Baking a Tasty Tango

Picture of a bread maker as an analogy to 'baking a tango'As some of you know I bought myself a bread-maker as a Christmas present, and of course being a man I plunged ahead and started on the first inaugural loaf. I had all the ingredients (well apart from the odd substitute here and there). I had most of the tools required (or thought I did until I couldn’t find some of them), so I did what most blokes do – I bodged it, guessed it, and made it work (sort of). I mean how hard could it be with a machine that did the hard work? πŸ™‚

So what has this got to do with Argentine Tango? Well I learned a few things by doing something new which I’d never done before just as we all do with our tango adventures.

Make sure you have all the ingredients.

I did have all the ingredients for my loaf apart from one substitute.

In tango terms, to dance the tango well you need the right ingredients – some choreography, executed with good technique, in a fitting musical way, and in an Argentine Tango style. Some things can be substituted without reducing the yumminess of your tango. For example, choreography. You can use all sorts of different choreography to dance tango. Other things can’t be easily substituted without making your tango a bit less flavoursome, for example technique. Even the simplest of choreographic movements just look and feel better, and can be performed easier if you have good technique.

Make sure you have the correct tools

Straight off the bat while doing some basic pre-baking tasks I burned my thumb because… I didn’t have a proper oven glove and just used a thin dry tea-towel to pick up a hot tin. Ouch!

Also I could only find half my weighing scales (and not the measuring bit) so had to guess some of the major ingredients.

In Tango terms this might be any thing from lack of technique to lack of floor craft. For example with floor craft, maybe a leader starts a movement in a busy milonga and suddenly finds they’ve run out of room to complete the move, resulting in a collision.

Or a leader trying out newly learned figure in a milonga which they are not reasonably sure they can perform well. We all attend classes and learn new things, but do you want to immediately try it out in a milonga before you have practised enough to make sure you can lead or follow such a movement? My own rule of thumb is if I can’t be 90% confident of leading a movement with any dancer, then I don’t use it in a milonga, until I’ve practised it enough.

Performing the task correctly

With my first loaf I took longer than the instructions suggested to mix the flour and liquids, and almost forgot the last bit of milk to apply. Actually I didn’t forget. All the milk went in earlier in the process when only some of the milk should have gone in. I didn’t read the recipe properly! I put some more in when I realised I hadn’t saved a bit πŸ™‚

In tango terms an example might mean using floor-craft to make sure you have

  1. enough room to complete your intended movement without having to cut it short, by monitoring the couple in front of you and in front of them to make sure you pick up signals about potential blockage early, or
  2. a back up plan if you can’t complete a movement. Don’t try to complete a movement even when it’s totally obvious to all around that you don’t have room to do this without bumping another couple. If you commit to a movement, without respect for other dancers, you’re not dancing social tango.

Having patience for things to come together

So I finally had all the ingredients in my bread-maker and it was sloshing the mix around creating the dough prior to cooking. I stood and watched through the window in the top of the machine. It was like watching paint dry, but I couldn’t help coming back every 10 mins or so (in a 2 1/2 cooking cycle), just to see if anything interesting was happening. It wasn’t…

In Tango terms this could be the impatience we often get with our ‘lack of improvement’. We never seem to get ‘good’ quick enough! Learning takes time, and improvement may be imperceptible, but is nevertheless happening. Have patience with your own progress and keep learning and practising consistently.

I’m sure there are many more analogies one could draw between baking and tango (perhaps the tango bakers out there would like to suggest further ones? πŸ™‚ ) but as a start, if you follow some of the above guidance, you too could be baking a nice tasty tango for yourself πŸ™‚

Finally, I’m sure you’d all love to know what happened with the first ever loaf I baked? Was it Mmmmm… πŸ™‚ or Hmmm… :(? I’m happy to say that it was Mmmmm… in taste, much better than shop bought gluten-free bread. However, there was undoubtedly room for improvement, and yes I have bought some proper scales – no more guessing quantities (until I start experimenting with flavours πŸ™‚ )

Musicality in Tango Dancing – Part Three

An early 1900's picture of the band members of Orquest Tipica Julio De CaroIn the second part of this series we looked at which elements of a tango tune could be expressed in your dance, and in order to look at those elements in more detail we need to first have a quick look at the orchestra, the instruments and how they express different elements of the music before looking at tango tunes in detail.

