Musical Interpretation – The 1st Minute.

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Let’s say for the purposes of this mental exercise, that the tanda is Demare, and the first song is “No Te Apures Cara Blanca” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMxOjmRIfhc). Let’s also assume for the purposes of this exercise that the partner is unknown (which is kinda of important here as you’ll see). Let’s also assume that you cabeceo during the cortina, without knowing the tanda! So you’re committing to the dance with an unknown. These 3 things are all factors in a series of choices that I’m making, that if they weren’t there, I wouldn’t choose to do this this way. Hence the reason why there are 2 options below. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

That said, let’s dive in.

The first musical paragraph, literally right up to the bum-bum’ at 00:29, I’m going to burn. While there is loads of things to do here in those first 30s, like the 3 piano trills that happen, or the driving beat – counter beats. I’m leaving that all on the table. Not touching it. And there’s a reason for it. I’m going to use this entire musical paragraph as an establishing component. I will slowly engage the embrace using my methodology of the embrace (https://tangotopics.com/tango-engaging-the-embrace/). This is important for a whole bunch of reasons, most notably calming, not just the Follower’s Mind, but the Lead’s as well. Failure to accomplish this goal and you’re literally pissing away opportunities to engage in the conversation that you folks love to claim you LOVE. And yet I see time and time and time again the polar opposite.

Let’s be clear about this choice, it’s conscious and deliberate!

Think of that first musical paragraph as time spent engaging the soft parts of the dancing experience, but an important step of creating the intimate conversation between Lead and Follow. Far too often we rush because we’re excited and/or think that the Follower is bored. They’re not bored 95% of the time, they’re more than likely freaking out because they’re concerned as to what’s going to happen next.

Now I’m going to use the next musical phrase (pauses) from 00:30 to 00:38 as a place to establish some functionality by playing with extensions with the Follower’s right leg. Specifically side – extend – and – back to collection (00:30 – 00-34) as detailed here > https://tangotopics.com/check-incremental-steps/. And then we use the Follower’s back extension on 00:34 to 00:38 only in this case, we extend but don’t collect back. We leave it out because now we’re going to engage a forward walk to 00:44. 4 steps, starting with the Lead’s Left/Follower Right. At 00:44, we’re using the Pause there to change from a walk to MIlonguero Ochos. 4 of them until 00:52.

It’s important to note here, that we’ve burned nearly a minute of the song, and we have not added a single turn, a cross, or anything for that matter. There’s nothing going on except for walking and ochos. And that’s it. Why do this in this manner ? Why not do what everyone else does here which is the moment you hear the music of Demare or any orquesta that you throw down some vocab and race around the room ? Yup. You can do that. But you are missing the whole reason why you’re dancing with your partner in the first place > THE CONVERSATION of the COUPLE. This is the pathway towards transcendence. And you’re literally burning it by doing anything else. In short you want to establish a baseline of languidness. There’s no pressing matter here. There’s no rush to get from point a to point b. I see so many Leads from the moment they come into the embrace, literally race from point to point. What’s worse is that Followers put up with that noise.

We’re a minute in and I’ve taken 8 steps with my Follower. And do you know what’s happened for them ? They’re relaxing into the experience. Why ? Because I’m not rushing or racing around the room. I’m not throwing vocabulary at them. Further, my embrace is exceedingly soft, and exceptionally light. Which co-compaunds the import of the languidness here. I am striking casual here. I want them relaxed. I want the Follower calm. The reason is because if they’re tense, then they tend to miss the subtitle that I like to enjoin in a dance. It is thru that subtlety that we walk the pathway towards transcendence.

Let’s stop there and and address some other choices I could have made here.

1.) A Quicker Idea…Sort of

a.) I could have sped up that embrace component because I didn’t have the time because I was literally holding up the line of dance. So let’s assume that I sped up that entire process, and ended the embrace conversation by 00:05. Let’s also assume that I sped up everything else, but I’m about to make very different choices.

b.) I’m still going to play with the extensions, side and back. Only on the piano trills at 00:05 to 00:08. I’ll play with an interstitial side extensions (https://tangotopics.com/golden-nugget-extensions/) on each note going out to Lead Left/Follower Right, and then bring it back to collection 00:11. And then repeat on with the Back extention from 00:11 to 00:17, only instead of bringing her leg back to collection, again, I leave it out, and use it to step into a walk until 00:24, and then at the pause 00:24 transition to Milonguero Ochos from 00:24 to 00:31.

