'Independence of mind' & 'The coercion of taste'

Knowing your own mind...

Update 5.4.21:   This piece was too long and much later I was inclined to split it up but there are comments attached so I can't.  I have divided the piece though into the two sections of how I would have it now.


Independence of mind

This section is about the advantages and especially the dangers of influence when we start to learn anything I suppose.

I think that idea of tango DJ Antti Suniala's that "edge, passion and drama" is what makes for good music for dancing is subjective, a matter of taste  and at the very least controversial.  Antii's blog is a useful resource and Antti is an experienced DJ.  But while it is good for new dancers and new DJs to listen to experience, it is at least as important to think for oneself especially in matters of taste.  New dancers and DJs naturally look to experience to learn.  But the strangers they may learn from - DJs, businesses, organisers, teachers, writers -  have a reputation or a status to uphold based on financial or social investment.  The danger is that beginners are likely to swallow these pronouncements whole.  After all who ever questions anything in dance class?   

Kant, by the way, did a great, very readable and short piece on this subject: What is Enlightenment? It is about taking responsibility for your own learning and the opening paragraph is, for me, one of the great, fearless opening paragraphs of any text, a clarion call:

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

The news in almost any week demonstrates human fallibility and the succumbing to temptation, to greed and excess even among those we elect to set a course or standards for a civilized society. The same fallibility exists in learning: people with experience are still human, flawed and often wrong. Their credibility though, especially if you pay them, rests on the fact that you will accept the authority of what they say for good - one hopes - reasons of your own. 

It is a good thing though when people change their mind, demonstrating humility and intellectual flexibility. In fact, teachers, like scientists, who are dogmatic, who do not change their mind in the face of evidence to the contrary are not worth the title. The key thing is to trust your own experience, judgement and instincts and to test them out.  

Clearly, sometimes you want and need to speak to an expert about technicalities but even so, this division between "experts" and "people" has always been, for me, unnatural to an extent, artificial and often more unhelpful than useful. When we engage with people in conversation, just as "other people" that engagement is different to when we engage with experts.  What people say and how they say it stands up on its own merits instead of our interlocutor having a leg up on the pedestal of expertise.

If one maintains some independence of thought but uses a guide it will also be easier to accept when one has reached the limits of that guide's knowledge.  Too much trust is a dangerous thing in more ways than one.  You risk being wrong, stranded, alone and disappointed.

*

The coercion of taste

I don't mean this in any way to be a personal attack on Michael Lavocah. I've met him twice briefly.  I doubt he would remember either occasion.  I barely do but would recognise him.  So I only know him through his first book, where I learned interesting things.  I do intend to use it as an illustration of the dangers of taking experts at face value. 

I guess Troilo with singer Alberto Marino or Floreal Ruíz could be described as having "edge, passion and drama".  See Michael Lavocah's interesting comments about Troilo with Ruíz and Rivero in his contribution to Tanda of the Week.  

In comparison here's an example of a Troilo-Marino tanda more recently. I have heard at least two other DJs laud the praises of Troilo-Marino, as seems to be the fashion, not to mention the recent thread on this subject on Antti's new Tango DJ Forum. 

But to say or suggest that Troilo-Marino is appreciated by the better dancers  - with a none-too-subtle wink-wink as I have seen post-milonga on social media by yet another DJ - is patronising for starters, elitist, mistaken in my view, a great example of herd mentality among some of the cabals of DJs and as absurd as trying to someone trying claim that Japanese food is superior to French.  Regardless of whether it is right or wrong ut is illustrative of why this kind of thing is unhelpful at best and patronising at worst, .  It also demonstrates one of the many ways that social media really doesn't bring out the best in people.

Michael said :

"we didn't know how to listen to more sophisticated music. Many communities stuck to the "easier" 1941 sides.

The surprisingly confident insinuation that if you prefer the "less sophisticated" Troilo-Fiorentino it is because you haven't evolved, developed or kept up, or that you unfortunately have an undeveloped musical sensibility. Never mind, you might get there eventually.  Meanwhile, judge for yourself which most gives you a feeling for dancing.

Presumably, "communities" means "social dance communities", because well, a class isn't really a community, is it?  It's a class.  You could try to call it a "learning community" I suppose but it smacks of the sort of empty phrase you read in government pamphlets.

Michael:

 "The situation is much better now, with Troilo-Marino regularly played at many milongas and even chosen for performances."

"Even?"  Is performance supposed to be an apex of social dancing or at least worth comparing with it?  How odd because it is obvious to nearly everyone that performance dancing, and very often the music chosen for performance has almost nothing to do with social dancing. To think that Troilo-Ruíz/Rivero is what good social dancers like and that what is suitable for dancing socially is suitable for performance (or vice-versa) is to my mind a double whammy of a mistake.

Back to Michael on Troilo's later sides:

"...requiring plenty of active listening." 

So "ordinary dancing" doesn't require plenty of active listening? Crikey! What on earth do you do then when you're dancing to the bog-standard, "less sophisticated" stuff? Not listen? Listen passively? Just move?

"It won't be suitable for every tango environment....The level of the dancers was high...so I felt the tanda had a good chance of going down well."

Pause for applause for those dancers, perhaps on the way to performance themselves or a wriggle of self-congratulation.  It is quite true though that if a DJ has a practica with ten newish dancers, they are not necessarily going to play the same tracks they might play in a room of a hundred where you can see there are dancers with years of experience.  I once played the De Angelis "El Huracán" at probably the wrong time to the wrong crowd.  Some dancers in the room were visibly startled (at 2.10).  

Michael diplomatically describes his sophisticated choices as ones that "won't be suitable for every tango environment". Pause to squirm and hope you are not unwittingly part of one of those or that you are not one trying to dance beyond your assigned class "level". 