The Structure of a Tango Orchestra

A tango orchestra rarely uses drums to identify the beat. The typical instruments used for tango are: violins, contrabass, bandoneon, and piano. A quartet will have one of each instrument. An ‘Orqesta Tipica’ is a usually a sextet or octet where the numbers of violins and bandoneons are increased. A large tango orchestra may have four or more violins and bandoneons to really boost that typical tango sound.

Some Golden Age orchestras also included clarinets, horns, guitars and other more orchestral instruments to fill out the sound and also to create their own unique identity, for example Jose Garcia introduced brass into some of his arrangements, Osvaldo Fresedo often used reverberating bell sounds, Enrique Rodriguez, Francisco Canaro and Francisco Lomuto used woodwind. With some orchestras the characteristic sound came from the singer, such as the partnership of the Lucio Demare orchestra with the singer Raul Beron. For others such as Juan D’Arienzo, the characteristic sound came just from having more! More bandoneons, more violins, and a distinctive way the musicians played them.

Which instrument carries the beat?

Well, all instruments may take part in expressing the beat, but not necessarily at the same time. The beat is often transferred from one instrument to another as a tune progresses, but even if it seems difficult to hear it, the beat is always there (even if only in the minds of the musicians, such as in Astor Piazollas ‘Oblivion’!).

If you listen to tunes arranged by Juan D’Arienzo (known as the King of the Beat) or Enrique Rodriguez, you will hear them use the violins and bandoneons to define the beat. It sounds choppy or zingy as they emphasise beat 1 of each bar.

Other orchestra leaders arranged for the bass register of the piano or bandoneon to carry the beat. In some orchestras such as Di Sarli where the arrangements are more lyrical and romantic, some sections of the music seem hardly to have any definite beat, but the music always comes back to a section in which the beat is obvious, helping dancers to ‘anchor’ themselves to the music.

So to give you a hints about listening and practices regimes, I repeat that beginners should concentrate on making sure they can hear and dance to the walking beat, and identify the repeating sections of a tune (more on that later in the series).

An improver/intermediate would do well not only to master the walking beat but to listen out for the intermediate beats and half beats, and to practise syncopation steps and decorations such as toe taps, piquets as well as rebote/traspie steps.

The more advanced dancers will want to listen not only to the melodic twiddly bits of a tune, but also to the emotional elements in the strings, the singers voice, the bandoneon and so on. Then try to interpret them with a change in the mood and speed of the dance to match the melody and emotion.

Each leader and follower will have to practice being receptive to what their partner is trying to interpret at any point in a tune. There is nothing more annoying for either dancer than to hear a way of expressing a tune which for example might require a slowing down of the dance, which the other party just wants to hustle through as quick as possible. For this higher level of musical interpretation, patience, sensitivity and the willingness to slow down are all important.

Tango is very rewarding when you can finally master (do we ever? πŸ™‚ ) the intricacies of musicality.

In the next part of this series I will begin dissecting the structure of a typical tango tune so we can not only dance well to very familiar tunes but also dance reasonably well to tunes we’ve never heard before. It’s all about repetition and prediction…

Previous – Musicality in Tango Dancing – Part Two

Next – Musicality in Tango Dancing – Part Four

Musicality in Tango Dancing – Part Two

A typical Bandoneon instrumentThe Argentine Tango music which tends to be played at the majority of social dances is traditional music from the period between the 1930’s to mid 1950’s (often called Golden Age music). While it is possible to dance the tango to more modern music (known as Nuevo from the 1960’s onward, and ‘Alternative’ which is mainly non-tango music), the traditional tango music often contains more rhythmical and melodic choice on how to interpret the music in your dance. However we should also remember that this traditional music was the ‘pop’ music of that age, so maybe we shouldn’t get too precious about it πŸ™‚

The dance and the music both developed together during the Golden Age, and each promoted and complimented the other. If you want to improve your musical interpretation of Argentine Tango, you need to listen to a lot of Golden Age music, and practice your tango dancing to such music.

