With our best wishes for a happy, healthy and successful 2012 filled with dancing. Our first newsletter of 2012 has information on the following: Tea dance this Sunday 8 January 2.30pm - 6pm 3 milongas this month on January 14th, 21st and 28th Introducing the new format for Tango Tangks in 2012 What happens in a tango musicality workshop? A line up of who is teaching at Bramshaw this year From numbers to music - collaborate in the art of improvisation Where to find free tango music What is on at Bramshaw in January View the 2012 events calendar for Bramshaw GO Steve & Debbie wish you a happy new year and hope to see you soon. Welcome to the January issue of our Bramshaw tango newsletter. We send this news out to over 600 tango friends who have opted in to our mailing list. If you no longer want to hear our news, follow these simple instructions and Steve will remove your name from our list. OPT OUT  New format Tango Tangks for 2012 Why change? As we are all starting to feel the squeeze of these hard times, we have changed the format of the Tango Tangk to make the weekends as flexible as possible for people of all levels and budget to join in. What's new? The Tango Tangk weekends offer more dancing, drop in pre-milonga classes with the visiting maestros, weekend dance only passes. By popular demand by students and teachers alike, we have retained the progressive workshop theme, optional lunch facilities, and dancing in two rooms. You can view a sample of the weekend format here LINK What level does the Tangk teach? Tango Tangk weekends provide tuition for accomplished dancers with at least 18 months experience. Alongside every Tango Tangk, Steve Morrall provides weekend workshops for dancers who have acquired the basic skills of the five moves MORE and focusses on tuning techique to move with the music. These workshops are suitable for any dancer who has progressed beyond a beginners course. Even advanced dancers will benefit from the advanced musicality as Steve describes how to hear detail in music and express the detail in collaborative movement. For more information, dates, teachers and booking a Tango Tangk CLICK What happens in a tango musicality workshop? In the UK we start tango dancing with a huge disadvantage - Argentine Tango is not the music of our lifetime. If we could dance 'tango' to music and lyrics that we have grown up with that is indelibly branded in our memories, we would be better dancers. But tango music is unfamiliar to us and often we learn tango movement with no real connection to the music that an Argentine will know inside out. Tango dancing is all about the music. If we can't hear it or understand it, we certainly cannot dance it. Steve Morrall has been teaching advanced musicality since May 2010 at Bramshaw. The weekend workshops and week night classes usually focus on a classic track from one of the great tango orchestras. Steve uses visual aids, games, exercises and demonstrations to help dancers move significantly with the music. As an experienced musician, he shows students how to 'play their bodies like a musical instrument' using simple movement. The music provides a context and framework for simple, connected dancing that makes sense expressively and dynamically. It also requires dancers to learn how to apply technique to their movement. Over the last 18 months the improvement in dancers has been obvious to us but we are overjoyed to hear that our students are being questioned about where and how they learn to move with such musical connection. Steve is teaching advanced musicality at Bramshaw on the following weekends if you cannot make his regular Thursday evening class. 2012 DATES AND BOOKING Visiting teachers at Bramshaw Tango Tangks in 2012 Date For reasons beyond our control, the weekend with Marek and Olivera has been cancelled. The advanced musicality workshops on these dates are still running BIOG | BOOK January 28/29 Jenny and Ricardo Oria BIOG | BOOK Please note there are only 5 places remaining for men March 24/25 Mabel Rivero BIOG | BOOK April 14/15 Stefan and Komala BIOG | BOOK May 26/27 Siobhan Richards and Michael Lavocah BIOG | BOOK June 23/24 Ines Moussavi BIOG | BOOK October 20/21 Melina and Detlef BIOG | BOOK November 24/25 From numbers to music - the art of improvisation I usually get a creative surge after my birthday in January and for the last few years I have enjoyed working on a music project that starts by inviting friends to provide me with random numbers between 1 and 12. The numbers represent the 12 semitones of an octave: 1 = C, 2 = C sharp etc. I convert the numbers to notes and try to spontaneously play an improvised piece of piano music. I would love you to send me your choice of numbers. Please email me with six numbers (repetitions allowed) and an emotive word, i.e. 'passion' and I will endeavour to improvise a short piano piece to describe the word and publish it in the next newsletter. Email your numbers and emotive word to steve.morrall@me.com. Here are a couple of examples from previous numbers to music projects. Improvisaton 1 | Improvisation 2 Where to find free tango music It was only a few years ago that the search for any sort of tango music involved rummaging through the 'world music' section of a record store which usually ended up with some cheesey complilation CD of ballroom tango music. Today, we have access to knowledable and well stocked web resources like Michael Lavocah's site at http://www.milonga.co.uk and amazing free resources like http://www.spotify.com. Spotify is a very useful site that helps you to SPOT and identIFY tracks, making the whole track available to listen to, not just a 30 second extract. If you are looking to expand your library or just browse around to see which orchestras you like, take a look at Steve's tango playlist on Spotify. The playlist is presented as a sample 4 hour set for a milonga with tracks arranged in tandas (groups of 3 tracks from the same orchestra) separated by cortinas (literally a musical curtain to denote a change of genre between tandas). If you are new to tango and want to explore tango orchestras with a simple and clear structure, listen to Francisco Canaro, Carlos di Sarli and Juan D'Arienzo. If your tango tastes are more seasoned and you are looking for something a little more challenging, listen to Julio de Caro's more complex rhythms. I have enjoyed reading the "Cracking the Code' chapter on the Tango and Chaos website which provides a deeper insight into the the lyrics and structure of several iconic tracks, Tres Esquinas being one of my personal favourites. MORE What is on at Bramshaw in January Sunday January 8 Saturday January 14 Saturday January 21 Sunday January  22 Saturday January 28 Sunday January 29 Tea dance 2.30 - 6pm £10 Milonga 8pm - midnight £7 Milonga 8pm - midnight £7 Tango Toolkit for beginners BOOK Milonga 8pm - midnight £7 Advanced Musicality Workshop (Technique for fast and slow Milonga) BOOK Advanced Musicality Workshop (The Orchestra of Francisco Canaro and his Tango) BOOK Tuesday evenings: Beginners course 8pm - 9.30pm Wednesday evenings: Bailamos Tango Class for improving technique & fluid movement 8-9.30pm Thursday evenings: Advanced Musicality 8pm - 10pm + 1 hr practica The full 2012 calendar of events at Bramshaw can be viewed here GO Tango UK home page If you are reading this newsletter via our website link, you may not realise that we publish it once a month to dancers who have subscribed to our email list. 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