Michael again:

"But Troilo's later sides from the 1940s - still very much from his dance era - are still relatively rare flowers at our milongas. This is perhaps the most sophisticated dance music ever recorded..."

I disagree with this odd, hesitant, yet forceful claim. But perhaps I'm wrong. Michael is after all an experienced DJ, dancer and author of a couple of books on tango music. Luckily there are also some experienced dancers and DJs - not least in Buenos Aires - who think that Troilo-Marino and most Troilo-Ruíz  isn't that great for dancing or at least that Troilo-Fiorentino is better.  The much loved vals by Troilo-Ruíz are exceptions and of course there is Flor de Lino, which in fact the submitting DJ recommends if you like your vals in fours. 

But Michael has published and if everyone is sagely nodding along with him about this kind of Troilo or that a DJ should "Only play what you like" (Michael's 'Rule 1' on 'How to be  Tango DJ' in his book Tango Stories: Musical Secrets) and you think otherwise you may find yourself a lone nay-sayer, or rather you are going to find yourself sitting down while everyone else is busy showing how well they dance Troilo-Marino or Troilo-Ruíz with all the edge, drama and passion it inspires in them and feeling very...authentic I suppose, or perhaps entitled after all those years of working hard to improve their dance.  Not quite lone though.  Only on Sunday I was chatting to a very experienced guy, a gentle, subtle, careful dancer.  We quit the floor when the (cortina-less) tandas changed to dramatic music with strong vocals:  concert tango.  "I know some of the 'advanced' dancers like this kind of thing," he said "but I've never liked it for dancing; I've come to dance a few Pugliese tracks but the more dramatic stuff doesn't give me a dancing feeling." 

What actually happens is that the people who recognise Troilo-Marino or Ruíz versus Troilo-Fiorentino, usually some DJs, who are often good dancers, will dance it with all that edge and passion and others may try to ape that in the same way they try, unfortunately, to ape the performance moves they see in performance and that they learn from their performer-teachers.  More crudely, some, usually impressionable, newer dancers, or new DJs will start thinking that edge, passion and drama are all good because somebody they think they probably ought to listen to and respect tells them it's true.  Consequently, they dance some Pugliese, late Di Sarli, some Troilo and good, strong d'Arienzo, Biagi and Tanturi, and a lot of concert-tango that ought not to be played in the milonga at all (but so often is), in the same way.

Still, if you disagree that the Troilo-Ruíz tangos are "perhaps the most sophisticated dance music ever recorded", and can ignore the suggestions of being a poor dancer, an "unambitious" dancer, an "unsophisticated" dancer (compliments, to my mind), console yourself that anyone who argues that way saying "it just is sophisticated" without any evidence for that, is holding a sort of faith-based position, a position which won't allow itself to be proved wrong, which is a very weak position.  And just because some may hold that faith it doesn't mean it's right, it may just mean they have power, influence and status among those who accord it; and if you keep up with this blog, then you probably already know my view on that sort of thing. 

My feeling about Troilo with Marino and Ruíz is personal and perhaps I'll change my mind some day. Others patently do like this music for dancing.  But that is my point really.  We give respect and authority so easily and often on grounds that have nothing to do with the point at issue.  The great thing about the milonga is the way it works as a leveller - everyone can see and hear and feel for themselves.

A new dancer won't necessarily discriminate or calibrate so well in dance or musical judgement or milonga etiquette simply because they don't have the same reserves of experience.  Many do come to develop better balance or core strength, or to think that some music is more nuanced, more interesting to dance than other kinds, or that there is good reason for the traditional milonga etiquette but I think it is something best decided from exposure to these things, for themselves and perhaps in embrace and conversation, rather than through diktat or in exchange for payment in money or unthinking respect.

It is fine to claim that some later Troilo, say, is the most sophisticated dance music ever written, if you can back it up. What constitutes good is very subjective, certainly in the world of dancing tango.  You can try to corral and point to a consensus of those dancing that music, or those who go to milongas that play it but again that handily excludes those who aren't and who don't.  What you can do to test for yourself is to watch what kind of music people you think are good dancers dance well to and make up your own mind.

People often don't like it when you judge for yourself, especially if it undermines a money-making enterprise.  Something like that happened recently on Tanda of the Week. A music business had released a new recording where the sound quality was in question.  As a last resort the businessman said, essentially "That's just your poor taste due to inexperience".  I don't mind at all because the sound test in the comments of that post speaks for itself to anyone who cares to listen and decide for themselves.

I think persuasion works better to change thought and behaviour, but where is the line between coercion and persuasion?  I find a subtle, insinuating arrogance and presumption by some dancers and some DJs - DJs particularly - about what good dancers dance.  But taste is just different.  What people like in music and in dance is highly personal.  It is one thing to say what you like and why you like it and on the strength of that you might even go so far as to claim that people with well developed sensibilities of taste will - perhaps even ought to - like that sort of thing too.  That might be persuasive, if rather risky.  

But it is quite another thing to imply that if you want to be (or perhaps more importantly be considered) a good dancer this is the kind of thing you'll like, or you ought to.  That I think is the danger of these statements.  They can be manipulative, coercive of inexperience, even unintentionally.  In any case, experience counts for less I think when making pronouncements about matters of taste; or it is more dangerous than it is useful.  Stifling, herding people, especially new dancers and new DJs into ideas about what good dancers dance, and therefore what they perhaps ought to dance if they want to be thought good dancers is repressive and unhealthy. Or people can misread a personal "this is what it is like for me" from a source claiming or accorded some authority as a collective "this is what you ought to feel if you have well-developed musical taste".  People need space to evolve ideas and feelings about what they like without pressure.  They need freedom to do it and also freedom to change their mind.