When you listen to Tango music you should listen for three elements against which you can dance:

The walking or stepping beat

This is not necessarily the same as trying to step on every musical beat. In all tango music of any tempo, the first beat in each bar of music tends to be emphasised (a raising of volume or ‘zingyness’ to a note) and will be a stepping beat (beat 1).

A tango is often written in musical 4/4 time (4 musical beats to a bar of music), but we tend to step on beats 1 and 3 unless the tango is very slow in which case we can step on all 4 beats. Many older tango tunes, were written in 2/4 time, so for these we could step on both beats. For many tangos the stepping tempo is roughly 60 per minute (55- 65 pm), so if you are unfamiliar with a tune you can start your tango walk at this speed until you can identify the true walking beat.

In Milonga which is written in 2/4 time we could also step on both beats (but it’s usually faster than tango so you have to have quick feet :-)). In Vals, which is written in 3/4 time, we tend to step on beat 1.

All tango dancers of any level should aim for this basic level of musicality – to be able to step precisely in time with the walking beat.

The contra beat or syncopation

This would be any beat which would not normally be regarded as a walking beat, so in tango written in 4/4 time it would be musical beats 2 and 4. In vals it could be beats 2 and 3, but in milonga or older tango tunes it could be the ‘&’ half beat (i.e. the space between walking beats, as in ‘1 & 2’ where you are taking 3 steps in 2 beats).

This is the next level of musicality where you can use double-time walking, rebote (rebound) and traspie (‘stumble’) movements to syncopate. Most tango dancers should be able to use syncopation after some practice, and this level of musicality may be enough to take you through your social dancing lifetime as a reasonably good dancer, but…

The very best tango dancers learn to dance to the melody

So here we are not just interpreting the walking beats and performing syncopation, but we are also dancing to melodic elements in the tune, or to particular instruments, or to the voice of a singer. This also includes being attuned to the emotional emphasis expressed by the musicians and the singers.

Sometimes both dancers will interpret different elements of the melody, and so will look like they’re not quite in sync with each other. However even an asynchronous interpretation will look and feel good if the musical interpretation of each dancer is precise. Occasionally you will dance with a partner who hears the tune exactly the way you do, and interprets in a very similar way. Then you look to be in perfect sync.

Now you know what to aim for at each stage of your tango musical education

It’s important to try master each of these musical elements at the appropriate stage. Beginners/improvers need to master hearing and walking to the beat. Improvers/intermediates will need to hear the opportunities for syncopation and master their use. Finally advanced dancers will need to begin to know tunes so well that they can express the melody and emotion of a tune in their dance.

Like all tango training, musicality needs to be actively worked on. Just dancing and hoping that musicality will some day magically appear in your dance is going to take a long, long time. Actively listening to tango tunes will help you better identify the musical elements introduced above. Then you can practice to popular tunes until you dance better!

Violin and piano keyboardIf you have not had any formal music training and you are unsure about music beats, time signatures, bars etc. please read the previous article about musical terminology for a brief but hopefully useful run-down on the main terms you need to know.

In the next part of this series I will look at the structure of a typical tango orchestra, and how the beat is expressed in a traditional orchestra which very rarely uses drums!

Musicality in Tango Dancing – Part One

In this series of articles about the important subject of musicality I will look at elements of music and some basic terminology (this article), followed by articles on Orchestra instruments, the structure of tango music, and then I’ll take a look at some famous Tango Orchestras and tunes and how the arrangers changed a tune to match their Orchestras sound. All the while I will be attempting to relate the information to interpretation of the music with your tango dancing.

