Tango in Japan

Tango in Japan
Author: Yuiko Asaba
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2025-02-28
Genre: Music
ISBN:

Why do Japanese people love tango? Starting with this question, which the author frequently received while working as a tango violinist in Argentina, Tango in Japan reveals histories and ethnographies of tango in Japan dating back to its first introduction in the 1910s to the present day. While initially brought to Yokohama by North American tango dancers in 1914, tango’s immediate popularity in Japan quickly compelled many Japanese performers and writers to travel to Argentina in search of tango’s “origin” beginning in the 1920s. Many Japanese musicians, dancers, aficionados, and the wider public have, since then, approached tango as a new vehicle of expression, entertainment, and academic pursuit. The sounds of tango provided comfort and a sense of hope to many during the most turbulent years of the twentieth century, carving out distinctive characteristics of contemporary Japanese tango culture. Bypassing the West-East axis of understanding cultural transmission, Tango in Japan uncovers the processes of attraction, rejection, and self-transformation, illuminating the tension of cosmopolitan endeavors away from the Euro-American West. Based on Asaba’s field and archival work undertaken in both Japanese and Spanish languages in Japan and Argentina across two decades, and drawing on her own background as a tango violinist who performed as a member of tango orchestras in both countries, the discussions move between historical and ethnographic narratives, offering a comprehensive account of tango culture as it emerged in the history of a Japan-Argentina connection. Serving as the first in-depth work on the Japan-Argentina musical relationship, Tango in Japan tells a story that reflects the modern transformations of Japan and Argentina, and the global historical backdrops surrounding both countries.

Tracing Tangueros

Tracing Tangueros
Author: Kacey Link
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2016
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0199348227

Tracing Tangueros offers an inside view of Argentine tango music in the context of the growth and development of the art form's instrumental and stylistic innovations. Rather than perpetuating the glamorous worldwide conceptions that often only reflect the tango that left Argentina nearly 100 years ago, authors Kacey Link and Kristin Wendland trace tango's historical and stylistic musical trajectory in Argentina, beginning with the guardia nueva's crystallization of the genre in the 1920s, moving through tango's Golden Age (1932-1955), and culminating with the "Music of Buenos Aires" today. Through the transmission, discussion, examination, and analysis of primary sources currently unavailable outside of Argentina, including scores, manuals of style, archival audio/video recordings, and live video footage of performances and demonstrations, Link and Wendland frame and define Argentine tango music as a distinct expression possessing its own musical legacy and characteristic musical elements. Beginning by establishing a broad framework of the tango art form, the book proceeds to move through twelve in-depth profiles of representative tangueros (tango musicians) within the genre's historical and stylistic trajectory. Through this focused examination of tangueros and their music, Link and Wendland show how the dynamic Argentine tango grows from one tanguero linked to another, and how the composition techniques and performance practices of each generation are informed by that of the past.

The Art of Tango

The Art of Tango
Author: Bárbara Varassi Pega
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2020-10-26
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0429748817

The Art of Tango offers a systematic exploration of the performance, arrangement and composition of the universally popular tango. The author discusses traditional practices, the De Caro school and the pioneering oeuvre of four celebrated innovators: Pugliese, Salgán, Piazzolla and Beytelmann. With an in-depth focus on both reception and practice, the volume and its companion website featuring supplementary audio-visual materials analyse, decode, compare and discuss literature, scores and recordings to provide a deeper understanding of tango’s artistic concepts, characteristics and techniques. River Plate tango is explored through the lens of artistic research, combining the study of oral traditions and written sources. In addition to a detailed examination of the various approaches to tango by the musicians featured in this book, three compositions by the author embodying creative applications of the research findings are discussed. The volume offers numerous tools for developing skills in practice, inspiring new musical output and the continuation of research endeavours in the field. Illustrating the many possibilities of this musical language that has captivated musicians and audiences worldwide, this book is a valuable resource for everyone with an interest in tango, whether they be composers, performers, arrangers, teachers, music lovers or scholars in the field of popular music studies.

