Four ways to improve your musicality

No matter what do you dance, part of learning goals is to improve your musicality. In tango this is specially important because it has very complex way of expressing the music, which, by the way, can be very complex itself. Tango music does not have percussions or rhythm section, dancers do not dance to the music itself, but rather to the feeling that music creates.

You might say ‘OK, than how can I work on this segment of my dancing?’ I am going to give you here four ways you can improve your musicality. They are derived from my personal experience, but also from the experience and knowledge of the great masters from the Golden Age. I will also use some of the latest discoveries of the neuroscience to help you understand the true nature of the musicality itself.

It is Friday! Oh crap, what I am going to do? The classes and practica are on Sunday, and the milonga is on Wednesday. We might socialize and dance a bit in the park this weekend, but what I am going to do tonight? No tango.

I guess this kind of sad conversation, sooner or later, goes on in the head of every decent tango addict. Like I was the first year. What was mu solution? I turned off the lights, played some Canaro (oh, how much I was addicted to Canaro that period) and my private one-person milonga started. Do not take me wrong, I had partners. I would take a sweater in my hands, holding it like it is my partner… I danced alone like a lunatic.

When I remember this episodes I can not but quote the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche:

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

But why I am telling you this dirty little secret? Because I was unaware that my one-person milongas were a training for me. As I will explain in the fourth point, dancing by yourself is one of the key factors that can help you improve your musicality.

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Besides dancing alone, in this post I am going to explain to you how important is to walk on beat and how can you achieve that, specially if you are one of those people who have trouble recognizing the rhythm. I will also explain why and how to watch the videos of the best and how should you chose what to watch in order to improve your musicality. In my third point I will explain how to exercise the separation of the rhythm from the melody.

These concepts are considering male and female aspects of the musicality – but after finishing the article I noticed that it is slightly more focused on the male aspect. This does not means that women should not read it: contrary, understanding it will help them immensely. So, let us begin.

1. Learn how to walk on the beat – There is no music without a rhythm and there is no musicality without walking on the beat. The rhythm is so important that some scientist consider that the rhythm, rather than the melody, should be considered the core of the music. Without ability to step on the beat, one can not be considered a good dancer.

But what does it means? Around 30% of all of the students I worked with had trouble to feel the rhythm of the music and express it with their movements. I made a little research to discover what is the reason why some of us have that ability and some others do not. I am sharing here some of the most interesting of them.

Have you ever heard about the parrot Snowball? It is the star of the one of the most shared videos on Youtube… and on the video Snowball is just dancing to Backstreet Boys music. Why I am mentioning here a video of a parrot dancing to some boys-band music from 90s? Because it is a phenomenon that drawn the attention of the neuroscientists and they studied Snowball, because according to many, it is very rare to see a non-human living being to ‘feel’ the rhythm. Watch Snowball here!

The scientists trained chimpanzees to tap to the rhythm of the music and it worked well. Later, when they analyzed the videos they discovered that between the actual beat and the tap of the chimpanzee there was a small delay which could be measured in milliseconds. The scientists knew what does it means: that the chimpanzees do not actually ‘feel’ the rhythm – their tapping was just learned reflex to the beat in the music, they were just reacting.

Here is the key of why some of us have problem with musicality and how can we fix this problem. Knowing how to ‘feel’ the rhythm requires from our brain to be able to predict the music, to learn the patterns. If we just react to the music, we are actually not expressing musicality, but, rather, reflexes.

To be musical means to create a mental picture in our brain about how the music will be in the next second and to dance to that prediction. This way we can intercept the music and not reacting to it. No wonder dancers sometimes feel like they do not follow the music, but it follows them (even it is music played on laptop, not a live orchestra). This is what I mean (at least part of it) when I say – we do not dance to the music, we dance to the feeling we have about it.

2. Watch the videos of the best – Let me tell you one story: when I first started dancing tango I did not had regular tango teachers. My first Argentinian teacher, Rafael, came when I already had some knowledge accumulated, so I was not an absolute beginner. Anyway, I had tons of questions for him. I doubt that I would have so many questions if I was an absolute beginner.

– How to have better musicality? How to dance better? – I asked.

– Do you have your favorite dancers? – he sad.

– Of course, I watch videos every day – I answered.

