Passive or Active way of listening for improvement!

Leo and his wife Flor have organized the Seoul tango festival for many, many years! Their teaching reaches even further back in time!

His main idea presented here is the most effective way to improve your musicality in dance: Are you listening PASSIVELY or ACTIVELY? that is the question!

Insight To Tango - environment and music

The times were hard.

More about the music. The way to clean the old recordings. Check out!

( http://totango.net/  )

 Juan and Juana channel have a bunch of songs showing how they want to present the rhythms available. One of the pieces is a queen of simplicity with a repetitive pattern but still offering the listener a variation keeping the mind joyfully focused! It feels so to me;

How about you? after several hearings?

Los Ritmos del Tango - 12 Tresillos de Negra del Tiempo Simple - [1ay-3ay-]
https://youtu.be/UkOwsCGyTD8

Vibrating music!

These nobs were vibrating to music! 

 It was a strange experience and I returned every now and then to feel 

how a specific song or cortina feels to my hands.

Try it!  I am sure you will find different physical objects vibrating to your favorite music!

TangoTalks - your traveling companion

Sometimes I feel that just listening the music and dancing is not enough. I have allways loved to study and my brain is often hungry wanting to know some theoretical explanations or stories about deeper personal experiences in tango.

Now I put my hope on TangoTalks. This website presents one hour long interviews with tango personalities.

I found this site for not a long time ago so I do not know how it will be working for me but I am traveling some days in the future and have a plan to listen to these episodes on the go.

Click this line to land the site!

http://reportango.net/RT/TangoTalks.html

A tango during your surgery?

According to the news an old truth was confirmed: Music has impact on your wellbeing but it also lessens the pain during a surgery!

Doesn't this indicate that the effect is created below our awareness level; it is created and handled in a different part of the brain compared to the phenomenon which need our focused thoughts. Maybe this is the level of our true dancing?

You find the whole story here!
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-17525232

Repetition builds up favorites in music

According this talk the repetition gives us possibility to reorganize the already known information. There is also time to focus on new aspects in the content giving us totally new experiences.

The music we are dancing to is cleverly and skillfully build up offering us access to vast material of structures and variations. There is also a lot of repetition of the songs when you are regularly  attending a series of milongas.

After this talk I am even more bound to the idea of listening a song until I cannot put up with it anymore but if I still continue to listen I will get into a deeper level of understanding and experiencing! I get hooked to the song in a special way which gives me a deep feeling of joy when a old song is played again after many years.

The Addams Family Masochism Tango

Year 2000 (about) this was quite ok as a part of a tanda in our community. Only one leader had problems to dance it because of the serious laugh attacks putting him bend over knees!  Others were just dancing.

If you have had it in a tanda lately, please tell how it was going on! I am badly curious!!






Here you have the creator Tom Lehrer at piano - The Masochism Tango

You find some more information and the text for this song in the end of wikipedia article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Evening_Wasted_with_Tom_Lehrer

The singer changes it and the follower liked it!

During many pauses at late milonga backstage I have heard frustrated dancers to burst out: The dj has SINGERS all the time!! I can not take it anymore this night!!

Many of them were too frustrated to be able to tell why; others told me about the disturbing issues, but I never really understood what the problem was. I found my way through the songs without problems, I was listening the music in a different way I thought.

Now I have got a clue about it! I visited a milonga with live music for a part of the evening. The instrumental songs were really nice to dance to, but then the singer came in: The forward movement, which was created by the instruments, was pushed back and the voice slowed everything down, made it different. I could still dance, but I did not enjoy it. My follower heard the same but she felt that the steps became unsecure, changed to be fragile and matched the music. 

 All the songs were beautiful and beautifully performed but for me it would have been better to stop dancing, sit down and enjoy instead!

Anyhow now I have shared the experience my friends have had so many times; I understand them better now!

The desert flower opened

I have been longing for Alvaros music for a long time and got it at Tango Brujo tonight!

