What is Musicality in Tango ?

Many students of tango, a few days after they’ve begun and have mastered their ocho cortados and “close embrace” start hearing key words like “Musicality” and “cadence” and so on. Now, some of us are fortunate to be gifted with a sense of music that does not need explanations but most of us, even when they are intrigued by a particular form of music, need someone to explain to them, what the hell is musicality ? Or rather ”what exactly am I looking for” in here ? And once they know, everything becomes much more enjoyable.






Just like a cubist painting, which may evoke some pleasant emotions just by looking at it, but becomes much more impressive and effective once it makes more sense, once you know what’s special about this technique. In other words ”What to look for” in it.






So here is my humble attempt at trivializing this abstract quality called musicality: At the most basic level, it involves going slower or faster depending on the music. Now, purists are going to cringe at this description. Of course there is much more to it than slowing and speeding. It’s like describing impressionism as ”Oh that’s just when you use dots and more discrete strokes and distort stuff rather than drawing a photo-realistic representation”. But it’s a good beginning.