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Argentine tango blog
/ with Interaction Design interludes / by Oleh Kovalchuke |
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Tango DJing
October 26, 2006 - Tango DJ, the movie
"Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health - it rusts your spirit and your hips."
Adabella RadiciImpressions from tango DJing: the mike, the console, the mystery... - a dream? The most challenging part of DJing - composing milonga playlist, is not shown (naturally).
The answer is Julio De Caro, by the way.
Oct. 10, 2004 - Music. How to make a good tanda
See also Tango Music for recommended orchestras and CDs.Music at milongas is played in tandas - a sequence of four tangos, interspersed with cortinas - short snippets of nontango music. During cortinas ("curtains") dancers in BsAs return to their tables. In Denver a few wait out the cortina for upcoming tanda on the floor. I am sure eventually all dancers in Denver will start leaving the floor too - it makes perfect sense for rotation of partners.
Anyway, after the trip my collection of good songs has expanded significantly. This and the BsAs experience gave me the reasons to reevaluate my entire collection and to reorganize it in tandas. This happened to be much easier process than my previous method. I used to organize music in 70 minute stretches - CD length. Each CD would have a mix of tangos, valses, milongas and alternative songs. Songs played in the beginning of CD would influence the choice of the songs played in the end. That's a lot of information to keep in mind for processing.
The tanda approach.
In your playlist compile tangos and valses in groups of four, milongas in groups of three. Why four? About half of the first song in tanda is wasted on finding partner. Then it takes a song or two to reacquaint with each other's lead-follow habits and the orchestra's beat. This leaves the third song to dance in the "zone" and it would be a shame to let go after only one song in the zone. Why not play more than four songs then? Two reasons. The orchestra style may become too repetitive, and you might have picked a partner with whom four songs is more than enough. I rarely last beyond three quick milongas on the dance floor, hence milonga tandas should have three songs as opposed to four.
Criteria for compiling individual tanda:
- Very important. Every single song should be a hit. A good rule of thumb for me here is this: "Do I wish to hum along as listen to the song?".
- Put songs with similar arrangements, mood and fullness of sound in the same tanda. Usually songs from the same orchestra will have similar sound. Thus it makes sense to start with compiling tandas by the orchestra and the singer.
- All songs within tanda should have approximately the same beat. Try to start with a song with slower beat than subsequent songs. People need some time to get used to each other lead and follow - slower tempo will help.
- Start with megahit with easily recognizable melody. This song should draw people on the floor. Perfect examples: "Cafe Domingo" by D'Agostino, "Toda vida" by Canaro, "En la buena y en la mala" by Rodriguez. If you can resist the draw of these songs, perhaps you should consider dancing something else instead of tango.
- End with something lyrical, having that feeling of longing, tangos are famous for. People should be sorry to leave the floor. Examples: "Que te importa que te llore" by Calo, "Duelo criollo" by Di Sarli, "La melodia de nuestro adios" by Canaro.
Cortinas.
These are short snippets of nontango music played between tandas. You can play the same cortina throughout milonga (this practice makes cortina easily identifiable to dancers) or show off your collection of nontango music. Cortina should be immediately recognizable as a nondanceable music, however it should not break the overall mood. I like upbeat cortinas. Some classical music may work (Van Cliburn in Moscow is already clipped into 30 seconds snippets for you). Also music for movies by Nino Rota is quite good.
Organizing tandas within milonga.
The way it is usually done is this: (2 tango - 1 vals - 2 tango - 1 milonga) - repeat. Begin milonga with simple tangos to let dancers find their feet and build up to more complex musical and rythmic arrangements. It is a custom to finish milonga with ' La Cumparsita' - the dancers will know that this is the end.
Tom wrote me in response to this post to Tango-L that for the short milongas and house milongas he uses 3 song tandas and plays vals/milonga tandas after only one tanda of tango to keep energy level high. I think the energy depends on quality of tangos you are playing so there is no need to change the length of the tanda. Also with the average tango dancer it takes me about two-three songs to reach the zone level of connection, reducing tanda to three songs would make me miss the zone - too much to loose.
February 6, 2008 - Five good vals tandas
De Angelis:
1. Flores del alma - sweet slower vals.
2. Ilusion azul - quicker, intro fits well with the end of the Flores.
3. Pobre flor
4. Soñar y nada masThis tanda has nice energy hump about it. The duet in the end of Flores del alma builds up the energy and Ilusion carries it over to Pobre flor. Soñar y nada mas is good lyrical and slightly slower finish.
