Musical Interpretation – Parts 1 & 2

Musical Interpretation. When most people hear the phrase ‘Musical Interpretation’ they usually end up looking at you with a blank stare, blinking their eyes at you now and again, until you use the word that makes sense to them: “Musicality”. And then they’re like, “Weeeeellll! Why didn’t you say so in the first place…..”, and then it’s like you’re best buddies again! 

First and foremost, let’s get something out of the way. “Musicality” doesn’t mean what you think it does, as you’ll soon see. Secondly and most importantly the word itself means ‘to BE music’! Hmm, you can write the music, you can listen to the music, you can dance to the music, but you can not…if I am not mistaken, BE music. It is impossible. However, you can INTERPRET the Music! 

The Workshop Problem. A class or workshop tutorial on ‘Musicality” doesn’t actually teach you about music, nor does it teach to dance to the music as a whole. A 1hr (or 1.5 hr) workshop or even a 6 week series is not going to teach you to dance to the music. The topic is wide and vast, and seemingly overwhelming. Further still, the very idea that you can ‘interpret’ the music is so far beyond most people’s understanding (or so they believe) that it overwhelms them when they begin to see the complexity of the topic at hand. 

Usually most people’s experience with ‘musicality’ workshops that they’ve had in the past is as follows: 1.) you are first shown/taught a step, a pattern, or a figure. 2.) You go through several rotations of partners learning the step/pattern/figure. 3.) The last 15 minutes to half hour of class is showing you the same example of the figure you’ve spent 45 minutes learning only now somehow, magically, it goes with a piece of music or a style of music or an aspect that is specific to that piece of music that may sometimes occur here and there. 4.) You’re shown a few variations on a theme of the figure, and somewhere about the 3rd or 4th your eyes start to glaze over. 5.) The idea of Counting Beats is reinforced: On the 2nd beat you step here, on the 3rd beat the Follower is supposed to step there, on the 4th….and so on.

Is this dancing ? No.

It’s a game of Twister, only to music. 🙁

What is ‘Musical Interpretation’ ? Musical Interpretation is a term that brings together two very different skillsets that should not be confused or co-mingled together. And they usually are, sadly. Both have to be accessed at the same time in order for Musical Interpretation to work properly, however these are two very different skills that must be pursued with all due diligence.  

The first part is ’Musical’. Which can be, but is not limited to – Either role hears the music in a very specific way, whereby they’re collectively, and/or separately, able to hear the beat, pause, and phrase (not phrasing – that’s entirely different idea) within the overall structure of a piece of music. This is about hearing the music, and its individual components. Not acting on them, but instead hearing them, keeping track of them, and understanding what’s going on. That last part is insanely difficult to do, and takes some time to get. Sometimes, ok – a lot of the time, most people get too wrapped up in their own excitement of the next part of this stuff and never focus on the one thing that they absolutely must… AND/OR they focus on one aspect (the beat, usually) alone and believe that this will be ‘enough’. It’s not by the way. This idea is, and this is not to disparage your ideas, can be almost pedestrian in nature. We do want to aspire to something more that accentuates the nuance and spirit of the music, not just it’s beat alone.

The second part is ‘Interpretation’, which is what you do with that beat, pause, and phrase (the ‘phrasing’, that’s the doing part of phrases) of the overall piece of music so that you see the movement or dancing part in the music. Ideally this is the desired result. However, and this where Interpretation takes on its real meaning. While you can vary that idea to express a point, a counterpoint of the music, but in the end, one is always working towards creating a larger vision of the music. Not to just visually represent the song note for note or phrase to phrase, but to show its nuances as well as its overall presence in the physical world. This is the beginning of ‘Interpretation’.

A Few ‘Musical’ Problems. There are some problems with the Musical part above that must be addressed first and foremost. One problem that comes up a lot of people is that they’re beat challenged and don’t know it. 1.) They run too fast (ahead of the beat and actually think it’s one thing when it’s another). 2.) They run too slow (same problem as too fast, only in reverse). And/or 3.) They are slightly ahead, or slightly behind the beat, and/or running across the beat all at the same time.

