Musicality
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Disclaimer: this is going to be a very geeky and navel-gazing entry: more of an opportunity for me to think aloud than a description of the tango lifestyle in Buenos Aires. You have been duly warned.
I find it extremely ironic that I seem lately to be getting complimented a great deal on my musicality as a dancer, especially in view of my seemingly endless struggles to overcome considerable natural musical disabilities. I gave up the violin at a tender age after many, many tears of frustration in the corkboard-lined practice rooms at boarding school; tried, unsuccessfully, in the course of many years and two serious choirs to learn to keep my line while singing; and finally gave up even the treble recorder, which I took up because it was the technically easiest instrument to learn and I wanted to be able to play duets with my immensely patient then boyfriend. Whenever I suffer through a tanda with a stiff and clumsy dance partner, I try to remember my ex, a conservatory-trained violinist, playing endless Telemann duets with me, all smiles, expertly adjusting his pitch so that we were at least in tune with each other. I might as well have played tennis against Rafael Nadal. He should definitely be canonised: my ex, not Rafa. Now I just try to learn piano, at home, with headphones on, so I don’t actually inflict my ineptitude on anyone else.
Maybe it’s because of my past failures as a musician that I took so long to realise that musicality might be an integral part of being a good dancer. You would think that this would be obvious to anyone who has ever even boogied to Shakira at a party: it’s the music that makes you want to move your body in the first place. But when I was first learning, I really believed that the follower didn’t require any musicality. You didn’t have to listen to the music and, in fact, you should just follow the man’s lead exactly and take all your cues from him. Just mimetisise, in fact. I focused entirely on technique and quality of movement: on the dancing, not the listening part. But gradually my attitude began to change and now, over the past couple of months, interpreting the music seems to me to be the single most important factor: the part that makes dancing challenging (the music is rich with so many subtleties and our resources as dancers are so limited by comparison that we’re always grasping at – pawing at – something tantalizingly out of reach) and the part that makes it an art, rather than just a craft. This is true even of tango, which is a popular and, fundamentally, not such a difficult dance form. I used to think that the most important thing in tango was the connection between the two dancers, but now I think that it is precisely primarily through listening to the music that the couple are able to connect with each other. The relationship involved is a menage à trois in which my partner may be my lover, but the music is my husband.
Of course, once you get obsessed with a topic, everything and everyone seem to be pointing you towards it and that means, for me, principally, my dance partners. In the tradition of this blog, I’ll use their monikers to refer to them. The most intense phase of my obsession began with The Philosopher and Greenstone, the professional dance couple who are good friends of mine and regular visitors to BA. The Philosopher’s very precise interpretations of the music, the adjustments of the cadence of his steps and his way of walking to suit the different orchestras, set a kind of challenge for me. We danced at the milonga at Sunderland, where the echoey acoustics and terrible sound system make every tango sound as though it is being played underwater and where many of the subtleties, especially of the less markedly rhythmic, more richly-textured numbers, are difficult to hear. The Philosopher expressed those finer points in his dancing, largely from memory, and suddenly I could hear them as clearly as if someone had turned up the volume and cleaned up the fuzz.
Then I saw a performance by a professional couple (Javier Rodriguez & Andrea Missé) whom I had never much liked, because of certain qualities in their movement – rather spiky, spidery footwork, a slight stiffness of posture and pointy, sticking-up fingers in their joined hands – and suddenly my previous objections to their style seemed so petty, since their dancing seemed to me infused with a musicality that gave it vibrancy and life.
And, suddenly, the fairy dust was scattered everywhere. I fell in instant tango love with a visiting dancer I´ll call 007 because of a passing resemblance to Roger Moore, whom I felt heard the music in the same way as I did. I felt I didn’t need to follow him at all on the dance floor. I just followed the music, and so did he. We ignored conventions and danced one tanda after another wherever we met, even at the ultra-traditional El Beso where most people believe it would contradict the laws of physics to dance two consecutive tandas with the same person. I also danced tanda after tanda with an Argentine folk dancer whom I’ve nicknamed The Pony. With both men, I felt playful, completely free to dance my own dance and express whatever I wanted to and yet magically, instantly, intensely connected, without there being any erotic element involved. Just what I imagine good musicians must feel.
