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Preliminary Remark

This artic­le is about fee­lings, but only tho­se that are trig­ge­red by music and not for exam­p­le fee­lings of „con­nec­tion“ that can ari­se from phy­si­cal pro­xi­mi­ty and shared move­ment. In order to bet­ter under­stand the topic of „music and fee­lings“, I have stu­di­ed music psy­cho­lo­gy and psy­choa­cou­stics. I found the book Das wohl­tem­pe­rier­te Gehirn: Wie Musik im Kopf ent­steht und wirkt („The Well-Tem­pe­red Brain: How Music Crea­tes and Works in the Head“) par­ti­cu­lar­ly sti­mu­la­ting. All quo­tes that are not other­wi­se mark­ed are from this book.

This is not about the so-cal­led “epi­so­dic memo­ry”: “You con­nect the music with epi­so­des from your own life. The brain links what we hear again with the situa­ti­on in which we heard a pie­ce of music for the first time. […] Sin­ce all regi­ons of the brain are acti­ve when we lis­ten to music, we expe­ri­ence the situa­ti­on at that time, its spe­ci­fic atmo­sphe­re and our sta­te of mind at that time again with all our sen­ses” (source) .

When I speak of “dancers”, I mean exclu­si­ve­ly tho­se who at least try to dance “musi­cal­ly” and not tho­se who do not care at all about accen­ted beats, musi­cal phra­ses, pau­ses, etc. and who just do wha­te­ver they want.

And when I say “Puglie­se”, I mean pie­ces like A los artis­tas pla­s­ti­cos and not com­pa­ra­tively easy pie­ces like Recuer­do, whe­re you can still (alt­hough often only with dif­fi­cul­ty) reco­gni­ze phra­ses or dance to them (like in this video).

Music and Emotions

We now under­stand quite pre­cis­e­ly how music crea­tes emo­ti­ons. We know that cer­tain are­as of the brain (such as the amyg­da­la, hip­po­cam­pus, pre­fron­tal cor­tex, etc.) take on spe­ci­fic tasks and what role cer­tain neu­ro­trans­mit­ters play (for exam­p­le see here). And we can also explain why par­ti­cu­lar­ly „emo­tio­nal“ pie­ces such as „Hal­le­lu­jah“ by Leo­nard Cohen, „Yes­ter­day“ by the Beat­les, „Someone Like You“ by Ade­le or Pachelbel’s „Canon in D“ have such a strong effect. What all of the­se pie­ces have in com­mon is that they are based on cat­chy har­mo­nies and/or melo­dies and simp­le rhythms.

How easy it is to play on the key­board of human emo­ti­ons can be seen par­ti­cu­lar­ly well in film music. Hol­ly­wood com­po­sers like Hans Zim­mer always work with the same chord sequen­ces to express sad­ness, love, awe, etc. (see this video). Dis­so­nan­ces can only be found in „dan­ger“ and „ten­si­on“, all other chords are based on our wes­tern sys­tem of harm­o­ny, ie they are „cat­chy“ and cor­re­spond com­ple­te­ly to our expec­ta­ti­ons and lis­tening habits. 

Tango and „Great“ Feelings

Tan­go is always about „gre­at“ emo­ti­ons. It is a mys­tery to me how such a sound can gene­ra­te any posi­ti­ve fee­lings. I find it even more puz­zling, howe­ver, that the com­plex music of Osval­do Puglie­se is sup­po­sed to evo­ke inten­se emo­ti­ons when hard­ly anyo­ne can dance to it. Some say a Puglie­se tan­da is „the high­light of a milon­ga for many dancers“ (source). How can it be that music that is con­sis­t­ent­ly descri­bed as „com­pli­ca­ted“, „chal­len­ging“, „not easy to dance to“ etc. does not lead to frus­tra­ti­on in dancers but, on the con­tra­ry, to ela­ti­on? An exam­p­le of count­less simi­lar state­ments: „While being able to dance well to Pugliese’s music is the mark of a tru­ly accom­plished dancer, his music is very chal­len­ging for new dancers“ (source). (I would replace new dancers with also for advan­ced dancers.)

Characteristics of Pugliese’s Music

Let’s look at what makes Pugliese’s music so difficult:

“While di Sarli’s music was easy to dance to, Osval­do Pugliese’s approach to tan­go music was much more expe­ri­men­tal, with a rich, com­plex and dis­cordant sound that pre­ven­ted easy dancing” (source).

“The­re are long pau­ses, sur­pri­sing restarts, and this power, an impres­si­ve strength that tears and takes us. […] The rhyth­mic basis of Puglie­se per­fect­ly fits a calm and inten­se walk, while more com­plex inter­pre­ta­ti­ons requi­re sud­den speed or inten­ti­on chan­ges. He pro­vi­des a lar­ge and extre­me emo­ti­on ran­ge, from a soft vio­lin crying glis­san­do to cany­en­gue rhyth­mic games, and through the ban­do­ne­on anxie­ty, stret­ching with dis­so­nan­ce…” (source) .

“The rhyth­mic accen­tua­ti­on of his orches­tra lies on a super­po­si­ti­on of sonic lay­ers which form a subt­le and poly­rhyth­mic mecha­nism, in which dif­fe­rent instru­men­tal sec­tions move in a varie­ty of styl­es and effects. And from this, appar­ent­ly anar­chic, rhyth­mic dis­po­si­ti­on, the dif­fe­rent the­mes are expres­si­ve­ly trans­la­ted into the pecu­li­ar way of say­ing the soloists of the orches­tra had” (source).

