No, that's based on most of my experience with actual bands.  The most active 
band in our community has been approached about their music's undanceability.  
They've made a conscious decision to go into a different direction.  Some jazz 
tango blend, which is a shame because they are good musicians.  But only one of 
them is a dancer.

For the first tango band that developed here, it took years for them to 
understand the difference, mostly because I kept at them.  But they were 
resistance to dancers telling them how the music should sound like.  They did 
figure it out, but it was not a smooth relationship between band and dancers.  

Nor do bands get real feedback because people will still go to a milonga with 
live music to support the band, not because they find the music danceable.  So 
everyone applauds, the musically clueless still dance, and the band thinks 
they've done a good job.  They don't pick up on the fact that the best dancers 
are sitting out.

Are there some good bands?  Sure, but if I were to look at the average pool of 
musicians that an average city has, I'd say the chance of finding real tango 
musician is pretty slim.  From my city, you'd have to drive about 4 hours to 
get to another city with live music (DC, whose musicians are actually more 
concert), but there are about 8 tango communities within that same radius, none 
of whom have a viable tango band.

Quite frankly, I can't blame musicians if they get a bigger paycheck from 
non-dancing sources.  I'm sure it's more interesting for them, too.

Trini de Pittsburgh



--- On Wed, 5/5/10, AJ Azure <[email protected]> wrote:


> That's certainly the cliché thought
> pattern but, not the correct one. Given
> the opportunity musicians are happy to play older stuff and
> aren't all about
> ego. That's most cliché, stereotypical blanket comment.



      

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