Recent dance floor encounters with a visitor I´ll call Pixie seem to illustrate the trajectory I’m on. He is not a dancer’s dancer and has various technical problems, some likely to be more intractable than others. So much so, that after our first tanda together I silently vowed never to dance with him again. But I changed my mind when I realised just how much, despite his limitations as a dancer, he is able to convey physically of what he understands about the music. I realised that the way to enjoy his dancing is to concentrate on finding out how he hears the music and, since I think his musicality is more highly developed than mine, learning from him.
The learning process goes both ways, too. My friend Alpengluehen is a tango DJ and the uebergeek when it comes to Name that Tune. However, being able to identify, for every track, the orchestra, title, release date and the name of the second bandoneonist’s cat, does not necessarily mean that you are a very musical dancer. He is not unmusical, but for such a smooth and accomplished dancer, musicality is not his strong suit. We practised together and, as he explicitly told me, when it comes to the music, he let me take all the initiatives. He lead the steps, but I basically determined the tempo and cadence and, in particular, put the brakes on a lot, since he has a tendency to hurry through the slower, more lyrical passages. And my dear friend Wright has changed the way he dances and picked up a lot of habits from me. He has copied many of my decorations and places them exactly where I would in the music (he and I also hear things very similarly). He knows that I will put little stuttery, traspié decorations with the quick bandoneon twiddles that punctuate the musical phrases of my favourite orchestra, D’Agostino. At first, he just calmly waited and let me dance them. Now, he does them with me. This gives me great satisfaction.
Off the dance floor, too, I feel as though someone has syringed out a hefty accumulation of ear wax and left me hearing the music with a new clarity and intensity. Of course, this is one of the things that dancing should do: by adding a visual (and, when you’re actually dancing, tactile) element to the music it makes certain things easier to hear, makes patterns spring out at you, establishes connections between the music and the lyrics that you hadn’t noticed before. Of course, I’m still frustrated by my physical problems and still need to focus on my technique as much as ever, but I’m going into 2011 with renewed excitement and enthusiasm about tango.
PS A friend of mine who is a neuroscientist has an interesting take on the complementary relationship between music and dance. It´s very easy for us to perceive a heard rhythm and to predict where the next regular beat will fall (with a dripping tap, for instance), but very difficult when the rhythm is expressed visually. That why it´s pretty easy to listen to Morse code being tapped out, but being able to read semaphore Morse code when it is in the form of flashing torches, for example, is quite a high-level skill and usually requires a lot of training. So, it´s not just the case that the dance helps us to ‘see’ the music, but also that the music helps us to ‘hear’ the dance. What we are very good at seeing — better, apparently, than at hearing — is the difference between smooth and jerky movements. I can imagine it is useful to be able to tell whether a predator is ambling along or stalking and pouncing.
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simon says:
When i think about the connection, or disconnection, between tango dancers and the music it makes my head plunge into a never-ending badger hole of “what came first?… The Milonguero or the Music?”.. I always assumed that dancing was something that you do as a reaction to the sound of music (and no not the film
), am i wrong?It seems, however, that Tango in particular attracts the type of person that wants “to dance tango” rather than someone who wants “to dance to tango music” so it sometimes looks like they are thinking about their “steps” first and the music second.. I suppose there is nothing wrong with it as everyone interprets art in their own way but it is funny that tango mixes the people that see the tango and the people that hear tango… I think this is why there are such clashes of personality at milongas.
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When you’re a beginner you have to start with some steps — at the very least, I would say, you need to be able to walk in close embrace, lead the woman to cross, and have some way of turning the corners (a dissociated turning walk is the most elegant, though NOT the easiest way to do this). It’s perfectly possible to create a very fun dance playing around with just these three elements, as long as you are with the music. I believe it’s crucial, absolutely crucial, to let the music be your guide as to what steps you do, when and how, to be as lost in the music as possible. And this is equally important for followers — you can be with the leader much more precisely and in a much more intimate and satisfying way if you are listening intently to the music and using the cadence of your step to express what you hear, as well as trying to hear it with the leader, through his ears. If I dance with a leader who isn’t musical and is just doing steps I feel like a wind-up toy. I hate it. Leaders, take note. And not every figure or step suits every type of music.
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terpsichoral says:
The short answer to your chicken-and-egg question is that the music comes first, then us dancers.