Biagi:
1. El Ultimo Adios
2. Dejame amarte aunque sea un dia
3. Dichas, que vivi
4. Viejo portonVery nice, driven tanda of energetic valses.
Laurenz:
1. Paisaje
2. Temblando
3. Mendocina
4. MascaritaCanaro:
1. En la noche azul
2. El vals de estudiante
3. Salud, dinero y amor
4. La ZandungaOne of the quicker, fun Canaro tandas.
Rodriguez:
1. Mariquita no mires al puerto
2. En el Volga yo te espero
3. ¡Uno que ha sido marino!
4. BrindisAs with a lot of Rodriguez valses this tanda has a bit of circus carousel flavor.
Oct. 17, 2004 - How to sequence tandas during milonga
(2 tango - 1 vals - 2 tango - 1 milonga) - repeat. Obviously there is a need to pair up different orchestras for two tango tandas in this sequence. Some orchestras, most notably Troilo have changed their sound significantly over the years. These can be paired with different orchestras based on sound differences. Here are the natural pairs in my playlist:
Lomuto, Donato, Orquesta Tipica Victor, Tanturi instrumental
Canaro, De Angelis [with singers], Fresedo [Isla de Capri]
Troilo-rhythmic, D'Arienzo
Rodriguez, Malerba
Garcia, Demare, Di Sarli [El Ingenerio], Fresedo [Tigre Viejo]
Tanturi, D'Agostino, Laurenz, Calo, Di Sarli (with singers)
Troilo-bandoneon, Pugliese [Recuerdos]
De Angelis [instrumental], Di Sarli [El Once], Pugliese [Pata Ancha], Troilo [La Bordona], Gobbiitalized are more dubious choices for average milonga
Overall rule: start with simple rhythmic structure (Orquesta Tipica Victor, Lomuto, Canaro), progress to more complex and emotionally charged tandas (Calo, Troilo-bandoneon, Pugliese). This approach lets dancers find their feet and builds tension during milonga. For the same reason play slow milongas in the beginning of the evening. Use fast, rhythmic valses and milongas to contrast slower tango tandas and to shake up dancers late in the evening.
Jun. 18, 2005 - The length of cortina
40 seconds is about right.
Cortina is played to clear the floor, to change partners and the mood of the music. It's like a sip of water, or wine, to rinse your palate before you proceed to taste another dish. In BsAs cortina is played as long as people are still on the floor and a bit more for cabeceo - depending on the size of milonga it takes anywhere between 45 sec to 1:30 minutes to clear the floor (in BsAs everyone returns to their tables after tanda is finished). Sometimes live music is played for cortinas in Salon Canning on Mondays - in this case cortina could last 3 minutes or more, way too long.
In the US about one third to one quarter of the crowd remains on the floor regardless of cortina length (almost everyone leaves after milonga tanda to catch a breath, cool down). I have been to milongas where about 10-15 seconds cortinas where played - in this case I couldn't understand why the DJ bothered to play cortinas at all.
Sep. 15, 2005 - How to cut cortinas
Michael at Tango Bellingham (WA) has asked about the best way to cut cortinas. After trying several approaches (including precut cortinas) I have settled on this: the best (both the most powerful and the most flexible) way to cut cortinas is to use volume control of your sound board, amplifier or speakers as you DJ. This also happens to be rather old fashioned way to make cortinas.
Oct. 12, 2004 - Music. How to make a good tanda. Sequel.
An overview of tango DJing can be found here: http://www.tejastango.com/milongas_djsrole.html. A lot is similar to what I wrote. I would disagree with some of the choices made in sample tandas and most of music listed under neo tango is undanceable in my opinion. Here personal taste matters more, I guess.
Jan. 4, 2005 - DJ software
I am going to DJ at Merc on January 14th. Before my previous DJing forray to Denver I have switched from WinAmp to Windows Media Player 10. What an improvement! Granted there are still some interface bugs, yet, overall, this is the software to get for DJing: song rating, browsing/search for a song without interrupting playing song or indeed leaving current playlist, making changes to the playlist on the fly, burning/ripping CDs - all are very easy to perform.
Apr. 4, 2004 - "Blah" tangos - why play them?
Tango Colorado have conducted a survey of good DJing practices. While most of the results of the survey make perfect sense (I have pasted recommendations below), one of the most important recommendations is missing. Namely: The music should compel to dance, therefore do the homework and do not play boring songs at milonga.
