If one bar of tango is counted '1 & 2 &', the '&' appears to stand for 1/2 a beat, which would otherwise be counted 'QQQQ' (eg Four Step Change)

If I dance the alternate timing of QQ&S, how do I count that in bars, for now, the '&' seems to represent 1/4 of a beat, not 1/2. The same timing is given for a Brush Tap, or Quarter Beats, so the '&' seems to be bearing two different meanings.

Where a figure like a Closed Promenade is turned to PP at the end of step 4, the timing is given as SQQS&. Does that mean that the last beat is divided 3/4 and 1/4, or is the effect of an '&' count to halve the time value of the preceding step, so that Q& is two quarter beats, but S& is two half beats? I'm really confused.

I find the speed of the late turn on a quarter beat difficult to dance, but perhaps I am leaving the lead too late? I compare with a Progressive Link, and find that if I don't lead the lady to turn to PP before the end of 1 (by starting the body turn to R just before 'on 2') it's too late, and the lady has to turn herself to PP, as she turns at the end of 1, before lowering the heel. She seems to be in PP at the end of 1, but has not yet changed foot, while the man makes no turn until 2. I'm struggling and would appreciate any advice.

Yes, when counting to 2/4 time, slows and quicks get half of their normal value, e.g. a Slow is 1 beat, and a Quick is ½. Therefore, the timing of QQQQ is 4 beats in 4/4 time, but only 2 beats in 2/4 time.

Regardless of what pattern you dance, beat values are constant. The timing of QQ&S always represents a total of 4 beats in 4/4 time, or 2 beats in 2/4 time. Therefore, the individual beat values of QQ&S are:

In 4/4 time:
1, ½, ½, 2

In 2/4:
½, ¼, ¼, 1

Unlike slows and quicks, which occupy their own space, the "&" count always "steals" it's beat value from a portion the previous count. In 2/4 time, the "&" count represents ¼ beat, so it steals this amount of time from the previous slow or quick. Therefore, in 2/4 time:

The timing of "Quick, &" has a beat value of ¼, ¼.

The timing of "Slow, &" has a beat value of ¾, ¼.

Yes, the timing of QQS& is probably not the best way to make the best use of your movement. It is my belief that the writers of the technique book use this timing to simplify the concept, i.e. they are not changing the fundamental timing of the original component, but rather snipping a tiny bit off the end and adding one extra movement. It's just simpler conceptually. However, for a more effective movement, you are better off using the timing QQ&S.

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Your very detailed answer didn't address one particular aspect of my question, though. If I was asked to count in beats and bars (a common enough exam question) any amalgamation using a syncopated rhythm, such as a Four Step Change (danced QQ&S) how should I count the bar containing that figure. My best guess, using latin timing, would be '1&a2', but I can find no usage of an 'a' beat division in ballroom technique. The '&' can't serve twice, as both a 1/2 and a 1/4, can it?

Ok, now I get your question. Yes, as I think it through more carefully, there is some ambiguity in the language when counting in 2/4, particularly in beats and bars, because a Quick in this scenario IS an "&". Therefore, counting QQ&S in beats and bars would be "1 and and two". In addition to sounding just plain silly, it's also very confused; You have two "ands" which represent not only different beat values, but different functions altogether. One "and" is acting as a Quick, occupying its own space, while the other is acting more as the traditional beat piggybacker.

You might get different answers from different people on this one, but my solution is this: When converting counts from 4/4 to 2/4 time, all "and" counts should be changed to "a" counts. Therefore, there's no such rhythm QQ&S in 2/4 time -- It should be QQaS. So yes, when counting beats and bars in 2/4, I would support your theory that you should count "1&a2".