Sound, Image, and National Imaginary in the Construction of Latin/o American Identities

Sound, Image, and National Imaginary in the Construction of Latin/o American Identities
Author: Héctor Fernández L'Hoeste
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2017-12-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1498565247

Sound, Image, and National Imaginary in the Construction of Latin/o American Identities addresses a gap in the many narratives discussing the cultural histories of Latin American nations, particularly in terms of the birth, configuration, and perpetuation of national identities. It argues that these processes were not as gradual or constrained as traditionally conceived. The actual circumstances dictating the adoption of particular technologies for the representation of national ideas shifted and varied according to many factors including local circumstances, political singularities, economic disparities, and highly individualized cultural transitions. This book proposes a model of chronology that is valid not only for nations that underwent strong processes of nationalism during the early or mid-twentieth century, but also for those that experienced highly idiosyncratic cultural, economic, and political development into the early twenty-first century.

HORACIO SALGÁN - TANGO COURSE

HORACIO SALGÁN - TANGO COURSE
Author: Horacio Salgán
Publisher: A Fuego Lento Ediciones
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2020-06-10
Genre: Music
ISBN: 9872882738

Writing this Tango Course is both an obligation and a great pleasure for me. It is an obligation because I would like to contribute something (of all the things that I owe) in return as an appreciation of having been fortunate enough to educate myself in the Orchestras, where I learned to play Tango. The Orchestras were a crucible where the ideas of its members and/or other creative musicians experimented, played, and came together to create playing styles, rhythmic forms, etc. These contributions were what took the Tango, little by little, to such a high musical level. Nowadays, it is not at all easy to belong to an Orchestra, considering the fact that so few can subsist. This makes it more difficult for those who want to have careers in Tango music to acquire the vast knowledge necessary for playing and interpreting it. Let us not forget that the Orchestras have always been the best schools for such an apprenticeship. It is also a great pleasure to be able to transmit and share that what I have learned, trying always not to leave anything out (that is my real intention) by relying on my memory which fortunately still helps me. I never intended for my conclusions to be taken as the absolute truth, nor wanted to win something over anyone, in anything. This course just shows my position, and the ideas with which I have always worked. We will deal here with the Tango in versions which, in my understanding, are genuine manifestations of itself. I love the Tango because I love good music, and I got into it to learn to play it, not to change it. If my versions and arrangements have something different about them, it is only because this is my language, and I have expressed myself through it. I will also talk about the incorporation of new contributions and changes, as long as they are authentic within the genre. The many streams of opinion may or may not coincide with what will be said in this course. Considering the broadness of the theme and the flexibility which should govern artistic creation, other concepts may prove constructive as well. I sincerely hope that this course will be useful to someone, Horacio Salgán

International Music Directory 2006/2007

International Music Directory 2006/2007
Author: Helmut Opitz
Publisher: K. G. Saur
Total Pages: 592
Release: 2006
Genre: Music
ISBN:

With over 35,000 addresses, the International Music Directory provides over 35,000 addresses and short profiles on representatives of all areas of the music industry and is the most comprehensive reference work for the music business worldwide.

Tango

Tango
Author: Jo Baim
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2007-07-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253027756

In Tango: Creation of a Cultural Icon Jo Baim dispels common stereotypes of the tango and tells the real story behind this rich and complex dance. Despite its exoticism, the tango of this time period is a very accessible dance, especially as European and North American dancers adapted it. Modern ballroom dancers can enjoy a "step" back in time with the descriptions included in this book. Almost as interesting as the history of the tango is the cultural response to it: cities banned it, army officers were threatened with demotion if caught dancing it, clergy and politicians wrote diatribes against it. Newspaper headlines warned that people died from dancing the tango and that it would be the downfall of civilization. The vehemence of these anti-tango outbursts confirms one thing: the tango was a cultural force to be reckoned with!