– Than when you dance, imagine that you are your idol. Ask yourself how he would interpret that music you are dancing to – he said.

Wow! What an amazing advice he gave me. Unfortunately, back then I was not able to completely understand the value of what he said. Later on, as I gained some experience, Rafaels words came back to me and then I had my revelation – I worked on his advice and I created a system that took my dancing to a complete new level.

What I did was the following. I picked around 20 favorite dancers and created a folder on my computer for every one of them. I carefully chose them not to be a stage dancers, since I wanted to learn how to dance on milonga, not on a stage. So, when I watched videos on Youtube I downloaded the ones I liked the most and I watched and watched them over and over. My method was to relate some of them with some sort of music: one was for dancing to fast D’Arienzos, other for dramatic Puglieses, third was for valses, fourth for milongas…

You see, many of the dancers of the Golden Age danced mostly to the music of one orchestra – so they developed a style that was connected to that orchestra. I do not have to mention that their way of dancing also influenced the way the orchestra played the music.

How to interpret different orchestras?

But let me warn you – watching the show dancers will not give you this subtle nuances in expressing the difference of the way the orchestras played their music. It is because they develop their dance as an art and their approach is mostly artistic which corresponds to their purpose – to amaze their audience.

3. Separate the rhythm from the melody – When you are a beginner you hear many things which makes no sense to you and you only understand them when the right time comes for you. This can be applied to anything in life, not for tango only.

One of those things for me was the saying that ‘the man is dancing to the piano and the woman is dancing to the violin’. I have heard this when I was very beginner. It made no sense to me at all: I thought that both the man and the woman are dancing together in a coordination, how come they dance differently?

To be honest, I did not agreed with it back then, I do not agree with this saying today too. But the difference is that now I can understand what was the idea that inspired people to say that. I mean, what man does, in relation to what the woman does, has nothing to do with what instrument plays – it has to do with what part of the music they are focused on. Basically, women tend to focus more on the melody during the dance, and men are more concentrated on the rhythm. Of course, this is not a strict rule, just tendency, but it defines a lot of what is going on during the dance.

But there is something more. Let me explain my next point with a quote:

Generally speaking, good tango dancers will express the compás from the waist down (with the feet), and the melody and sentiment of the music from the waist up. One way to watch this video is to hold up your hand and block your view of either the upper or lower half of the couple.  Isolating the lower half (although in this clip the feet are hard to see) will give you a good idea of how Ismael uses the compás. (Tango and chaos)

Using the technique Rick explains on his website will open a complete new horizons in the way you listen and express the music with your movements.

Check out mu post about the levels of the musicality

The four levels of tango musicality

4. Dance alone – Let me begin this point with the view of one of the best milongueros I ever watched. We said goodbye to him in 2006, but the memory about him still remains. What I like the most is the fact that his friends and fans left a lots of videos of him dancing. It is Ricardo Vidort, the guy whom I quote several times with his saying that if you are not able to give everything in tango, you should not dance at all.

One of his friends, Oscar Casas, whom I also respect a lot, made this tribute video about Ricardo Vidort.

Let me repeat – and please remember this, because it is said from someone who danced more than half century:

He never stopped dancing; sometimes he would even dance alone… ‘C’mon!’ he used to say to me, ‘it will train your feet, it’s good for you. It gives you ideas for the music.’ – Oscar Casas

Do not underestimate the power of the imagination. It might seem crazy, but it is important to have it in your head before you have it in your body.

Part of the training of the Formula 1 and bob-sledge drivers is just siting, closing the eyes and imagining driving. Development of the imagination is the key – our brain basically do not make difference between imagining something and doing it.

Of course, do not think that if your musicality is great when you dance alone, it will also be great when you dance with a partner. There are a lots of factors that limits you when practicing with partner, but dancing alone will increase the number of the possibilities that comes to you when you dance. In time, as your experience grows and as you improve your technique those limitations will fall off and you will be able to express more of what you imagine.

At the end of this point I want to warn you: this exercise of dancing alone should never be more than dancing with partners. There is no worse favor you can do for your development than making habit of dancing for yourself, even in situation when you are in the embrace of your partner.

Share this post if you think your friends will benefit from its content. If you have more ideas and exercises for improvement of the musicality I would love to read them in the comment section bellow or in a private message.