Hi everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Today, we're going to revisit the concept of "musicality," which we've been discussing for the past several weeks. You may remember that the last thing we worked on (January 14, 2016 to be precise) was what I called "Exercise 5." This exercise involved using single-step movement in
dancing with your partner to the music of Tango. (It would probably be a good idea to reread that Tango Tip in order to get yourself ready for what we're going to talk about today.)
In Exercise 5, I asked you to lead your partner to whatever beat or cadence was "natural"" to you; i.e., what you yourself heard as you were listening to the music you were playing. Right now, we're going to try to become a
lot more precise than that. Our goal today is to learn to identify the individual types of beats as they occur in the music, and, more importantly, to learn to dance to those beats any time we want to do so. What I'm talking about here specifically are "half notes," "whole notes," and "quarter notes." If you can learn to move to these beats at will as you dance with your partner, it will enable you as a leader to attain a much higher degree of expertise and sophistication in
moving creatively to a piece of Tango music.
Before we start trying to find these beats in the music, I want to offer two disclaimers to what we're about to attempt. In Argentina, most leaders who learn how to dance Tango do not go through this process. Instead, they develop their relationship with the music by getting out on the dance floor and practicing their dancing every night for,
let's say, thirty years or so. Even at the end of that time, most -- with the exception of people who receive formal musical training -- have little or no idea that they may be choosing to dance to "half notes," "whole notes," or "quarter notes." By that time, these dancers have developed their own unique relationship with the music in terms of how it feels to them as they dance. I personally believe that this is a much better way to learn "musicality," and if you prefer to follow this
road (we'll call it "your thirty-year crusade"), stop reading right now, move to Argentina, and start dancing every night in the milongas. Otherwise, take a deep breath, and read on.
My second disclaimer before we begin this week's quest is to share with you the fact that the process we’re about to attempt -- learning to identify and respond to musical beats without actually
listening to music -- is going to be very difficult. In fact, as I began to write this Tango Tip, my first thought was "Nah, this just ain't gonna work, Fran." But then I thought, "Oh, go ahead, give it a try."
So here goes.
Well start by laying out the
piece of music we're going to be working with. You won't be able to hear it, of course, due to the limitations of the printed page. But you'll be able to see it right here in front of you. Furthermore, you'll be able to imagine this piece of music in your mind, because it happens to be the most famous piece of Tango music ever created. Yes, that's right, it's "La Cumparsita."
Most arrangements of "La Cumparsita" begin with three "descending" notes, which lead into the melody of the song itself. Let me "sing" these notes for you:
Dum ...
Dum ...
Dum ...
Can you here them? No? Okay, I gave it my best shot. Let's try something else. If you're anywhere near a music player right now, fire up "La Cumparsita," and take a listen. In all probability, the
first sounds you'll hear will be those three leading notes.
Dum ...
Dum ...
Dum
...
These are the notes that usually start the song. After these three leading notes, we come to the melody proper. This is what we're going to be working with as we discover what I'm talking about, when I discuss "half notes," "whole notes," and "quarter notes."
The melody is actually a musical phrase whose rhythm
repeats itself again and again throughout the first part of the song. I know I can't sing it for you, but what I can do is plot out the rhythm on the page. It goes like this:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 ....
That's
it! This is the "signature" rhythm of the song. Go back to your music player, and listen again to what happens right after the three leading notes, and then happens again and again. It's this rhythm:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 ....
Try to say what you see on the page. In fact, this musical phrase (with melodic variation) repeats seven times in the first 14 measures of "La Cumparsita," and only then does the song move on another theme. Furthermore, before the piece is over, this same rhythmic phrase is going to return once more to take us to the end of the song.
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 ....
We're going to use this musical phrase in order to learn to identify those "half notes," "whole notes," and "quarter notes" I've been talking about.
We'll start by looking at the underlines, which occur throughout the phrase. Count them. That's right, there are eight of them in total. Notice that the underlines coincide with the first four numbers -- and then the last three numbers as well. The one underline that doesn't have a number attached to it is situated right in the middle of two parentheses. This underline represents a beat that is acknowledged in the music -- even though there is no melodic
note that goes with it. (In musical terminology we call this a "rest."). The "and" words that occur between the rest and the second number 2 as well as between the second 2 and the second 3 represent eighth notes, which, though potentially important in other discussions, are outside the scope of today's focus.
Confused?
Good, let's cram a little more information into the mix here. The phrase we're working with today contains two "measures" or "bars" of 4/4 time music. Both of these words mean exactly the same thing: A measure or bar is a container of music. In this case we have two containers of 4 quarter notes each. These two measures or bars give us a
two-measure (or two-bar) musical phrase. If we didn't have the unique rhythmic content of this particular phrase to account for, the phrase would plot out like this:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 / 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 ....
This represents a two-bar phrase (with the
quarter notes underlined) where each measure or bar contains 4 quarter notes. When we represent the phrase, using the actual rhythm of "La Cumparsita," it ends up being exactly what we started out working with:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 ....
Are you thinking right now that maybe I'm giving you more information than you could ever possibly need? You're probably right, but I'm thinking that as long as we're in this deep, we might as well get scary.
Okay, let's move ahead! The first thing we're going to do with this musical phrase is to clap the underlines. Remember, there
are eight of them. If you clap these beats one after another as you think about the repeating musical phrase (which, as I've said earlier, defines the signature melody of "La Cumparsita"), you will be acknowledging and identifying for yourself the quarter notes of the melody.
Run, don't walk, back to your music player, and listen to that
musical phrase again. Clap the repeating underlines. Do it again and again. When you've got it right, congratulate yourself. You've just found those up-to-now illusive quarter notes, and you can actually respond to them by clapping along in the music!
Okay, that's enough for the moment. Take a break. When you feel up to it, listen to the whole song on
your player, and try to clap the quarter notes just as we've identified them through this process above. If you have any problems with this process, ask your teacher to help you out.
Next week, we're going to go further in identifying the notes in our musical piece. We'll talk about "half notes," and "whole notes," and figure out how to find and respond to them in our musical phrase From "La
Cumparsita."
Are you excited? (Are you still awake at least?) Give yourself a very big pat on the back for getting through this musical tutorial. An even bigger pat, if you managed to be successful in finding and clapping to those quarter notes.
See you next week.
