In the first class of our Musicality Focus series, we focused on the idea of pauses. Pausing is one of the fundamental concepts of tango musicality. Tango music, like languages, has phrases, sentences and paragraphs of various lengths: some short, some longer. The goal of the class was to anticipate the end of the phrase and be able to step on it.
PRACTICE 1 Take a step when the phrase pauses.
Practice predicting pauses with these videos. You can do it while watching or without. Try it a couple of times and see if you can do it pretty confidently.
Try the same exercise with "Indiferencia" (Indifference).
And try it with "La Ultima Copa" (The Last Cup).
PRACTICE 2
Dance and pause when the phrase ends
Use the following songs to dance to and practice listening for the phrase endings. For now, disregard the "fills" (decorative notes between phrases) and focus on landing the pauses.
Tips:
Keep it simple and on the slow side. This will allow you to pause in the middle of your movement along with the music.
Start expecting the "fills". Try not to dance them at first. When you feel more confident about pausing, you can start playing with them.
Experiment and take chances. In doing so, you might find a pattern or trick that might prove useful.
Now try listening and dancing using the songs from the first exercises in it's original form (with fills).
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