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Djangology: 1
What makes a good tango?
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by Steve Morrall
What makes a good tango from
a dancer's perspective? Appreciation of any art form is a highly
subjective process and I present my personal preferences as a
'tango dancer' and a 'musician who loves to play tango' working
with the form and function of both tango dance and tango music.
A tango dancer's appreciation
of music is a process complicated by a number of variable conditions,
for instance, personal preference, the mood of the listener,
a dancer's ability to be 'in the music' rather than 'in the body'
and the context in which the music is delivered by the DJ and
the sound system. I think we can all be quite fickle about musical
appreciation - an intense tango one night can be but musical
wallpaper on another.
We all hear and understand spoken
communication in a different way. The same statement announced
to a room of 50 people can be interpretated or misinterpretated
50 different ways. Einstein once said, "the problem with
communication is the illusion that it has been understood".
This illusion may be a weakness of the spoken word, but it is
something to be celebrated in creative improvisation, like dancing.
If 50 tango dancers listen to the same piece of music, there
could be 50 different and varying creative interpretations and
appreciations of the music.
I listen to tango music a lot
and have a collection of over 4000 tracks of tango music. I guess
that my current favourites make up a small percentage of these.
Some tango composers were blessed with a gift that enabled them
to write many superb songs, others, sadly, were one-hit-wonders.
One reason my collection has grown so big is that I have bought
albums by a composer on the strength of a tango that I really
love, only to find most of his other work does not move me to
the same degree.
It was tango music, not the dance
that first grabbed my attention. How can a musical genre that
includes pieces as rich and technically brilliant as a Beethoven
sonata (i.e. A Evaristo Carriego, Osváldo Pugliese)
have remained widely uncelebrated? As I learnt to dance, (I was
taught using the basic eight method) I can't remember really
feeling in touch with the music. I suppose that my focus was
'in the body' not 'in the music' until I became competent enough
to relax and start to listen to the music and use it as creative
inspiration and contributing dynamic of the dance.
As I became more aware of the
music as dancer, my curiosity homed in on why some tango songs
really inspired me to dance and why others were so unintuitive
and unappealing that I would want to stop dancing. So I started
to collect tango music in search of an understanding of my 'perfect'
tango.
Tango is the sound of diaspora,
the music of displaced people from an incredible range of cultures
and countries who found themselves in Buenos Aires at the start
of the twentieth century. Travellers and opportunists, fortune-hunters
and runaways, all carrying with them folklore melodies passed
down through generations. Only the most robust, intuitive, memorable
and resonant melodies could possibly survive this tortuous journey.
The tunes that emerged in the
early years of tango are unique in the development of music.
Remember this was a period before radio or television when folklore
was a real and vibrant part of storytelling and entertainment.
I can imagine myself as an early immigrant, arriving in Buenos
Aires without a common language and unable to converse intellectually
in any way except with music. Through music I could find a way
of sharing my sense of self with other musicians and start to
integrate. I could find a way to celebrate life (such as it is)
and make a heartfelt cry of desperation that, after spending
all my savings to get to a better life in Argentina, the reality
of my new life is worse than the one I left behind. Like other
immigrant musicians, I would intuitively and unconsciously bring
all my musical folklore memories to share at barrio gatherings.
Destitute, cold, hungry, lonely and desperate, we would seek
comfort and companionship in music. We would play by ear, each
contributing the resonant songs from our homeland, learning from
each other, giving and gaining new skills until, with one voice
a new musical expression emerges. Tango was born.
As tango emerged and rapidly
grew in popularity it didn't take long before entrepreneurs started
to develop and market it to a wider audience. I have mixed feelings
about the ensuing commercial exploitation. There would be some
superbly crafted and highly popular tango music to follow as
a result but I feel a special regard for these brief years of
tango at its purest and unexploited form of art.
So what makes a good tango? For
me, some of the factors can be attributed to the early conditions
that helped create the genre.
Musical Communication
Sometimes I can hear
a tango for a first time and know intuitively how the musical
story will be told and where it will finish. As tango developed,
musicians of different cultures and languages learnt to improvise
musical storytelling. By making the music as intuitive as possible
an ensemble could play together effectively. What worked intuitively
for the musicians still works for dancers. Like an improvising
musician, a dancer, especially a leader, needs to know where
the music is going to be able to provide an effective lead. An
example of this is using bass runs, like a jazz bass player.
