Are Musicality Workshops Doomed To Fail?

Coping With An Educational Void

Imagine that we're going to set up an experiment in Argentine tango education.  We'll select a group of individuals who have never studied the dance before.  We'll train them for several months in standard tango techniques - walking in both systems, weight changes, ochos, ganchos, boleos, cruzado, etc. - except we'll leave out the turn (a.k.a. the giro, or the molinete).

After this training, our test students will have some experience leading and following tango steps, but they shall have never led or followed a molinete.  They won't even know the component steps of the turn.

Today we're going give this group an hour-and-a-half workshop on turns.  We'll show them the structure of the turn, and then we'll teach them:

• how to get into and out of the turn in both directions
• how to link the turn to the ochos
• how to place sacadas within the turn
• how to place ganchos within the turn
• how to use boleos to reverse the direction of the turn
• how to execute the lapis and the needle in the center of the turn
• how to lead and follow turns of different speeds
• and much, much more

If you've studied Argentine tango, you'll recognize that this exercise is doomed.  It will fail, and it will fail spectacularly.  The students in this workshop will be overwhelmed by all of these new techniques.  You can't teach turns in an hour an a half to someone who has never done one.  You'd be lucky to teach all of the above in a YEAR and a half.

We recognize easily that it requires skill to execute (and lead) turns in Argentine tango.  Those skills take months to learn and years to perfect.  Students would need to have those skills before attending an intensive turns workshop.  Trying to present the novice with this much information in one session is ridiculous.


Musicality Workshops

Unfortunately, most musicality workshops will run into the same challenges faced by our ill-fated turns experiment.  The students might come away with some useful information.  But unless they arrive at the workshop with a solid foundation in musicality training, the experience will probably be quite frustrating for for them.

It will be frustrating for the teacher, as well.  The workshop could be well-structured and well-presented, but that won't matter.  The problem is that many students won't have the skill and the preparation necessary to assimilate the material.


Facing The Music

The uncomfortable reality is that most tango students - and a considerable percentage of social dancers - do not have a solid foundation in dance musicality skills.  People who have studied music as instrumentalists or singers will be farther ahead than non-musicians.  Musicians will be able to recognize beats, phrases, melodies, and other musical components.

The non-musician will need to invest considerable time and effort toward the development of these foundational skills.  And they'll need foundational skills before they can advance to more challenging musicality concepts.

This disparity presents an additional challenge for the instructor.  Musicality lessons must be accessible and understandable by musicians and non-musicans alike, as well as by those who have studied other types of dancing.

However, those who've studied music should not assume that they don't need to work on dance musicality skills.  Dancing requires a different set of musical skills than what's required to play an instrument.  The musical requirements of Argentine tango (a dance that's improvisational by its very nature) are even more demanding, but the distinctions would be better left to a separate discussion.

Causes and Resolution

How did we come to this point?  Why is it that so many tango students lack the skills required to get real meaning out of a musicality workshop?  Why are these workshops frustrating in some instances and poorly attended in others?

The simple answer is that teachers tend not to dedicate enough class time to the study of musicality.  However, we also need to consider the expectations of the student.

Students can become disenchanted when teachers ask them to work on musicality.  They might not see the value of the exercises.  If they came to the class with the expectation of learning new step sequences, musicality exercises might seem like a waste of time.  Even if the students have a good attitude about learning musical techniques, they might find the exercises to be frustrating if, say, they're not adept at hearing and moving to the beat.

Musicality education is not going to improve until things change on a large scale.  Teachers will need to give musicality priority in their classrooms, just as they do with walking, ochos, and turns.  By incorporating musicality skills into their week-by-week lesson plans - going gradually at first so as not to frustrate the students - teachers will help to improve the musicality skills of the tango community.

Demonstrations can also be beneficial.  Teachers can increase the level of interest by showing students how musicality can enhance even the most fundamental tango sequences.  Many people need to understand the benefits of a technique before they'll be willing to work on it.  Just don't expect your students to stop hating their musicality drills.  That's not likely to change.

¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!

Daniel

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