Regards,
Jonathan

A Tango by any other name is still a Tango. We have a style called New Vogue here. There are in this style three Tango dances which are used in competition. In the official Technique Book above the script it is written.
" As most Tangos are written in 4/4 time ( not 2/4 ), The beat values are given for 4/4 time. To obtain the beat value for 2/4 time, divide the beats values shown by two.. It should be noted that Tangos written in 2/4 time can be counted as if they were in 4/4 time".
Very soon unless they are old recordings there wont be any Tangos recorded in 2/4 time.
Here is the problem. A Progresive Link in 2/4 wil be 1 2. and step off on 1 2 in the first step of your Closed Promenade.
But if the music is 4/4 your first step of the Closed Promenade will be on beats 3 4. Which is correct.
Now try a Four Step into a Closed Promenade counting a 4/4 Tango as 2/4
You can see now why a Four Step is now replaced by a Five Step. Or we stand still and let two beats go by.
My own thoughts are . Is it possible to accurately split a beat with the movement of my body or feet into anything less than a half a beat. If I was wired up to a Computer maybe, but then, thats the computer and not me.

Yes, at the normal speed of a Tango quarter beat, it is. You wouldn't get very far dancing a popular figure like Quarter Beats, otherwise. The reason why we would strive to be accurate in splitting the half-beat into quarters would be for style, because it would be the machine you cite, not the dancer, that would dance the figure with equal time: Q&Q&S. the figure is usually danced closer to Q&Q &S, holding the second Q for nearly half a beat, which sharpens up the movement no end. It loses all tango character to dance in strict time. We have to have the control to be able to do it, making a very quick movement (from stillness) to achieve the effect, and this is the essence of the dance.

As for the general timing issue, I think that the teaching societies ought to be ashamed for publishing techniques that are so confused and incoherent in regard to tango timing.

The leading techniques (ISTD & IDTA) have never changed: Tango is danced and counted to a slow 2-beat bar, and one beat is a Slow, and half a beat is a Quick. No 'conversion' is required to reckon figures in that system, because while the fashion has been to use musical arrangements in common time (a four-beat bar) that fashion has no recognition in the technique.

Student Teacher is right to find

as far as I know, it doesn't exist, but it is used quite widely because there is a need for it. In its normal place, the 'a' beat represents the division of the preceding beat into two unequal parts, usually 3/4 and 1/4 (think Jive or Samba), but the tango usage is often to describe an equal division of a Quick, rather than the unequal division of a Slow, which is inconsistent. Given the usage of '&' in tango counting to denote a half beat (really a Quick), it is very sloppy ALSO to use the same value to chart quarter beats, and the technical committees should give this issue some further thought, and come up with a proper solution that makes sense. We shouldn't have to 'invent' terms to describe syllabus figures in the examination room, and as Jonathan rightly says, different people will give different answers. Examiners may have they own personal interpretations - and THAT is hardly fair to a student who might get caught out under the stress of a professional exam.

One of the silliest things I have ever read about technique is to be found in Guy Howard's book: the suggestion that the two tango beats have equal stress. If I may ask the rhetorical question posthumously: stressed in relation to what - each other? Give a man a drum, and ask him to beat it 66 times a minute. Assume that he is a skilled drummer, and is playing every beat with the same loudness (stress). You could dance to that, and as every beat sounds exactly the same as any other, it wouldn't matter on what beat you started or finished any figure - voila! you would ALWAYS be dancing 'in phrase'.

Now, ask the same skilled player to beat time in duple (march) time at 33 bars/minute. It doesn't sound the same any more, does it? Now, he's beating a slow 'Strong, Weak, Strong, Weak' - that's what duple time IS, but it doesn't sound like tango, and you couldn't dance tango to it. Now ask him to beat time at 66 beats/minute in duple time, so that he is beating out 'Quicks', but we can also hear the characteristic marching stress. Off we go, and we can tango to THAT all night.

The only reason we ever started dancing tango to music in common time, is that it approximates to the stress pattern of 'Strong, Weak' at a tempo suitable for tango dancing. In common time, we have a stress on the first and third beats, with a lesser stress on the third. 2 & 4 are weak. It isn't really satisfactory, but if you double the beat rate in duple time from 33 to 66 bars a minute, and play with the characteristic stress pattern proper to duple time, all is well.

Geoffrey Hearn (who really should know better) writes, in his 'Advanced Ballroom Technique', that tango music is written in notation of 2/4 rather than 4/4 to make it easier for the musicians to read. He adds that to the dancer, listening to the music, you are unable to say in which time signature the music is written. Oh?

