Helpful summary of Thomas Turino's research:
http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2014/participatory-music-vs-presentational-music/
Quote:
America suffers from its lack of participatory music
I have a hypothesis that the lack of participatory music in daily American life is a major obstacle to our well-being. Most humans in world history regard social music as a basic emotional vitamin, and our lack of it shows in our collective unhappiness, as clearly as malnutrition shows in stunted bone growth. Children have participatory music opportunities, at home, on the playground, at school, in church and at camp. But as an adult, you really have to make an effort to seek out music-making opportunities. One of the biggest pleasures of having a young kid is all the participatory music-making you do with them.
Yes.
But also, reading it, I think about this research anew in terms of Argentine tango and its social context.
Turino generally presents dancing as part of participatory music, and I agree. However, reading through the bullet points of the qualities of participatory music, I must look at some of them, and think:
Oh, this doesn't really describe tango music. Oh, parts of this doesn't really describe tango dance even. I'm thinking about this now, although I have read Turino's book for many years.
The entry barriers to Argentine tango can be high. I know people who took two years of lessons before dancing socially. I personally took almost a year of lessons before even going to a practica. When I was at ASU, this wasn't the case, though. New people (students) would often flock to the practicas and the leadership at the club was welcoming and any experienced dancer was charged with being kind and dancing with as many newcomers as possible.
I can't say whether ASU Tango Club was the norm or the exception, but I actually tend to think it's an exception.
But let's look at a few inconsistencies if I am looking at tango through a participatory music lens:
Beginnings/endings are feathered:
Nope. In fact, my only early strength as a dancer was my musical training because the cadences would always hit me in the face whilst my beginning partners kept obliviously dancing through phrase endings and were sometimes startled at the ends of songs. However, if you grow up listening to it or classical music, you know.
The form of the music is open, cyclical and very repetitive:
Hmmm, more repetitive than Western Art Music but less repetitive than a lot of popular music and contradance music.
There might be a lot of improvisation and looseness, but it all takes place within predictable structures:
Yes, at least the dance. There is something like that in the music, but the music is definitely more presentational.
Textures and timbres are dense, with loose (“wide”) tuning and timing:
Hmmm, maybe less so on this, but the timing is looser in tango in very characteristic ways, eg. rallentando at cadences. One of the complaints people have about dancing to electro-tango is the rigid timing (and the repetition).
The music is game-like, though usually without “winners” and “losers.”:
Yes, very much so - at least for the dancing.
It’s made by musicians of widely varying skill. Most participants are “amateurs,” not “real” musicians by American standards. There’s a low floor for core participation, like shaking a shaker steadily, and a high ceiling for elaboration, like virtuoso lead percussion:
Argentine tango dancers are generally not professional dancers, yes, but the bar is higher. There's an emphasis on competence and virtuosity that (IMO) really outstrips other dances in terms of the social scene. We say the basic step is walking, but um, you have to relearn walking a LOT over many years.
Overall Argentine tango is I think, participatory music in terms of movement and dancers, but not in terms of the sound/musicians. Certainly during 20s-40s in Buenos Aires you needed to dance to properly socialize. It's not like salsa or swing, tho, where the entry barrier is relatively low.
I see why it is a subculture, though. Certainly contemporary tango emphasizes competency and an explicit set of social norms and etiquette that many dancers will respond negatively if broken. Some city scenes are not welcome to beginners and newcomers (some are). My love for tango music meant that I was willing to be initiated and spend multiple years developing a competency and a familiarity, but it's not like contradance, where you can just go and dance and be a part of everything from the start. At least, that wasn't my experience.
Syrinx modeling:
Classic Smyth (& Smith & Abel):
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.128.6431&rep=rep1&type=pdf
https://www.dafx.de/papers/DAFX02_Smyth_Smith_flute-like_sounds.pdf
http://www.dafx.de/paper-archive/2004/P_095.PDF
https://asa.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1121/1.4781002
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tamara-Smyth/publication/247868491_THE_ESTIMATION_OF_BIRDSONG_CONTROL_PARAMETERS_USING_MAXIMUM_LIKELIHOOD_AND_MINIMUM_ACTION/links/55159cc50cf2d70ee270e85f/THE-ESTIMATION-OF-BIRDSONG-CONTROL-PARAMETERS-USING-MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD-AND-MINIMUM-ACTION.pdf
The NIME:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2010.03265.pdf
More recent, biologically (as in discipline) motivated research:
https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.84.051909
https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.395910 (not recent, but cited)
https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.395910
(some unrelated stuff for my purposes, but has citations to more related things)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982221007338?casa_token=D8ZH7KdLEfoAAAAA:cfhtlgkjIvz__Y7wItfSIXqev-NGZPdwxLi7CxD1kOLD_0kp3rSEQsBBDmz-fOcMlaa8-ctOdhg#!
(newer, less biologically motivated -- audio engineering not bio)
http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~josh/documents/2019/20578.pdf
