Listening to and knowing Tango music is an important factor that will contribute to improving your overall dancing ability.

Try to listen to Tango music whenever you can, but in a very specific way: do it with the intention of learning. For that purpose, it is a good idea to do it in an organized way. For example, take a week or ten days in which you will only listen to the same orchestra. You can listen while you work, when you walk, on the bus, etc. If you listen to the same orchestra all the time, it will be easier for you to begin to recognize who their singers are, their different stages, the characteristics of their music, etc.

The next week or ten days, change to another orchestra. Do this exercise for a few months, and finally you will see how much easier it actually is to recognize each orchestra and its characteristics. Listen to it actively, discovering which parts of the tangos are more rhythmic, which parts have more melody, where there is an adagio, a variation, etc. Once you recognize the differences between each part of a tango song, start visualizing how you would dance them (stronger, more rhythmically, slower, smoother, etc.). If you don’t know what adagio or variation means, or how it can be expressed in your dance, you can find two videos in the Reader’s Online Environment that will help you.

After listening to each orchestra for a few days, knowing the different characteristics, and recognizing the different parts in one tango, you can practice dancing alone. This way, it will be much easier to listen to and interpret each part of the music as you feel it, without having to concentrate on leading or following. Always dance using very simple movements, because the goal of the exercise is to focus on music, and to be able to give the character that the orchestra proposes in each part of the tango; therefore, it will be much easier if you don’t think in difficult sequences. Try using ochos, rebounds, paradas, pauses, etc.

Apply this also to vals and milongas. You will consequently recognize that there are more rhythmic valses and more melodic ones, depending on the orchestra. Try to dance with appropriate movements for the intensity that the orchestra proposes.

In the case of milongas, although they usually have less pauses, we must recognize which parts are better to dance with more steps (contratiempo or double time) than just dancing on the beat. Remember that a good tip for dancing milonga is to think that it is slower than you think. If you don’t do that, probably you will dance very fast, instead of dancing calmly.

Practice with all these ideas, and you will quickly improve your dance using the music as your guide. At the same time, this will also improve your dance as a couple, and you will both enjoy each tanda a lot more. The first step would be to simply decide which orchestra you are going to listen to during the first week, then the second week, etc.

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The difference between a dancer with musicality and one without is like the difference between a normal car and a racing car. The normal car is fine for your daily needs, but the racing car’s components are all of the highest quality. I believe that dancers who investigate musicality become special. They separate themselves from the crowd. These are the people that others in the milonga want to dance with. The potential partners think: “The rest of the people are OK, I will have fun with them, and I will probably enjoy the dance, but with that person, I will have an amazing experience.” Also, the dancers who work on their musicality are never boring.

In musicality, there are layers. The first and most obvious is the rhythm. The rhythm is like the heartbeat; it is always there. The musicality is how you choose to express this existence of the rhythm. It is like the sea. You are at the beach, the waves are there, and you want to play with the waves. You look at the waves, and you say: one, two, three, go! And you enter the water, wanting to reach the wave at the peak. The rhythm, just like the waves, is there. It’s your choice to decide how to play with it. 

Then, comes the phrase. Which beat starts the phrase of the music, and which beat finishes it? You need to be aware of that. Then you have the different instruments that you can interpret, so you must be able to hear the violin, the bandoneon, and the bass underneath.

Going deeper, you have to feel the general feeling of the music, the temperament. Is it sweet, strong, sad, fast, staccato, something dark or light? You have to feel the taste of the music. 

Next, you can focus on the lyrics, which may make you interpret the music in a different way. 

Finally, you have to tune into yourself: how do you want to interpret something? Maybe the music says: “love – you have to interpret love,” but you interpret love differently from everyone else. You have to hear yourself when expressing musicality. 

We mentioned “love” so let’s go a bit deeper. The same concept is different at different ages. We don’t mean the age of the recording, but your age, or rather the age that you choose to experience when you dance. You fall in love differently when you are 18, when you are 40, when you are 80. 

For the women, I think sometimes we lack musicality because we get stressed by thinking that we have to be perfect in relation to the music and the following. But if you breathe the music, everything becomes harmonious. Sometimes we don’t lack musicality; we lack freedom or the ability to be at peace with what is going on inside us.

Sometimes both leaders and followers feel imprisoned by the music. Music should be free. It should be like a carpet, which I have to step on, but in whatever way I like.

We find the following mental exercise quite eye-opening:

First, listen to the music. Don’t dance. Listen. Then try to imagine it like a movie. The movie has a plot. You have to see where the climax is, where the introduction is. This is the general image. Then, little by little, you focus on the phrases. If you think “where do I have to put the figure, the giro?” you get lost because you can put it anywhere. Forget about that. Just be part of the movie that the music dictates, listen calmly, and lose yourself within it. Then, when you go to the dance floor, you are more prepared, you have seen the movie, you have seen the trailer. You have fewer things to put in order. This makes everything easier.

Some practical tips to improve your musicality:

If you are a beginner, simply try to clap to the music. If you have danced for a few years, try to listen and sing the different instruments. For example, listen to the song and try to sing the piano only. Imagine you are the pianist, but play the piano with your voice. Then do the same with the violin, and the bandoneon. Finally, try to find the secret notes they play, the ones that can barely be heard.

For the more visual students, imagine that you are listening to the music live. You don’t just listen to the violin; you actually see the violinist and what he is doing. Is he smiling, is he lifting a shoulder, is he closing his eyes? We, the dancers, are also instruments, and we have to express ourselves through the music. If you bring to your mind how the musician is moving when he plays, and you have an idea of how he feels, you can more easily see if you should be happy, nostalgic, etc.

A final note (pun intended):

Musicality is like breathing; it has to be natural. When you get stressed, your breathing is not good, so at that moment, you have to think of your breathing. The same thing happens with the music. If you get stressed, then your musicality suffers. But, it is not because you don’t listen to the music, but because your body gets blocked. Keep that in mind, because sometimes it is not that you cannot listen to the music; it is that you can’t listen to YOUR body, YOUR breathing, YOUR emotion. If you listen to your emotions, your musicality improves immediately.

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(available also in Spanish and Italian)