2.) Straight Up!

Let’s take a slightly different approach here and just jump right in with some crazy sh1t. I want to hit the 3 piano trills at 00:05, 00:09, and again 00:13. I want to play with pitter-patter, specifically patter right off the bat. I only patter on the trills to Lead Right/Follower Left. I will use the first trill as a series of short but close side steps. Then the trill at 00:09 at engage the actual patter. Then the same patter again, only faster, at 00:13. This would leave me in a half turn facing against the line of dance, I now have to either unwind us, OR continue the turn. At 00:17, I have a load of options here, I can walk us backward down the line of dance on 4 tracks, I can engage a cross body incremental (https://tangotopics.com/crossbody/). However I need to get us out of facing against the line of dance, so I will engage a curving forward walk for the Follower and resolve facing the line of dance by 00:24. And then begin walking forwards as before.

The Pink Elephants

Why do this kind of a mental exercise ? The answer is really simple. So that you’re not surprised when you step on the floor. That you have a plan and don’t just willy nilly throw things up on a tango wall and hope that something sticks. No. You do mental exercises like this to prepare. To create a series of options for yourself as a Lead. So that you always, always, always have options. There’s another reason why we do this kind of an exercise > The Lead’s job is entirely in their head. The Follower is expression of what’s in the Lead’s head. The Lead is Intellectual. The Follower is the Physical Expression of that Intellectual. So we’re being intellectual!

Another pink elephant in the room is the monster waste of time that you’re burning in the first musical paragraph. This is somewhat controversial given what’s usually taught to people. I take the languid approach to this because it’s the polar opposite of what’s taught, presented and danced 95% of the time. The reason ? It works because it’s the opposite! It’s like a counter point, going slow and taking your time to establish the conversation before you do anything else.

Still another Pink Elephant is that there are some Followers that will NOT go along with this noise at all. They just want the moves, they have zero patience for this stuff. Which is totally understandable. They just want what they want, and that entire time of burning a whole musical paragraph is f&&king pointless. It’s like “DUDE! Seriously ? We’re not going to sleep together, let’s get on with it!”. True, the pathway I’ve laid out above does seem like you’re trying to woo the Follower. Yup. No lie. That’s because you are. However the goal here is not to sleep with anyone but instead to establish a baseline which starts slow and then build up using the entire tanda and not just a song!

What ?

You see, the first song is like a first date! You don’t throw everything you have at someone on the first date! Instead you take your time, find out about them, they find out about you. And so on. This assumes that you haven’t danced together before. IF you have then the whole approach is 2nd option above. It’s quicker and gets to the same point.

Let’s stop here and take a beat. There are some people that a.) won’t see what I’ve done here at all. It’s all mental dribble. “Dude! Just STFU and Dance!”. To those people I say that this stuff is a very necessary exercise in creating an experience and not just ‘dancing’. b.) will see this stuff to a point but not the full extent of what I’m trying to do here. Let’s talk about this point a little. The full extent is to generate a persona and experience that creates your M.O. Your tango persona as it were. You do this enough times and this becomes your way of engaging in the Tango world. It becomes what people expect of you. It also starts to model for the rest of the room what is desirable behavior. And before you know it more people start doing it.

Once, long ago, in a distant tango age. I met a man who did precisely what I describe above, and still does this even today. Only in his case he had the suit to go with. He was impeccably groomed and quaffed. He smelled nice, he looked nice, and he danced nice. Honestly, the women effing loved it. They came off the floor glowing. So much so that other men started to copy it because the effect was… well…ummm, let’s just say that couples started to become couples because of it. And I’ll leave that right there. Ahem. I didn’t emulate the suit part, but did everything else because I saw the effect that it had. I would later modify and codify a few of these aspects into my teaching modules.

Let’s wrap this up by saying this is only an exercise and a practice that’s good for both Lead AND Follower to mentally go through this stuff. Again, it’s all about prep.

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Have a nice day.

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