Re: [TANGO-L] Musicality

[Bruno <romerob @telusplanet.net>]

Bruce Stephens wrote:

>I agree.  One teacher who influenced me strongly likened tango to a
language, and suggested that learning patterns is something like
learning and reciting poetry (or perhaps memorizing phrases from a
phrase book).  Both of those can be valuable, but there are probably
more effective ways to learn a language.<

My 2 cents:

In my case, learning a foreign language would be a better comparison to
learning to dance tango. Reading, writing, and speaking, if I am not
mistaken, do require completely separate skills.

Rather than equating learning patterns with reciting poetry I feel that
learning patterns is more like learning to memorize and recite the alphabet
before learning to construct phrases, sentences, ideas, etc.

Linguists, scholars, publishers promoting "The Gestal Theory" on learning a
(foreign) language say that if a complete thought composed of sentence(s),
phrase(s), etc., is presented to a learner of a foreign language in a way
that *selected* parts of the writen thought are purposely omitted, then the
missing blanks will be filled out by one side of the human brain.

If I were a teacher it seems to me that more important than using one method
(patterns) over another (w/o patterns) is how quickly I can validate (what
works and what does not work) either method or combination of methods to
assist a student learn the dance. 

Best regards,

Bruno