You do not need to be able to read music to dance, but in order to hear the music and improve our musical interpretation of the Argentine Tango tunes we all love to dance to we must first understand a little bit about music and it’s components. I first present little music theory and terminology might be in order, so that when you attend musicality classes you begin to understand what tempo, rhythm, melody, music beat, etc. are all about and how they relate to tango and other music.

Music Terminology

Written music is represented by a notation consisting of a series of horizontal lines (stave) upon which musical notes are represented in both pitch (where they are positioned on the stave) and duration (the particular symbol used to represent one note).

We can use two staves printed one above the other to represent the treble notes (high pitch) and bass notes (low pitch) and we use symbols (treble or bass clef) at the beginning of a stave to show which range the notes are in.Musical notes on treble and bass staves with elements annotatedSo as notes are placed higher on the stave, they increase in pitch, and lower on the stave they decrease in pitch. You’ll also notice there is a repeating pattern where the note sequence starts again but at a higher pitch. This is called an octave. For example, when the middle C string on a piano is struck it vibrates at 261.6 Hz (Hertz or cycles per second), and the next C above vibrates at a frequency of 523.2 Hz. In other words for each octave a note will vibrate twice as fast for the octave higher, and half as fast for the octave lower. This is why, for example, all C notes sound similar but are a different pitch (frequency) to each other.

We now know how to represent the pitch or frequency of a note, by it’s position of a treble or bass stave, but how about duration? The duration of a note is defined as a set of note symbols which represent relative duration to each other, and are as follows

A list of note values
One whole note (semibreve) = 2 half notes (minims), one minim = 2 quarter notes (crotchets), and so on. In terms of duration then, two minim notes and four crotchets take exactly the same duration to play, as do one semibreve and eight quavers. Note that it doesn’t matter whether the tails are pointing up or down. The usual convention is to keep the tail inside the related stave as much as possible

Hang on a minute (a minuet?) though! If note duration are played relative to each other, how do we know how fast to play the whole piece of music? This is entirely down to either the composer or the musician, but there are clues in the notation.

For example the composer could annotate a ‘metronome mark’ which indicates how many beats per minute the tempo should be. They look like this and are written just above the top stave on the left of the page.

A typical metronome markThis means ‘play at 120 beats per minute’. The note symbol is a crotchet so it also means ‘play at 120 crotchets per minute’. A metronome marks with a ‘c’ in front of the number mean ‘approximately’ (circa).

Other ways of indicating the tempo may consist of a few words at the top of the page, often in Italian but not exclusively so.

Allegro (fast)
Adagio (slow)
Andante (at walking pace)
Allegro ma non troppo (fast but not too fast)

and so on. This form of notation is less specific and it’s left to the musician to decide what ‘fast’ or ‘slow’ means.

Time signatures

Previously we’ve considered the pitch of notes relative to each other, and relative to a treble or bass stave, the tempo of a piece, and a vague reference to how we can locate one of the notes (middle C) on a Piano (it’s in the middle of the keyboard πŸ™‚ ) to anchor an entire piece of music into the correct set of octaves.

Now we can consider how to express an accented beat, which means placing an emphasis on one of a group of notes. We can do this with ‘bars’ and time signatures.

If you imagine a simple clock ticking, the regular tick represents the clocks rhythm or beat, but it has no accent. Each tick sounds exactly like the previous tick. Imagine now, if you had a clock ticking away, but on every fourth tick, the tick sounded louder, then the volume dropped back to normal for the next three ticks. This louder tick would represent an accentuated beat.

A time signature basically describes the underlying pattern of beats and the accentuation, so in our clock example, a time signature might describe the group of 4 ticks but with the first tick of each group of four being accentuated.