A bass run can link different parts of a tango providing a rhythmic
and melodic bridge between sections. The first four descending
notes of 'La Cumparsita' come to mind. Like any good story, a
good tango will tell of many emotions, provide pauses and make
contradictions through musical dialogues and rhythmic changes.
The tango Por una cabeza (by a head) is a story about horse racing
with a dramatic change from the lyrical opening theme to the
confrontational second theme. This is the tango used in the film
'Scent of a woman' danced by Al Pacino and Gabrielle Anwar.
Al Compas del Corazon
Rhythm is central to
a good tango. From the earliest tribal gatherings around the
campfire to contemporary cinematic composers we have known how
to influence emotion by using the beat of the heart as a rhythm.
We all have an inner physical/emotional rhythm that defines us
in ways we hardly expect and notice. When an external rhythm
syncronises or syncopates with our inner rhythm it resonates
and can move us profoundly. Listen to Miguel Calo's rendition
of Al Compas del Corazon (The beat of the heart) performed with
singer Raul Beron. The music literally plays with our heart-strings.
But a good tango will offer more than a heartbeat rhythm. It
will play with syncopation - a technique that utilises the space
between each beat in half, quarter or even smaller interjections
that offer dancers a rhythmic structure for corte and quebradas.
Have you noticed the insistence of tango music. Sometimes I feel
like an invisible hand is pulling me into the next move. This
is marcato, a sound normally produced by the bandoneon that musically
anticipates the start of the next compass or beat. Think about
a jazz band preparing to play together - the band leader will
count in saying "One, two, three, four and"
The "and" is pulling the band together
into the first beat of their performance and follows the same
technique as the bandoneon in a tango - a device that helps the
dancers to mark the next beat clearly in their interpretation
of the music. Osváldo Pugliese had a name for this technique
and even named one of his tangos after it - "La Yumba"
(pronounced la sschuum-ba). Next time you play this tango
listen for the insistent calling of the bandoneon from beat to
beat.
Playing in between the notes
I recall a radio interview
with Joanna McGregor who played the music of Astor Piazzolla
with two of the surviving members of Piazzolla's original quintet,
guitarist Horacio Malvicino, and bass player Hector Console.
She said that to play good tango it is necessary to play 'in
between' the notes and feel the music. If she played the music
as it was written did not sound authentic. She had the great
good fortune to work with Malvicino and Console who could pass
on to her the feeling of tango that is call ritmo mugre
(dirty rhythm).
Earlier in this article I lamented
the passing of the early years of tango and the rare circumstances
that gathered so many musicians from different cultures in Buenos
Aires at a time when people made their own entertainment. I guess
that many of these musicians would have had a gypsy heritage
and a long tradition of improvising from the heart with much
gusto and feeling. I am awed with the virtuosity of some of the
musicians I hear in tango music, more so when I think that they
are playing between the notes and improvising as they play. These
musical moments make my spirit soar. Listen to A Los Amigos
by the Francini Pontier orchestra, especially the violin solo
that starts about 60 seconds into the piece. For bandoneon virtuosity,
listen to Recuerdo by Osváldo Pugliese and his
orchestra. There is a standing joke among bandoneon players about
this incredibly difficult solo. When requested if they can play
Recuerdo a bandoneonista replies "Depues!"
(later)
If you would like to hear the
musical references made in this article, don't forget that there
is a music library available for dancers at any of our events
or teaching night. If you are looking to expand your collection,
I can recommend Michael Lavocah's online CD shop.
I also have a recording of the Joanna McGregor Piazzolla concert
if you missed it.
I'll leave you with a heartfelt
hug and hope that we will sometime share a tango.
This article is declared open
source and free from copyright by its author Steve Morrall, 2005.
Please attribute extracts to to the author using this webpage
as the source. If you have an experience
of tango as a dance, social interaction, confrontation, reconciliation,
or enlightenment that you would like to share, please email Steve
at the address shown below. Thanks
Email Tango UK
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