theory"-- unless 
they're teaching it. It's debatable how much "technical" knowledge 
(i.e., academic knowledge) is even involved in dance music of any kind, 
since such knowledge usually gets INTO the "academy" from outside in the 
first place. Certainly the arrastre is, at best, on the fringe of such a 
category anyway. (If this were otherwise, then you'd hear much more 
arrastre in tango songs composed/performed by classical musicians.)
> I'd also like to ask Jake just exactly what purpose this supposedly de 
> rigueur knowledge serves to the new aspiring dancer. 
Mind you, I posted my qualifications for a good _teacher_. But let me 
take a stab at answering what I interpret your question to be...
> I'm trying to imagine the dialogue:
>
> Official Arrastre-Certified [?] Teacher:  "You hear the way this music 
> goes, "baaaaa-RUMP!!" [accurate sound effect for Canaro, I'd say] It 
> is absolutely essential for you to know that that is called an 
> "arrastre." [graffiti mine]
Actual dialogue from the last First-Day "beginner" classes I've taught:

Jake: You hear that "vvvVOOM" sound? That's THE characteristic of tango 
dance music the way it was played in Argentina. Listen for that feature 
and you'll hear it everywhere. There's even a name for it, but you don't 
need to know it unless you're a teacher; what's important is that you 
dance to it-- the /whole sound/ of it (let's call it the "voom")-- 
because that's the easiest way to catch the swing of the music. And 
guys, if you use it, it makes leading easy for you and dancing easy for 
her. Let me show you how I do it... (etc.)

(Then I demonstrate, in person, with /every single dancer/ there; and 
then I turn them loose on each other again.)
> Student:   "Wow, cosmic, dude!!!  All of a sudden my balance is great 
> now, I'm dancing!!  That's all that was holding me back, thanks!!!"
Actual dialogue (samples, anyway), part II:

Student: Huh, I see what you mean. That's cool.
Jake: That's tango.
Advanced student: Why did no one tell me this before?

I've not seen the person who failed to get this lesson. I've seen many, 
however, who have failed to /retain/ it, and they struggle. Shall I call 
teachers qualified who turn ease into difficulty? Who teach "musicality" 
and "technique" without touching on /the major and most identifiable/ 
characteristic of the music, which is common to all three sub-genres we 
dance to?

The arrastre in the music is the foundation of everything I dance and 
teach, and every /good/ dancer I've partnered knows what it is 
intuitively. That's why it makes my shortlist of qualifications. That's 
why I've spent the last 12 months redoing my music collection to avoid 
mp3s. That's where I stand and that's how I move.

I even spent several days and $100 obtaining a dumb little C/G Anglo 
concertina, just to show people how the sounds are made. (A bandoneon is 
an overgrown Anglo = diatonic concertina.) I give at least that much of 
a quantifiable damn.

If reading this awakens that "critical feeling" in you, great: be 
critical. Just make sure you know whether you're critical of me, or 
yourself, or someone else entirely.

Jake

p.s. A further challenge (since that is what this has become):
  You teachers who count, thus teaching people to dance to the /dots on 
paper/ rather than the sounds as played... do you count /in English/?