Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Are you reeling from last week's Tango Tip? If not, it means you probably didn't read it. Drop everything right now, and read that Tango Tip (January 28, 2016). When you're finished reading -- and reeling -- you'll be all set to continue with what we're going to work on
today.
Last week, we looked at the following printed-page representation of the signature rhythm of "La Cumparsita:"
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - / (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 - ....
Using this two-measure phrase, we clapped the eight underlines as they appear in the printed phrase, while at the same time saying the words:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - / (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 - ....
Our goal with this exercise was to identify and respond to the quarter notes of this phrase. If you were able to successfully complete the exercise -- if you were able to listen to the entire song on your player, and clap a consistent quarter-note beat all the way through to the end of the piece --
you're ready to move ahead to the next part of the process.
Before we continue, I want to tell you that whereas clapping to these quarter notes is a great mental exercise, dancing to those same notes is quite another story. The fact is that these notes are really just too fast to dance to for the whole song.
For example, if you as a leader were to try taking forward steps to those quarter-note beats from the beginning of the song until the end, you and your partner would most likely be completely worn out and ready to sit down after just a few repetitions of the phrase. Eventually, you're going to be able to actually dance the quarter notes in brief bursts, say three at a time, when you learn how
to incorporate what are sometimes called traspie -- or double-time -- movements within your repertoire. But dancing to these beats continuously is just too strenuous, and so nobody does it.
Let's take a look at our musical phrase from "La Cumparsita" again:
1
- 2 - 3 - 4 - / (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 - ....
Remember that the words represent the musical phrase itself. As we've learned, the underlines represent the quarter notes within that phrase. To go somewhat deeper, the five dashes, the rest in between the
two parentheses along with the two "and" words represent what we referred to last week as eighth notes. There are actually eight eighth notes within the phrase. If you wanted to acknowledge these notes within a basic eight-count musical phrase, you might say it in the following way:
1
and 2 and 3 and 4 and / 5 and 6 and 7 and 8 and ....
This would subdivide the two-bar phrase into 16 total counts. The numbers would represent what we've come to know as the quarter notes, and the "ands" in between each of the quarter notes would be the eighth notes. (In fact, if you were to
simply count all sixteen notes in sequence, they'd all be considered to be eighth notes.)
Interesting? Maybe, but right now, these eighth notes are a bit beyond the scope of our process. For the time being, let's recognize that these notes are there, but for purposes of basic social Tango our
smallest rhythmic subdivision will be our quarter notes:
1 2 3 4 / 5 6 7 8 ...
As discussed above, we
can clap these quarter notes, but generally, they're too fast for us to dance to.
Right now, we're about to discover "half notes!" Let's look once more at our detailed rhythmic representation of our musical phrase from "La Cumparsita:"
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - / (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 - ....
I'm going to further refine this rhythmic representation a bit. Starting now, it's going to look like this:
1 -
2 - 3 - 4 - / (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 - ....
. . . .
Notice that I've added dots underneath quarter note numbers 1, 3, 5 (our rest), and 7. If
we were to now say our phrase out loud as we've done before, but this time clap along with only the dotted notes, we'd quickly realize that now we're physically only acknowledging every other quarter note. This new rhythmic way of interacting with our musical phrase -- of acknowledging this further subdivision -- is what we're going to call half
notes.
Without the specific rhythm content of "La Cumparsita" these half notes would plot out in the following way:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - / 5 - 6 - 7 - 8
- ....
. . . .
If we were to say each of the numbers, while clapping the dots, we would be acknowledging the half notes. The
first thing you may notice about these half notes is that because you now have to clap to every other beat only, it's quite a bit easier than clapping to the quarter notes. Try listening to "La Cumparsita" again on your player, and clap the half notes while listening. By the end of the song, you'll probably have a good idea
of what half notes feel like within the context of a piece of music. (Once again, if you have any trouble with this process, be sure to consult your teacher.)
The second thing you'll very soon come to realize is that you can actually dance these half notes with your partner without needing
resuscitation after just a few steps. In fact, lots of leaders -- both in Argentina and around the world today -- respond to music by exclusively incorporating only half notes in navigating the dance floor. To tell you the truth, this would not be my own choice -- as we're going to discuss down the road. But if you spend time in the milongas of Argentina, you'll see many people for whom the challenge of musicality has been
completely solved through the use of continuous half-note dancing.
Take another look at our graphic representation:
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - / (_) and 6 and 7 - 8 - ....
. . . .
If you've been following along, you now know that you can:
· See and say the complete
musical phrase
· See and clap to the quarter notes
· See, clap to -- and actually dance to -- the half notes
As complex as this process has
been so far, I hope you agree that we're really getting somewhere! Next week, we're going to identify and learn how to respond to what are called "whole notes." In the meantime, listen to as much Tango music as you can, find and clap to the quarter notes as well as to the half notes; then get yourself out onto the dance floor to dance to those half
notes.
See you next week.
