[Tango-L] Why are you dancing tango if you don't like tango?

[Trini y Sean (PATangoS)]

Quick recap.  Ron mentioned some ways of educating people on listening to traditional music.  AJ wondered why Ron didn't include live music as a way of teaching musicality.  I responded, giving specific points.  I still stand by my statements.  In short,

- it's not feasible for most communities to work with live tango musicians,
- good tango musicians that cater to dancers as opposed to concert-goers are a relative rarity.
- with tango groups being a rare commodity, dancers are still going to dance to anything, even if it's bad music, just to be supportive.  And if one dances to bad music,... well...that's just likely to to slow down the learning process.

AJ, you asked why live music isn't mentioned more often.  There's your answer.  Sorry if you choose to deny reality for many tango communities.  

An accompaniest can be quite useful for teaching musicality in classes.  For every one teacher on the circuit that also uses live music as a teaching aid, I can name 20 teachers that do not.  For many communities, it's not a viable option.

Some of the musicians that I've worked with that are good and have had a pretty good understanding of music for dancing are also busy with other projects because they are talented. I don't blame them for following the money. 

Trini de Pittsburgh