Most of the musicians and singers on the playlist were born long time after golden ages and I felt how something opened up within me, like a flower after a long dry period. A song could sound totally impossibly but was easy to dance to.

It seems that I need a wide range of variety and this is available so seldom.

Thanks!

Check what is happenig on *El Tango Brujo* : http://www.eltangobrujo.com/

This picture is from the late night, nearly at the end of the Milonga so we were only a few left.
I just couldn't take a break earlier!

Housekeeping music!

During several weeks I have been listening to this playlist of Enrique Rodriquez songs when the flat needs to be cleaned up. The songs are runing in brisk rhythm and glad melody as well as I am! A great help!






It seems that the window above doesn't open the playlist - here a new try!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN2D4gpMA2k&feature=share&list=RDCN2D4gpMA2k

Lady and the bandoneon

Koh Sangji is the foremost bandoneon player in Korea. She and her band have been playing in milongas, music festivals, concert halls, and have gained a very enthusiastic following in Korea.

She has studied with Komatsu Ryota in Japan and Federico Pereiro and Nestor Marconi in Buenos Aires. She graduated from La Orquesta Escuela de Tango Emilio Balcarce in 2011. She will be playing at Seoul tango festival in May and you find some more information by clicking the link far down.

The Youtube video is of bad quality - filmed and uploaded from a mobile - but it gives you a different picture of what a tango concert can be. In this way the public can be far beyond the conservative group of dancers!






http://www.seoultangofestival.com/2014/04/2014-seoul-tango-festival-live-tango.html

Astor Piazzolla weekend - Libertango

When I was working on this portal for Libertango I was struck by the fact that there is hardly any ordinary dances or tango performances. On the contrary this song seems to inspire a totally amazing number of artists at different fields.

I have played with different themes to give your a different angle of viewpoint.
CLICK the small video to activate one of the playlists!

Moves us - dance, theater, sports
Outdoors - conserts at extraordinary spaces, dance aso

Chicas - what do the ladies want to do to this music?
Classics & Co - the old ones, children, visually beautiful films

En masse - a lot of instruments at same time
Odd instruments - there is instruments I could not imagine!

..... sing along!  - You may test to be part of a chorus.
..... play along! - Piazzola has specialized to a rhythmical pattern you can test by following the drummer who guides the the orchestra of beginners! or check the orchestra members movements!

(you find a portal guide below)
)


The smal icons on the blue canvas are actually links to corresponding playlist and you can open it by clicking the icon, the little video picture.

Your click will open this kind of playlist and you can actively browse among the options on the right side. Your click opens the ones you want to watch or you can use the arrows above the list to move to next video or the one before.

( Isn't this instrument beautifull? I have never before seen anything like it!)

Astor Piazzolla In Portrait - Tango Maestro [2005]

Here you have nearly two hours about Astor Piazzolla! We will meet his family and get the picture how he was at home. He started his career early at the lime light and some of it was fresh information to me!

Take a slow coffee and enjoy! . . . or maybe a bigger cup of tea is more appropriate!


                

Astor Piazzolla weekend - a teaser

Libertango is one of the most popular of Astor Piazzolla's tangos. This one is combined with information about his life and doings. If you are satisfied with this info but want more about Libertango you can just jump over the BBC documentary on Saturday to the Sunday posting - it will be released according to the Asian timetable!  :)

Performing to Solo Tango

Rodrigo Palacios and Agustina Berenstein performing at Frostbite 2014 to Solo Tango!

Enjoy!                                                          

Dancing to Solo Tango

One of the festival bonuses are the breakfast discussions with friends. On Sunday morning we were discussing the Solo Tango orchestra and the easiness to dance to their music. One of friends pointed out the actually obvious fact that Solo Tango is an orchestra in DiSarli tradition and the dancers find their steps easily. Most other orchestras are fascinated about Piazzolla and the steps are different.

Here are we dancing to Solo Tango at Frostbite 2014!





The blur effect is applied for privacy reasons.