Joaquín Amenábar - post list

I've written a lot about Joaquín Amenábar's workshops on tango music for dancers, so here is a housekeeping post with a list of everything else. It's worth reading the comments on each, especially the first one.

[Update 4th April 09: you can now buy the book-DVD set here.]

Joaquín teaches Bandoneón at the University in Buenos Aires and another conservatoire, and he also dances in the milongas. His classes are very carefully designed for the nine out of ten dancers who have no music education at all.

Music for dancers
Why tango music is like it is
Modern Tango
[Update 04/04/09] Book available - and a note about it

But even if you do have some musical education (mine is not much, but more than most - I can sing my part in a madrigal, with practice) I'd still very much recommend them. They're fascinating.

What what these classes did for me was raise the problems of musical understanding from the level of the animal or child, and expose them to the firepower of adult human intellect. This is an effective way to get improvement quickly. It's like letting an elephant solve a problem with its trunk.

The three classes I took were also great fun, and so are the exercises in the book/DVD set (which should become available, eventually, from here). They are much fun as being three and doing Music and Movement, or sitting crosslegged on the floor and watching Playschool with Floella Benjamin, or Life On Earth. I love it.