Adapting the marimba into Astor Piazzolla's music
(2016)
author(s): Yves Popow
published in: Codarts
It is common in the percussion world to play the music by Astor Piazzolla without being proficient in the Tango style. A lot of percussionists, including me, simply play the piano or guitar parts on the marimba without making any adjustments to the arrangement, because it sounds good to us and it is technically possible. By copying directly, we think we know about the style, but we are wrong. This issue can also be found in the marimba arrangements of Bach’s Cello Suites. In my opinion, one should research about styles of the compositions if they were not originally written for percussion. Otherwise one will never be as close as possible to the intended style, which is essential for a good performance.
Since Tango is about arranging, my goal is to find a suitable role for the marimba in the music of Astor Piazzolla that is as closely aligned to the stylistic traits of Tango as possible.
Creating and re-creating tangos : artistic processes and innovations in music by Pugliese, Salgán, Piazzolla and Beytelmann
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Barbara Varassi Pega
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
In this dissertation, Barbara Varassi Pega digs into the constituent elements of River Plate tango in order to decode how specific musical materials were organized and combined by four outstanding musicians: Osvaldo Pugliese, Horacio Salgán, Astor Piazzolla and Gustavo Beytelmann. For this purpose, Varassi Pega has analysed a select number of representative pieces through a study of their scores and recordings. This led to the definition of certain artistic processes and innovations within the genre, theoretical foundations for such processes, and, in all, a deeper understanding of the art of creating tango music, in addition to an overall, chronological view of its development and techniques. The articulation of this (partly) embodied knowledge has resulted in an original contribution to the field, providing new insights with which both Varassi Pega and the greater artistic community can enrich our skills in arranging, composing and performing tango music. The formulation of hypothesis and conclusions, and the translation of the findings into the own production through empiric methods and experimentation were executed alongside the analytical part of the work. The continuous exchange between the practical and theoretical aspects of this research project was fundamental, always strengthening and feeding back each other.
The solo violin in Astor Piazzolla's tango: a comparative study
(last edited: 2016)
author(s): Stephen Meyer
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
When I began this project, my main goal was to become a competent and confident tango violinist, especially one who could switch effortlessly between tango and classical violin. For me, this was a particular challenge, since I had never played other types of music besides classical. Furthermore, it is important to mention that many classical players try to perform tango music without any in-depth knowledge; tango is a musical language unto itself (albeit based on a Western musical tradition) with specific conventions. Before beginning the master's program, I was aware of some of the stylistic differences, and wanted to understand how to adapt my playing to the specific challenges of tango.
In general, the master's degree in tango gave me a fantastic opportunity to discover and study tango – particularly from the perspective of an orquesta tipica player – but in my artistic research I wanted to understand how the great tango violinists played, on a deeper level, and then apply that research to my own playing. Later on, I would narrow the focus from tango violin in general to what inspired me on a more personal level: solo tango violin. My point of departure was a recording of Astor Piazzolla's “Decarissimo,” performed by Polish-Argentinian violinist Szymsia Bajour. The rich timbre of his sound plus the beauty of his phrasing provided me with a model to emulate. Upon further investigation, I
discovered that he was the perfect violinist for me to study, because he was best known as a classical violinist who also played tango, switching effortlessly between the styles.
Once I understood how Bajour played, I wanted to determine how I could apply that knowledge to my own artistic development. For example, I thought about what interested me most in “Decarissimo” and the answer was the violin solo – and not the accompanimental passages. So I decided to focus on the role of solo violin in tango, with a more
specific focus on Szymsia Bajour. At the outset of my research, I was more concentrated on the interpretational aspect of the project (how could I imitate his playing style in order to assimilate it into my own) but as my research progressed, it became clear to me that while the first part of my project would be based on interpretation, the second part would be creative. My initial idea of the creative portion was to write my own version of a Bajour solo and insert it into one of the pieces that he recorded, but ultimately I discovered that I was much more interested in virtuoso tango fantasies for solo violin – the models for which I found over the course of my research.