Ask any musician. Tell them that the music is notated in that way to make it easier for them to read, and they will look strangely at you, and may well laugh. Try singing the march 'Land of Hope and Glory' with the stress pattern proper to common time, and then take any of Sinatra's classic swing tracks that we love to use for Foxtrot, and sing THAT in march time. Different? Apparently not: or so our teaching societies would like us to believe.

The technique says we count tango as '1 and 2 and, 1 and 2 and, etc.', but there are just two beats of the drum: '1 2, 1 2' There IS no 'and', but if you double the beat rate, you get the same sytem of counting that we use for quickstep and foxtrot: on Slow is two beats, and one Quick is one beat. Critically, you get the right stress pattern, though, because your QQQQ pattern is properly stressed as Stong Weak Strong Weak. This is because the first beat in each bar is accented and the second is not. This is what the technique meant to say, but didn't. What it does say is that each and every beat (there are only two) has a stress that is 'equal on each beat'. Our happless drummer is just banging his drum very loudly, and we are getting a headache.

Telemark. As you have said splitting a beat whilst dancing would be for style.
The question I am asking.Is it possible to dance the exact same timing every time I dance a certain group. I doubt it, especially if I dance to two different tunes.
The buying public who buy dance music
not neccessarily for use in a competition. Like a Tango that has a vocalist.
Most 2/4 Tango's cannot be sung . A 4/4 Tango can have a vocalist..
In my humble opinion this will cause the demise of 2/4 Tempo . If Orchestras no longer record the 2/4 tempo. What then. Also if an Orchestra were to rely on selling to dance studios and the like they would soon go out of business .Does that make sense or not.
It is possible that some dancers and teachers have no idea of what is meant by dancing in rhythm. So they have no idea whether they are dancing to a 2/4 or 4/4 Tango. And they go blindly stepping off into a Closed Promenade after a Four Step, or a simular move, on beats 1 2 instead of the correct beats of 3 4. if the music being played is 4/4. But if the music is 2/4 just ignore that and treat them all as 4/4. It's a lot safer

I said no such thing! Every time we dance a Quick, we have split a beat into halves, and every time we dance an '&' (or an 'a') we have split again, into quarters. I commented on whether we divide the beat into equal parts or unequal parts (as a matter of style) and suggested that we needed to have control to be able to choose which. You implied that it might not be possible:



... so perhaps you should think again?



That must have been where hugely popular Golden Age singers like Carlos Gardel were going wrong, then. (and he was the chap whose death left several people so distraught, they they killed themselves). Perhaps you need to think about that one again, as well.



That's obvious. Rhythm is a technical term, and has a particular meaning in dance technique (ie the regular occurence of accented beats that give the music its character). If it is correct to say that tango has 66 beats/minute, and that those beats are equally accented, then there IS no rhythm, because every beat is exactly the same as every other beat. You could start any figure, any time, and never be 'wrong'.



There aren't 4 beats in tango timing, so your idea of phrasing may suit you, but it has nothing to do with tango technique.

Thanks.. you saved me time responding to the original poster.

As to " stress " beats in music , they seem to occur everywhere.


I have been thru this same theory with Salsa..

many are convinced that the 2 bar structure is identical ( from a "stress " point " ) ; unless its what was called a straight "8" ; to the attuned ear, one may define the descension on the 2nd bar of the phrase with less stress on "1" of the first note of 2nd bar .

In addition, we also, when teaching, stress counts to emphasise a specific action.

Music and its interpretation in " dance " is very subjective.. but.. that does NOT exclude HOW the music is written..

I'm not sure whether you agree with me, or not, on this one, Terence, but I could usefully expand the definition of 'rhythm' (or strictly expand my paraphrase of it, I'm not adding anything), because the pattern of accented beats can be irregular, as well as regular, and that addresses several issues in dances with a salsa character.

Tango is a different ball game. It just ticks away in march time, and we walk in time with the music. Argentine Tango takes this much further - you could say that it IS a walking dance, with pauses for embelishments, and this is closer to the heart of tango, than the current ballroom style, which is about as authentic as the latin versions of the dances dearest to Terence's heart.