Even the best orchestras have many "blah" songs recorded. Sometimes DJ forget that milonga is not a showcase of the breadth of their CD collection, but rather a place where dancers would like to dance to inspiring music. Assuming conservatively that at least five tango superhits were recorded per year, after hundred years of tango history one can easily compose 5-10 irresistible The-Greatest-Hits milongas.
The recommendations for DJing based on dancers survey (you can view entire message "DJ Survey comments and resulting guidlines for DJing at TC practicas" here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TangoColoradoNews/message/998 ):
---------snip--------------------
While we do not want to stifle what is a very creative task, we are asking that they play primarily classic tango music, which affords thousands of options. We ask that in the beginning of the evening, the music be less complicated and geared to the beginners. We ask that for the community dance, that up beat tangos be played, not milonga or waltz. We ask that if the DJs want to play some tango-able alternative music, they do so toward the end of the evening.
---------snip----------------------December 25, 2006 - On dancing tango to nontango music and on DJing
I have two beliefs as far as DJing is concerned. I believe that it is DJ’s responsibility to play music for most of the dancers at the milonga. I also believe that DJ has to have integrity in his music selection.
I do not play nontango music when I DJ. At one of the recent milongas a woman has approached me with request to play an alternative song from her CD. I refused and promptly forgotten about the incident. The woman didn’t. She wrote about this to Tango Colorado mailing list. This is how I know that her name is Patti Cakes.
In essence Patty’s comment amounts to the statement that the traditional music I play is boring and she has much better music taste and the selection of music besides tango to dance to. Well, that might be true... However, I will reserve my judgement until I hear Patti's DJing style. In my defence I would like to note that, while all opinions are valid and should be listened to, some opinions are much better informed than others. Patti wrote that she has began to listen to tango music about five months ago. I DJ, dance and listen to tango significantly longer than that. I also refuse to approach DJing lightly and, since it is obvious that not everyone understands what is involved in the process, I will explain it below. Normally I do not like to write about the same thing twice – there is too much new staff to think about. Yet I’ll make an exception and will also revisit the topic of alternative music.
We all have various music preferences – it is responsibility of DJ to moderate the choice of the music, which will satisfy most of the various tastes. It is not a simple task and should not be approached lightly. I do not play nontraditional tango music at milongas for the reasons I have explained before: poor rhythmic quality of the alternative music compare to tango and because there is no time tested consensus on what is good alternative music to dance tango to. People have huge variety in music preferences outside of tango, however most dancers will agree that traditional tango music is appropriate to dance tango to.
I put a lot of thought in my music selection for an upcoming milonga. At least couple days before I DJ I pre-sequence all the tandas I plan to play and listen to the entire sequence several times. I do this for the following reasons:
I think of the music played during milonga as a movie soundtrack, composition, where DJ tunes the mood of the dancers via music selection adjusting the mood throughout the evening. I go through those mood changes, test them before the actual dance including pleasant surprises and weeding out any unpleasant, jarring transitions. It is challenging, involving and interesting task.
I know the kind of dancers I should expect at any particular milonga in Colorado (I know the typical preferences of the dancers, who come and go during milonga) and therefore I am able to predict what kind of music any particular group of dancers will enjoy during the evening. Some DJs can select music on the fly – very few tango DJs, that I know of, can do this gracefully. I don’t think I am there yet, therefore I put a lot of effort upfront.
I also play the music I would enjoy dancing to (essentially I test music danceability before playing it). Since I do not dance to nontango music anymore, I do not play it. Consider also that I would have to exclude some beautiful tangos to play music of questionable dance quality. My responsibility before the dancers and integrity as a DJ does not allow me to do this.
It is DJ’s responsibility as well as good idea in general to inform dancers in advance what kind of music will be played to set expectations for milonga. I used to play nontango music at milongas. A while ago I have explained my traditional tango DJing approach to several dancers, who used to my alternative music selections, when they asked me to play some nontango music. Therefore the “experienced tango dancer” was right in advising Patty that I wouldn’t play the music from her CD. What made her to believe that I would change my mind, if she asked me to play her music, why she decided to ignore his or her sage advice, I do not know. But I do feel that DJ should be able to say “No” to a request from time to time, if he feels the request is inappropriate. And that is what I call - DJ’s integrity.
To summarize: To me DJing is much more complex than getting some CDs and pushing “Play” button. Some people might think that that kind of mindless, mechanical DJing is acceptable. I am not one of those people and therefore I beg to differ.
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