4526  Sycopation problem ?

Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 21:38:51 +1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
From: "Melroy" <melroyr@xtra.co.nz>
Subject: [Tango-L] Sycopation problem ?
To: <tango-L@mit.edu>

Hey Jake, I don't really have a problem with syncopation.
Its just more fun to do it than to write (or read) about.

And none of us are going to transcribe, accurately, some little book of
traspie variations that others can use for study and practice. Are we?
(ooh that's a thought).

Anyway ....... Syncopation is the stressing of normally un-stressed beats
in a bar.

For example: a bar of 4/4 would be 1 2 3 4, with 2 and 4 normally
un-stressed.
If they were this could be called syncopated.

Between beats 1 and 2, (or 2&3, 3&4, 4&1 etc), if you count 1 e and a 2
Any of the beats on e or and or a could be stressed (or tapped as we
are talking dance) and this would be syncopation.

If you tap just ever so slightly before of after the beat this is also
syncopation (harder to annotate).
If you tap along on the stressed beats and all of a sudden don't tap one,
just catch your foot in the air for that one, and then continue, that's also
syncopation.

Oh and Jake, 'superimposed patterns' sounds more like polyrhythm, playing
(or dancing), for example, a measure of say three even beats over a bar of
four even beats. Or 7 over 3.
Or 11 over 17 if you're Frank Zappa.

Sometimes Tango (dance etc) teachers use musical terms that are not really
accurate for what they are trying to explain. However we usually know what
they mean don't we?
Especially if they show us.
I can read music, but I prefer not to think about dancing in terms of
crotchets and semi-quavers etc.
Its not necessary.

Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 06:50:43 -0400
From: "TangoDC.com" <spatz@tangoDC.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Sycopation problem ?
To: tango-L@mit.edu

Please see my comments below...

Melroy wrote:

> Hey Jake, I don't really have a problem with syncopation.
> Its just more fun to do it than to write (or read) about.

Hey Melroy: I agree. But I also enjoy analysis, and insightful thoughts
about technique and the medium. Shame on multi-faceted me, I suppose.

> And none of us are going to transcribe, accurately, some little book of traspie variations that others can use for study and practice. Are we? (ooh that's a thought).
>

Uh... why the hell not? Whatever happened to curiosity? Exploring these
things in detail can lead to wonderful discovery. I'm largely an
intuitive thinker, and I find that formal systems such as these get me
Inside the stuff, like a kid who starts seeing his blanket as a rolling
arrangement of dunes...

But at any rate, Mauricio Castro is probably already writing that book.

> Anyway ....... Syncopation is the stressing of normally un-stressed beats in a bar.
>

That's yet another way of putting it, yes. And usually when people are
confused, they're just waiting for the explanation that makes it click
for them, so I'm glad to see it phrased thus.

> If you tap just ever so slightly before of after the beat this is also syncopation (harder to annotate). If you tap along on the stressed beats and all of a sudden don't tap one, just catch your foot in the air for that one, and then continue, that's also
> syncopation.
>

Indeed. You're talking about some of my favorite toys too. "Grace notes"
and such... But I don't confine myself to tapping or adornments, not
remotely... Since the "beat" in tango music is often coming not from a
drum-kit, but from a bowed string bass or a vamped bellows, I think
that's a crucial aspect to creative musicality as well. The beat is
large-- larger than our dots on paper, anyway. There are so many ways to
step on it, with it, through it-- it's a constant area of interest.
Stage choreography that doesn't take this into account is, I find,
rather grating on the eye. And unwittingly reductive-- grating on the mind.

> Oh and Jake, 'superimposed patterns' sounds more like polyrhythm, playing (or dancing), for example, a measure of say three even beats over a bar of four even beats. Or 7 over 3. Or 11 over 17 if you're Frank Zappa.
>

Yes, I mentioned polyrhythms. Which are another mode of syncopation. But
all syncopation is one pattern (the variation) applied to another
pattern (the base beat, or whatever it's called). It's all figure &
ground, which should be a familiar concept to anyone who's studied
visual arts, or read _Godel, Escher, Bach_, or any of perhaps a hundred
other stimulating things, or ever stared at a yin-yang without getting
drowsy. This is why I also mentioned rests, which themselves can be
syncopated, and which I tend to Feel more palpably (as "hang-time"
perhaps) when I'm dancing polyrhythmically. And all of these modes can
be combined with each other. I love it. (So, apparently, did Biagi, in
whose music you can hear the stuff quite clearly presented. Not that he
is unique in this... I just find it has more aggressive, more
hard-outline styling...)

> Sometimes Tango (dance etc) teachers use musical terms that are not really accurate for what they are trying to explain. However we usually know what they mean don't we? Especially if they show us.
> I can read music, but I prefer not to think about dancing in terms of
> crotchets and semi-quavers etc.
>

When I'm dancing, I prefer not to think at all. My body does it for me.
But I'm not dancing right now. I'm sitting here writing. And I'm going
to write about dance. I hope that's allowed here.

As for musical terms and their use in class... I don't normally use
them, because I find sound-effects far more effective. Or, say, playing
a song for listening purposes. But if someone else wants to... well, big
deal. Some people understand those terms; some people understand other
terms. Which is why I, for my part, try to explain things from multiple
angles, with frequent metaphors. Familiarity with poetic technique comes
in very handy here too. I'll try fishing for something in the Kamasutra
about syncopation, but I don't know that I'll find anything I couldn't
already describe in much funnier terms.

At any rate, I've always seen students work together, and ask each other
for explanations when they come up conceptually short. I encourage the
practice. I did it when I was that student. The free exchange of ideas,
between students, and between teachers, would really be a nice Permanent
addition to the tango learning process. If only we could all stop
clinging to Definition 1 of words, if only we could ask more honest
questions, if only we could stop being so goddamn jaded about things,
and realize there's a body of knowledge here worth examining from every
possible angle, with every possible tool, at every possible zoom... and
that no one person owns Any of it...

But hell, I'm no utopian. I'm just a normal guy for whom synonyms are
Different meanings.

Why, by the way, do I keep seeing attempts, by some of the 30 or so
people who post here, to shut down detailed discourse on this dance-- or
at least to encourage others to develop a bad taste for it? I mean,
there are 1,000 or so readers here, no? You think they read because they
find this shit boring? You think they're hungry to Not read about this
dance?

Or maybe I'm just misreading tone in certain messages. Or maybe others
are mis-writing it-- these things could always go either way.

Jake Spatz
Washington, DC