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"I'm readin Aaron Copland's book : What to Listen For in Music; he says you dont need a musical training to be musical; music forms part of our lives; rhythm, melody harmony etc. i think for the dancer its finding out the tools you already have and refining them. i find watching other dancers will give me clues as to what part of the song they are listening to.; Its also about filtering; choosing what to use and what to leave out - or just hear."
"I love musicality, this is what I fell in love with in tango. I was having a discussion with several leaders on this subject and what I discovered is leaders seem to go through phases of musicality. 1. As they start out they want patterns and steps first lots of them. 2. Then one day someone challenges them to just walk to the music and they use only maybe 2 or three steps or patters or just walk. 3. Then some smart ass leader bets them they cannot feel the music and walk through it. and only stay in the line of dance. 4. After winning most of the bets, knowing 1000's of steps, watching everyone dance, they find that magic moment that says: Listen to the followers heart beat and the music, feel the followers music and listen and feel the music through the followers heart beat. A good or Great follow will allow the leader to feel this by being present with the leader. You only hear 10% of the music with your ears, however you feel 90% of the music with your body and each note, cord, overture has a vibrational beat that will resonate with each cell in your body. So I'm at number four in my tango, and they say it takes 300 years to dance all of the tango, so I'm not going to give up feeling the music as much as hearing and feeling the music together. Just saying Best always Keno"
"Thanks for the book recommendation, Tango Replicant! I completely agree with you that it's partly about filtering: if you try to express everything in the music in your dance you will go crazy: it's impossible. Also, even if possible, it would be serious overkill. I like the ideas about finding and using the tools you already have. And I love watching good dancers interpret the music. I look forward to reading the book."
"Thank you, Keno! You know, I totally agree that the follower's musicality is just as important as the leader's -- sometimes even more so. And the leaders I love the most are the ones who I sense are trying to feel the way that I listen to the music and respond to it -- as well as showing me how they hear it so that I can respond to them. I love the idea that you hear only partly with your ears and mostly with your body. I do feel that I can hear the music the most intensely when I'm actually dancing to it, not just listening."
"This is a great post, Terpsichora. I feel like you have talked out of my heart ;-) I think, in several aspects tango is just a mirror of life. As our bodies have recorded so many perceptions, experiences and emotions during decades, some of which have been traumatic others overwhelmingly exciting, they strongly narrate while dancing. Both, men and women. While followers usually get trained in listening to the body of their partner, a leader’s training emphasizes more on talking to the partner’s body. Sadly, this comes to a one-way-perspective, and many dancers as they develop skills, seem to just drive a car or move their two extra-legs they assimilate through a partner. Some of the more dedicated ones even point out that in tango the leader is supposed to be the musician, while the follower should be a beautiful instrument that gives voice to his ideas. Only this way, they insist, a real fusion can be reached. For what I feel, the balance within such couples is one-sided by, let’s say, lacking a seed of Yang in the Yin, and a drop of Yin in the very center of Yang. Discussing this with many men, I found out that quite a lot of leaders don’t pay attention to what their partners body is telling them through the dance, nor do they want them to bring their own interpretation of musics into it. Asked about that, they say that they feel bothered when an unexpected adornment, a slight retardation, a (well-)marked accent or whatever musically brilliant interpretation is placed by the woman – although it may be communicated perfectly without interrupting or interfering the dance. Some of those leaders feel that their own concept has been disrupted. They have to arrange themselves newly. They feel that, as the woman has given a statement on how she hears the music, they themselves have been passed over. And some of them in such moments even get the impression, that their own musicality is not respected or valued highly enough by the follower. Well … I can’t really understand this. Indeed, I suppose they’re missing the best part. Maybe it is a matter of overcharge, f.e. when they are still absorbed by struggling with skills or when their main concern is to seek pleasant success in their leading, say the experience of having a woman do what they transfer to her, or when they’re still into finding their own musicality. On the other hand, older and more experienced men, in the best sense of less ego-driven dancers tell me that a musical interaction is what they’re really looking for in tango. They feel enriched by everything a woman brings into the dance, and even ask me to give them more of it. I guess, at some point in a tango-carrier many leaders reach a point where they get tired of repeating their own repertoire of movements and dancing just their own interpretations of the music. They may even begin to feel bored by followers that execute only what they get transmitted by the leader. Then, perhaps, they reach that magic moment which Keno talks about: of listening to the woman’s heart beat, the emotions and stories that her body whispers to them, the rhythm and melodies that echo in her movements. To those man, the woman ceases to be a prolongation of themselves or their ideas, and becomes a source of inspiration, an additional treasury of ideas and experiences, a part of an intoxicating dialogue. Such man often stop speaking of leading and following, they invent new words (as f.e. proposer and interpreter), or just speak about dancers. Maybe, it is a matter of maturity, in dance, as in life. For me, personally, I confess that I feel deeply accepted, recognized and appreciated in a moment when I notice a dancer listens to me and opens up for a conversation of body language that we both give ourselves into, body-talking to each other, and that goes much deeper than just a one-way-transfer of the leader’s impulses acted out by the follower. Thank you for this entry and the possibility to exchange our thoughts on this topic, it really helps me to survive the absence of vibrancy in my closer tango surroundings ;-) Last but not least: Keno, where are you situated? I’d love to dance with you some day."