Compounding the beat problem is that most of you reading this from a Leading perspective have been taught to Count Beats which is about as useful as a small kitchen appliance that’s been unplugged. From a Following perspective you’ve been taught to “do your thing as long as it doesn’t interrupt the lead (small ‘l’, the action, and not the person ‘L’) without actually ‘hearing’ what it is that you’re ‘not interrupting’.

Next we have the Musical Pause or ‘Rest’ issue that is frequently misread, misunderstood, or ignored completely by design or as is more likely the case, ignorant that a Musical Pause actually exists and is not arbitrary, but in fact built into the music and must be respected. But a question comes up in this, which is one reason why it’s highly misunderstood, “How do you hear something that isn’t there ?”.

Still another issue that compounds the Musical problem is purely psychological. Some people have been told from a very early age that they can’t find a beat to save their lives. This message is so ingrained that they buy into this fallacy without question over time. Still another is that some are so wrapped up in the fear of not getting the beat, or not understanding it, that their anxiety over their inadequacy that they anticipate the beat in the wrong places, and at a the wrong times. The common solution for a lot of Leads to these problems is to learn lots of steps, patterns, and figures to mask the overall problem.

How to Clean Up The Musical Problem ? In order to clean up the problems above, five things must happen in sequence:

1.) (Beat Course) Clarify what the beat is, and is not, and then develop a regime to teach how to hear a beat within its proper tempo (speed) consistently. What are the markers for a beat, and what to listen for.
2.) (Beat Course with Exercises) Recalibrate someone’s innate (and quite natural) ordering and sorting skills, as it relates to hearing the ‘pattern’ of the music out of the chaos of the music, with the goal to hearing and retraining someone to hear ‘Musical Time’.
3.) (Pauses Course) Introduce the Dancer to the 5 Common Types of Musical Pauses that occur everywhere in Tango Music, and then practice hearing those pauses every day for 44 days with examples of Tango, Vals, and finally Milonga music of where a pause is, and then type those pauses, consistently through daily Tango del Dia quizzes. 😉 Starting with the 14 Days of Tango Music.
4.) (Accents Course) Introduce the dancer to Musical Accents, Off Notes, La Variacion, and The Singer, and employ Tango Del Dia Level 2.
5.) (Structure Course) Introduce the dancer to the overall structure of the music and the 6 (sometimes 8) parts of a song.

About The Video. This video package comes in at 52m:32s in length in 6 Sections, and 8 Subsections.

Section 1 – Opening – 00:02:48 (this video is above)
Section 2 – The ‘What’ Part – 00:10:59
Section 3 – The ‘What’ Example – 00:05:40
Section 4 – The ‘How’ Part – 00:03:02
Section 5 – Level 1 – 00:12:32
   – part 1 – walking on every beat – parallel system. (metronome)
   – part 2 – walking on every other beat – parallel system. (metronome)
   – part 3 – walking on every beat to the pauses – parallel system. (metronome/music)
   – part 4 – walking on every other beat to the pauses – parallel system. (metronome/music)
Section 6 – Level 2 – 00:17:37
   – part 5 – walking on every beat to the pauses – 6 ways of walking. (metronome)
      a.) parallel. b.) 3 track cross. c.) milonguero ochos. d.) inside ‘snake’ walk. e.) outside ‘snake’ walk. f.) alternate walk ‘a’.
   – part 6 – example dance – walking on every beat to the pauses – 6 ways of walking. (music)
   – part 7 – walking on every other beat to the pauses – 6 ways of walking. (metronome)
      a.) parallel. b.) 3 track cross. c.) milonguero ochos. d.) inside ‘snake’ walk. e.) outside ‘snake’ walk. f.) alternate walk ‘a’.
   – part 8 – example dance – walking on every beat to the pauses – 6 ways of walking. (music)