So in the following example of music you will notice that the notes are grouped into sections (or bars) indicated by the vertical lines on the stave. Each vertical line shows where the accentuated beat of the next bar occurs – the note immediately after the vertical line.The musical notation of the first part of Romance de Barrio, written by Anibal TroiloThe other squiggly bits and lines on the stave between notes represent rests (silence) of different durations, or marks representing expression. Silence or pauses, are also useful in interpreting your tango dance.

Unfortunately we are still left with a choice of which duration of note (crotchets, minims, quavers etc.) should represent the beats in a bar, so we still don’t quite know exactly how long the duration of a bar should be… until we specify the time signature. Here are some examples used in tango music.Typical time signatures for different types of Tango musicThe number on the bottom represents what note value each beat has. ‘2’ represents a minim per beat, ‘4’ represents a crotchet per beat, and ‘8’ represents a quaver per beat, so in the three examples above, the beat is represented by a crotchet. The top number then tells you how many beats there are in one bar, so

  • 4/4 says each beat is represented by the duration of a crotchet, and there are 4 beats (or crotchets) to a bar.
  • 3/4 says each beat is represented by the duration of a crotchet, and there are 3 beats (or crotchets) to a bar. This is waltz timing.
  • 2/4 says each beat is represented by the duration of a crotchet, and there are 2 beats (or crotchets) to a bar.

So is 3/4 time the same as 6/8 time? Well not quite, cos it’s not maths πŸ™‚

If we go back to our ticking clock example with a 3/4 time signature,Β the clock tick would be

T t t T t t T t t with ‘T’ being the emphasised beat 1.

The 6/8 time signature would have a beat pattern of

T t t t t t T t t t t t T t t t t t

twice as many beats but each beat duration on half as long (a quaver not a crotchet), but the emphasised beat 1 is only half the duration as in 3/4 time. The rhythm sounds similar but not identical.

So why are some tangos written in 2/4 time instead of 4/4 time? Well rhythmically it wouldn’t make much difference to the dancer if they were stepping on both beats (in 2/4 time) or stepping on beat 1 & 3 (in 4/4 time) for their basic tango walk. Beat one would still be the emphasised beat, and using notes of different durations would still allow the composer to express melody and accompaniment in either time signature. It could be simply down to the composer to choose. For example, early tango pieces such as El Chocolo (A.G. Villoldo) were often written in 2/4 time whereas later works such as Libertango (Astor Piazolla) was written in 4/4 time. Libertango might be considered as more of a concert piece. Perhaps a ‘proper’ musician could tell us if there any advantages one way or another?

So what have we learned about music?

  1. It’s a bit complex, but then little kids can learn it by practising a lot, so no excuses… πŸ™‚
  2. There are many elements of notation which can be used to express a tune onto paper. Some of the terminology is a little obscure to a non-Italian speaking non-musician, but once the notation has been learned it is possible to get into the structure, tempo, and musical expression in a tune, as performed by the musicians.
  3. For all the variety of notation elements for beats, notes, expression, silence etc., there is still a certain amount of interpretation by both the composer and the musician in what the notation exactly means. Musicians sometimes still have to hear a piece of music played before they can ‘read off the sheet’.

As a dancer it helps to be familiar with a particular tune in order to maximally interpret it, but as you will see in the following parts of this series, there is a structure to music and often a repetitious nature to elements of a tune. Once you’ve heard just one section of a tango tune, it is possible to anticipate what the tune will sound like later on, and therefore better interpret the music with your dance.

Although I have given a brief overview of the main aspects of written music, you do not need to be able to read music to dance to it. However in the next few posts when I look at how music can be interpreted in dance I will use this terminology, so refer back to this page if you need to.

Please note I am not a professional musician. Much of this material I’ve learned through study, my amateur attempts to play instruments (badly πŸ™‚ ) and to write bits of music (equally badly, but one day… πŸ™‚ ) and dancing to tango music (Hmmm… beginning to get there πŸ™‚ ).