"Very well put, An Tango. And this is a perspective which I tend to take myself. I've noticed that a lot of the good younger dancers not only accept that the follower should contribute her own musical interpretation to the dance, but even demand and expect this (quite independently of the style they dance and often independently of their level of skill, too). However, there <em>is</em> a different perspective on this out there, one very eloquently voiced by Cherie Magnus. Cherie believes that this kind of 'conversation' is not the type of tango that she is seeking and that most of the older milongueros also dislike the idea of a woman actively contributing in this way. You can read more about this debate in <a href="http://mytangodiaries.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-on-tango-conversation-bigger-issue.html" title="My Tango Diaries on the Tango Conversation" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">this blog entry</a> (and its accompanying comments)."
"Oh yes! I hear you! And I love the way you described your personal voyage ;) The intrinsic non verbal dialogue, both dancers rejoicing in the infinite possibilities the other one lets them open up, or open up to. And then the emergence of this unique, blissful experience: feeling deeply connected to another human being in a most beautiful and intense way. This marvel made possible, by sharing the music and communicating to your partner what you hear, what you feel, who you are. And voila: behold the root of severe tango addiction ;) This, and the embrace of course... (loved your post on that too :) ) By the way, it was interesting to read the perspective of Cherie on the subject. I suspect there isn't that big a difference as it seems. Body language is so extremely subtle, that even when completely and solely following your leaders cues, you still will respond with your whole body to what you hear and feel, that is, unless you are a robot LOL. And the melting together like yin and yang, as she worded it, yes, I rather believe it is the same magic all of us are talking about :)"
"Suzanita, I tend to agree with you. Once you are used to listening to the music, you can't help but express it in your body. You may do so more or less skilfully and your lack of technique may hamper your musical expression (you may want to step smoothly to a legato moment, for instance, but fall heavily instead because you are off balance) but if you are used to listening intensely when dancing you will be intuitively responding in some way. And once you're used to dancing that way -- listening acutely all the time -- there's no going back. Even if you yourself are not yet dancing any more musically, the experience will feel better for you subjectively. And, with practice, increasingly, that listening will be reflected more accurately in how your body moves."
"I think if you really listen to and become one with the music, it would be impossible to not dance musically... Initiating a movement or directing the steps is of course an important part of shaping the dance (some would say only the leader should do this) but apart from that: the person that actually executes any movement will express his or her musicality through the body no matter what. Seen this way, follower and leader will always be responsible for 50 % each ;) This makes dancing with a partner that doesn't really hear the music very hard work, to put it mildy (for me personally, I'd say it's torture). And this is equally true for each half of the couple."
"We are in complete agreement, of course, about the fact that the follower's musicality is just as important as the leader's. But there's a great deal more to technique than just initiating a movement or directing a step. Many professional musicians are unable to dance musically (in tango, as well as in other dances). That's because they are beginner dancers and need time to learn, not just how to hear the music, but how to dance to it. To dance musically requires not just willingness and a good ear for the music, but also the technical skills that allow you to express your musicality through the ways in which you move your body. It seems to me that if your technical limitations mean that you are not fully in control of the way you are executing a movement or if your lack of trained propioception as a dancer means that you are unaware of exactly how you are executing it that will restrict your ability to fully express musicality through your own movement (and the demands of leading and following will complicate this further). Also, if you are a beginner and a great deal of your attention is taken up with trying to execute the step technically or with negotiating the floor, you may not be able to listen to the music with the care and intensity needed for really musical dancing."