573 A Dancer's Guide to Music
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:17:33 -0300
From: Janis Kenyon <jantango@FEEDBACK.NET.AR>
Subject: A Dancer's Guide to Music
Trini Regaspi of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, asked about teachers who give
music workshops. I have posted several times about Vittorio Pujia's
seminars for dancers in BsAs. He is relocating to Milan, Italy, this month
where he will continue offering his unique seminars for dancers. Vittorio
is a musician who has danced tango for many years.
vittoriopujia@hotmail.com.
Several years ago I came across a book entitled "Ear Training for the
Body -- A dancer's guide to music" by Katherine Teck. Even though I studied
instrumental music for many years, I bought this book for a new perspective
which I could share with my dance students. It's excellent, and I recommend
it to dancers who have no musical training.
The book has a glossary of musical terms. Syncopation is perhaps the most
incorrectly used musical term by dancers. Syncopation is defined as "the
rhythmic phenomenon in metric music that results when accents are introduced
on offbeats usually expected to be weak, or by the injection of silences or
sustained notes on beats normally felt to be strong."
To reiterate my recent posting, if we began our study of tango by listening
to and understanding the music before we took a step, we would be dancing
with the music and with feeling. It's impossible to dance well to music
that you don't know. If you find yourself in a dance class where the
teacher doesn't talk about the music, I suggest you find another teacher.
There are very few dance teachers with musical training; if you can find one
who is also a musician, you'll learn more about the music as a dancer..
A Dance Horizons Book
Princeton Book Company, Publishers
PO Box 57
Pennington, NJ 08534
Pichi de Buenos Aires
La Escuela del Milongueros
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 14:00:00 -0500
From: Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown@DAL.FRB.ORG>
Subject: Re: A Dancer's Guide to Music
>>Trini Regaspi of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, asked about teachers who give
music workshops.<<
Leandro and Andrea give workshops in moving to music. Also Alex Krebs and
Susana Miller emphasize rhythm in their workshops. Florencia Taccetti
works extensively with rhythm in her milonga and vals classes.
For those who are without local or visiting teachers who address rhythm,
listening and learning to move to the music is a great alternative. I
typically recommend the early recordings of Francisco Canaro (La Melodia de
Nuestro Adios or Las Grandes Orquestas de Tango) because it has simpler
rhythm. Miguel Calo with Alberto Podesta singing is also great. You can
read my guide to recordings suitable for dancers new to tango at
<https://www.tejastango.com/tango_music_beginning.html>.
With best regards,
Steve
Stephen Brown
Tango Argentino de Tejas
https://www.tejastango.com/
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 21:50:01 +0200
From: Christian Lüthen <christian.luethen@GMX.NET>
Subject: Re: A Dancer's Guide to Music
[Stephen on teachers giving music workshops]
I'd just like to add another great teacher giving music workshops: Eric
Jeurissen.
He's also a phantastic DJ, makes it sometimes very hard for me to stand all
the other DJs.
In this context: I'd say that actually IMHO a DJ has a high responsibility
about the go-on of milonga: If people are to excited, he/she could calm the
crowds down. If people are getting tired he/she could help to come alive again.
And definitly if he/she'd realize that there are a lot of beginners (better:
unexperienced dancers) on the floor he/she could help by putting on music
which really evidently emphazises on the rhythm. Eric is one of those who know
extremely well to 'help' the dancers.
I'd say 'caminar' ('walking') comes first, but immediatly followed by
'walking on the rhythm'. Actually both go along, can't be seperated (perhaps
another yin and yang situation)! My hope is that more and more teachers will
emphasize on the importance of the rhythm ... and teach walking/moving to the
rhythm before teaching figures.
And as many teachers do the DJ'ing at their own milonga the circle unites.
Regards
Christian
--
just my personal 50th of an Euro
christian.luethen@gmx.net
GMX - Die Kommunikationsplattform im Internet.
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