[Tango-L] Vocals and Dancing

[Lois Donnay]

I would like to offer another perspective - instead of thinking to honor
the singer and musicians by dancing to them, perhaps these people feel that
they are honoring them more by just listening. Maybe they *could* dance to
that piece just fine, but they do more to appreciate it by sitting it out
and listening, to the words as well as the music, giving the singer full
attention. Since I have only observed this in BA dancers, I assume they all
understand the words. Does this make him/her a poser/dilletante? Can we,
the REAL dancers, scorn them? Do we need to teach them the "right" way?
ᐧ

Lois Donnay

On Sat, Oct 10, 2015 at 8:27 PM, Roger <roger at websa.com.au> wrote:

> HI Lois, Yes, I have heard tango dancers say that the singer "gets in the
> way".
> They are in the minority.
> I only "get into the dance" once the singer starts.
> Although I have no idea what they are saying I feel the passion.
> Consequently I tend to play more vocals than instrumentals.
> Having said I must admit that there are some vocals that are awful and
> ruin the tune.
> With respect to Gardel, I can think of nothing more respectful than
> dancing to the singer.
> However, surely we don't dance to Gardel because he uses rubato (push &
> pull, resulting in the same
> beat being in two different places in time, a fraction of a second apart).
> I once tested this at a milonga and played two versions of Mi Buenos Aires
> querido by Canaro.
> One with Carlos Galan and the other with Gardel. Yes Gardel's voice is
> beautiful and rich, but the consensus among the dancers was that Gardel is
> not for dancing.
>
> Roger (Tango Adelaide)
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tango-l-bounces at mit.edu [mailto:tango-l-bounces at mit.edu] On Behalf
> Of Lois Donnay
> Sent: Sunday, 11 October 2015 8:42 AM
> To: Tango-L
> Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Adios Osvaldo
>
>  I wrote this on a DJ forum recently: "In Buenos Aires, I often ran into
> leaders who would not dance to music with singers. They didn't like to say
> why, but it was a point of principal. Of course, the DJ's there never play
> songs with women singers. I've heard the reason is the singer deserves
> respect, so you shouldn't dance to them (kind of like not dancing to
> Gardel), and also that the way the singer influences the tempo makes the
> dance difficult."
>
> I got this reply: "I've been spending a lot of my spare time lately
> retagging my tango music, adding singers, dates, etc. along with spelling
> corrections.
>
> One of those is a set of 20 CDs sold by the DJ at El Beso, that I bought
> there back in '02.  This is the same set of music Susana Miller takes with
> her on her travels. And what set could possibly be described "traditional"
> anymore than the music played at El Beso?
>
> Out of 480 songs (120 tandas), 273 have vocals, and 207 are instrumentals,
> and yes, that is including the 40 Pugliese instrumentals. That's almost 60%
> vocals. From music selected by the DJ at El Beso for dancing.So when some
> Argentine tells you he doesn't dance to vocals, he is either pulling your
> leg or is a poser/dilettante."
>
> And later:
> "Yes I’m sure there are dancers who refuse to dance to vocals. My thesis
> they are outliers, and are not representative of dancers in BsAs or
> elsewhere. And I stand by my hypothesis that they are either joking or
> posers and dilettantes. It is inane for a DJ to cater their ignorant whims
> by limiting what he/she plays at a milonga."
>
> And from someone else:
> "posers and dilettante" sounds about right to me as well. What does such a
> person do when the DJ plays an instrumental as the first song of a tanda
> and then plays a vocal?
>
> Am I way off base here? Any other DJ's out there who have heard of those
> who prefer instrumentals? If so, should we respect that or try to change
> them?
>
>