I used the first few chapters of the following book to write this little overview and can recommend it for any non-musician. The book is called called ‘Learning to Read Music by Peter Nickol’ if you want to delve into reading music in a more thorough way. Its a good introduction and pretty much tells you what you need to know to start reading music (and his explanations are a bit more thorough than mine).

In the next part of this series, I will examine the elements of a tune which a tango dancer could learn to interpret.

Couples Dance Classes

Argentine tango is an ideal dance for couples because both follower and leader have to co-operate in order to make the dance work. In other partner dance classes, such as Modern Jive or Salsa, the leader can ‘muscle’ the follower into position if the follower is deemed to be following ‘incorrectly’. In Argentine tango couples dance classes this will not work (or at least shouldn’t be allowed to πŸ™‚ ) especially if you wish to learn to dance the Argentine tango well.

Argentine tango is a partner dance, i.e. it requires two dancers to work together, with each dancer being allowed by the other to perform their respective roles as successfully as possible. There is no fixed choreographic sequences to learn (although individual tango figures do have their own step sequences) because Argentine tango is an improvisational dance where the leader creates a structure to the dance, within which the follower can express themselves with the way they follow, and decorate their part of the dance.

If you are interested in attending my Argentine tango couples dance classes, workshops and courses click here to find out more.

So, in couples dance classes for Argentine tango we must learn to co-operate and by this I mean the following:-

  1. The leader should ‘invite’ the follower to step in the direction required, but not pull, push or otherwise force the follower into position. This requires a clear lead, and sometimes patience. As a leader grows in confidence they should also develop the skill of having a ‘Plan B’ for when the follower does not accept the invitation. These skills will be learned in your couples dance classes for Argentine tango πŸ™‚
  2. The follower should learn to ‘tune in’ to a leader and trust the lead without sabotaging the structure the leader is trying to create. This is one of the most difficult skills a follower needs to develop, and partner dance classes are the ideal environment to learn. Followers cannot improve this skill except by dancing with many leaders (both good and bad, so that you can learn the difference).
  3. Leaders should give time for followers to express themselves with decorative movements, so leaders need to learn to avoid the need to be constantly stepping to the main musical beat (but still learn to be musical). Leaders should learn to be generous with their pauses to allow followers to contribute to the dance in their own way.
  4. Conversely, followers should not abuse the time given by the leader for the expressive decoration. When a leader starts looking at his watch, tutting and shaking his head, it’s time for the dance to move on πŸ™‚

So should only couples attend partner dance classes?

At most social events such as a milonga (tango social dance), numbers are usually roughly even at most venues, but there tends always be a few leaders or followers spare. This is why it is usual (but not mandatory) for leaders to circulate and ask different followers to dance.

Of course since it takes two to tango, ideally people will join a class, workshop or course as a couple, but this is not always going to be possible.

On courses or workshops which I advertise as ‘booking only’ then I will try balance leaders and followers. Couples will always get booking preference, while single leaders or followers may not get an instant booking confirmation until a matching dancer has also booked. You may see me manage this balancing by temporarily disabling booking for certain types of ticket if the balance is becoming unmanageable. I post all events I organise on my Facebook page, so you can always add a comment to the event expressing your desire to find a partner.

When I run open drop-in classes, everybody is welcome to join in, but there are no guarantees that any particular class willΒ  be perfectly balanced, or that there will be enough leaders or followers to go round. In these cases I run a ‘bus stop’ system for spare leaders or followers to wait for a partner to pick them up as people dance round. Please be aware that some couples do not wish to dance with other partners so there maybe no one willing to handle ‘spare’ dancers…

So, to guarantee you will have someone to dance with all the time, you are advised to find a partner to join with, for the opposite role. Please note: a leader and follower is usually a man and a woman, but if two women want to join with one learning the leaders role, or two men join with one learning the followers role, that’s fine πŸ™‚

If you are interested in attending my Argentine tango partner dance classes click here to find out more