Martin, It really is as simple as, different people learn in different ways. The music doesn't help me to learn figures (at least not initially), but it might for you. For me, the music helps me once I know the figures, but not before then.
Another observation I'll make, is that a lot of what you posted seems to have more to do with dancing (executing), and less to do with learning, which is what Michael's post seemed to be about. As an aside, my wife made a comment to me recently about how differently (worse) I dance in classes, than I do at milongas, to which I explained, at milongas I'm not fooling around with stuff that I don't know how to do yet. That's when the music can inspire and help me, once I've already learned it, (not so much when I don't really know what I'm doing yet). YMMV David ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Jul 7 12:50:42 EDT 2011 From: "Nussbaum, Martin" <mnuss...@law.nyc.gov> Subject: [Tango-L] why music To: <tango-l@mit.edu> I understand your position, Michael, but I respectfully disagree with your conclusion. The music helps one understand the figure. The human brain is a marvelous mechanism that has the evolved the ability to use multiple references to anchor a memory, including the visual details of where the event is experienced, the emotional details of how you felt and with whom you were dancing or practicing, and what music is playing to anchor the figure. They all tie together. Perhaps some people are stronger in visual retention, others in aural retention, but most people dance because of their joy in the music, so this helps dancer's anchor a memory of a figure. Personally, at the point of the class when Chicho or Gustavo anchor the tempo of a figure in a specific phrase of music, and it expresses the mood of the piece, it becomes so much clearer, and i remember it so much better. So I believe the converse, if you cant execute it with the help of a music phrase to anchor it, you certainly cant execute it abstractly. _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l