Pugliese and Piazzolla

Dis­so­nan­ces, dis­cordant sounds, sud­den tem­po chan­ges, anar­chic or poly­rhyth­ms – all that is very remi­nis­cent of Piaz­zolla. Why do most peo­p­le find Piazzolla’s music „undan­ceable“ while they are enthu­si­a­stic about Pugliese’s music, even though it is so simi­lar (apart from Piazzolla’s squea­king, scrat­ching and crea­king)? Both Puglie­se and Piaz­zolla play­ed (albeit at dif­fe­rent times) in Ani­bal Troilo’s orches­tra and most music his­to­ri­ans see a direct deve­lo­p­ment from Troi­lo via Puglie­se to Piazzolla.

Melody and Harmonies

So what has neu­ro­sci­ence dis­co­ver­ed, for exam­p­le with the help of brain scans? Let’s start with the importance of melo­dy: It is the „basis of musi­cal expe­ri­ence“. The vast majo­ri­ty react sen­si­tively to dis­so­nan­ces. The „abili­ty to per­cei­ve com­plex har­mo­nies“ is „very rare“. The „audi­to­ry cor­tex“ (= all are­as of the brain invol­ved in pro­ces­sing sounds) signals „dis­com­fort“ when expec­ta­ti­ons of har­mo­nies are not met. Basi­cal­ly, the­re is only a „low open­ness to new things“. Only „trai­ned lis­ten­ers“ can anti­ci­pa­te com­plex com­po­si­ti­ons becau­se they have stored the struc­tures of pie­ces they have alre­a­dy heard in their „audi­to­ry long-term memo­ry“. Appli­ed to dancers, this means that you would have to have heard com­plex pie­ces very often in order to be able to dance to them with plea­su­re. But Pugliese’s music is of cour­se rare­ly play­ed in nor­mal clas­ses and at milon­gas the­re is typi­cal­ly one tan­da late in the evening. The num­ber of peo­p­le who lis­ten to Puglie­se on their way to work or in their free time is likely to be very limi­t­ed. In other words, the majo­ri­ty of dancers would nor­mal­ly have an emo­tio­nal­ly nega­ti­ve reac­tion sim­ply becau­se of the unfa­mi­li­ar sound.

Pulse and Tempo Changes

An even big­ger pro­blem for „musi­cal“ dancers, howe­ver, is the lack of a regu­lar basic beat („pul­se“) and con­stant chan­ges in tem­po: „A tem­po­ra­ry chan­ge in tem­po brings a hint of emo­ti­on for a moment, but at the same time it con­tra­dicts the expec­ta­ti­ons about the rhyth­mic pro­gres­si­on that keep a pie­ce going. If the­re are too many devia­ti­ons in tem­po, the lis­te­ner loses the fee­ling for the under­ly­ing meter and can no lon­ger pro­per­ly anti­ci­pa­te the coming beats.“ For dancers, the rhyth­mic „pre­dic­ta­bi­li­ty“ is one, if not the decisi­ve cri­ter­ion for the „dancea­bi­li­ty“ of a pie­ce. Pre­cis­e­ly becau­se it is usual­ly dif­fi­cult or even impos­si­ble to anti­ci­pa­te the fur­ther pro­gres­si­on, Pugliese’s and Piazzolla’s music crea­tes (mea­sura­ble) stress. 

How to Dance to Pugliese?

Unsur­pri­sin­gly, the­re are only a few vide­os that give con­cre­te tips on how to dance to Pugliese’s music. In this video, you get the curious advice to make „smal­ler steps“ and dance more „cir­cu­lar­ly“. As to musi­cal­i­ty, the advice is to „hang back behind the music“ and „do the oppo­si­te of what the song does“. To me, that’s a euphe­mism for: „For­get the music, it’s far too com­plex for you – just do any­thing.“ And that’s exact­ly what almost ever­yo­ne does.

In this video, at least, it is not recom­men­ded to do the oppo­si­te of  what the music sug­gests, but to move slow­ly in pas­sa­ges with an „ada­gio fee­ling“ – a rather obvious tip. In more ener­ge­tic pas­sa­ges, howe­ver, you should dance a deman­ding com­bi­na­ti­on of „Moli­ne­te and inter­nal gancho“. Looks gre­at, but unfort­u­na­te­ly almost nobo­dy can do it – so pret­ty useless.

And in this video at least “pul­se” and “strong beats” are addres­sed and demons­tra­ted using a simp­le step sequence. What is not addres­sed, howe­ver, is the cru­cial point, name­ly that in Pugliese’s music the­re is very often no (at least con­sis­tent) “pul­se” and the “strong beats” often come com­ple­te­ly unex­pec­ted­ly and randomly. 

Conclusion

Psy­choa­cou­stics and neu­ro­sci­ence can­not explain why Pugliese’s music should evo­ke „gre­at“ emo­ti­ons. They can, howe­ver, explain very con­vin­cin­g­ly why his music (like Piazzolla’s) evo­kes emo­tio­nal rejec­tion in most peo­p­le. The alle­ged inten­se emo­ti­ons are pro­ba­b­ly in many cases a mix­tu­re of self-delu­si­on, aes­the­tic con­for­mism and sup­po­sed gain in pres­ti­ge. If „aes­the­tic aut­ho­ri­ties“ demand that you should feel inten­se emo­ti­ons even though you are just stumb­ling around hel­p­less­ly, then of cour­se you want to belong to the „know­led­geable eli­te“ and stand out from the igno­rant plebs on the dancefloor.