Music of the Mundial Final

This post studies the music used in the final of the Mundial de Tango in the years 2012-2015. I have no information about how or why the music is chosen, or whether any guidelines exist for the person or committee choosing the music. In this post I simply observe what they actually chose.

Data

I compiled this data by watching the videos in this playlist. They are kindly provided by Aires de Milonga, a website I recommend; they provide these videos for nothing, but they offer additional services to those who subscribe a very small annual sum via Paypal.

Each final consists of approximately forty couples, and is divided into four Rondas. For each ronda, three tracks are played. Only tangos are used; no milonga or vals.

Over the four years, this gives a total of 3 x 4 x 4 = 48 tracks, but there are actually 49, because in the first ronda of 2013 something happens off-camera during track 3 that bumps the floor and disturbs the competitors' concentration. A fourth track is played, in the same style.

To begin with, I noted the orchestra, singer, and title of each track.  I then searched for the tracks on tango.info and on YouTube until I was reasonably satisfied that I had identified them correctly.

The full data set can be downloaded here: if you notice an error, please describe it in the comments. The tracks are announced at about the 3-minute mark of each ronda, immediately after the couples do their preliminary walk around the floor so the judges can see their numbers.

Observations

Style rotation

I perceived the tracks for each ronda as covering a predominantly dramatic style, a predominantly rhythmic style, and an in-between, lyrical, or other style, in no particular order. I have added these wholly subjective categorisations in the full data set. You will probably disagree with at least some of them, perhaps many. The word "Lyrical" is fairly meaningless and just refers to the in-between or mixed or melody-led style of track that isn't either of the others; often it is the track that would allow competitors to show off the technical achievement of a slow, smooth, graceful walk. I may update my classifications to make them a bit more meaningful and regular.

The use of these three broad styles in each ronda makes sense on the basis that each couple gets the chance to show off a broad range of technical and musical powers. Each ronda in each final obviously needs to be stylistically similar to the other two. I note, though, that 40 couples seems a lot for a 'final'; the naive observer might have expected to see, say, only ten different couples, and see them dance for a little longer or to a wider range of music.

Orchestras

The orchestras used looked like this.

Orchestras of recordings used in the final of the Mundial de Tango, 2012-2015

It seems notable to me that there is absolutely no Biagi, and absolutely no Canaro.

Given the volume and excellence of their output, if they were going to be used at all, you'd think they'd be in there somewhere, over the four years. If you were practicing for the final, and you didn't have this data, you might spend time with those guys; but it seems you'd be wrong.

It can imagine a pretty good argument for not using any Biagi. There's no reasonable substitute, so if you used, say, one of the great Biagi instrumentals in one ronda, it might seem very unfair not to use another in each of the four Rondas. Everybody needs a roughly equal chance to either shine or make fools of themselves; and that would make Biagi too prominent and would mean you had to sacrifice something else. I hypothesise that if there were a vals competition, there'd be plenty of Biagi in there.

There is already a widely-held belief that Argentinians consider Canaro a bit 'common'. Nothing in this data really supports or dispels such an idea; but they don't use any in the final. Nor do they use any of the orchestras that come to mind as stylistically similar to Canaro's most currently-popular output; Lomuto, OTV, Carabelli, Típica Porteña, etc. So it does support the idea that this style of music is not considered appropriate for competition. And again, if there were a milonga competition, we'd see Canaro.

Years of Recording

This is what the years of recording look like.

Year of recordings used in the final of the Mundial de Tango, 2012-2015

It's notable that there's a long tail to the right, stretching all the way to 1959, but nothing at all on the left earlier than 1934.

Decade of recordings used in the final of the Mundial de Tango, 2012-2015

It's no suprise that most of it is from the 40s. But the notable thing for me is that more than a fifth of the recordings are after 1949; they slightly outnumber the ones from the 30s.

Commentary

If you were doing well in the Mundial and you were practicing for the final, it would make a lot of sense to spend about a fifth of your time on each of D'Arienzo, Di Sarli, Pugliese, and Troilo, and the other fifth on exploring how what you have learned applies to whatever else you like among tracks that can be used as stylistic subsitutes for those four; provided that it is not Biagi, not Canaro, and not anything recorded before 1934.

You would also think about three (or more - this is very subjective) broad classifications of style, and you would focus on forming a range of improvisational habits that worked well for each style, regardless of the orchestra.

If you dance socially in Europe, it might also make sense to spend some extra time improving your dance to the 50's output. There's some support in this data for the widespread idea that the Argentinians think the Golden Age of tango music began and ended five to ten years later than the Europeans think it did. You may be less familiar with the nearly 30% of these tracks that were recorded after 1945, and you will probably have no chance to show what you can do with anything before 1935, so that experience is somewhat wasted. Being able to hit 80% of Biagi's off-beats will also be 100% useless, while being able to dance to 50's tangos generally without getting the giggles could be something you need.

Further research, or exercises for the interested reader

Yesterday I attended the first round of the related competition organised in London (there were 14 couples, one from the UK). You might be wondering if the pattern I've seen here was followed, or if it is followed in your own local competition, or the European competition, or anywhere else. I haven't gone through my notes yet, but the data so far says no. Despite dividing thirteen couples into a rather excessive three rondas, I don't think they followed the rotation of styles, and Pablo played both Canaro and OTV. I probably won't attend rounds 2 or 3, as it costs £25 to get in, and that adds up to a bit much, but if you feel like having something to focus on while you're there, go ahead and collect the data. It would be good to note the couple numbers in each round, too, along with your personal top six, and the results.

My guess is that no guidelines are published anywhere about the music, so the practice in local competitions is probably completely unrelated to what's done in the final. I have not tried to collect data for the semi-finals, either, and there's no reason to assume it's the same.

An interesting exercise for the reader - or for further research - would be to consider what three tracks you would use if you wanted, by observation, to identify the best dancers - by your own definition - in a room.

[Edit: I think the announcement at yesterday's competition was that there were 13 couples, but my notes show 14 different numbers; so I've changed it to 14. I could be wrong].

Vague, Subjective Guide to Obvious Tango Orchestras

In no particular order, not even alphabetical, this a dump of my 100% subjective and fairly eccentric mental catalogue. In no way should this be taken as reliable or comprehensive.

Troilo
Sounds the most orchestral of all orchestras - the most like a symphony orchestra. If there seems to be a lot going on, with numerous different sounds having equal prominence, and at the same time it's all rather grand and maybe wants to be part of a larger work, it's probably Troilo. Also sounds like everybody, so if you know you know it, but can't think who it is, it's probably Troilo.

Di Sarli
I can't improve on Mike Lavocah's insight: Di Sarli does everything with the violins. Recorded over a long time with huge variations of style and sound and feeling, but the violins thing is consistent. Also sounds like Fresedo with a difficult girlfriend. Some of the late stuff sounds like Di Sarli trying to be Pugliese; with results that are kind of wonderful, if you can keep a straight face.

D'Arienzo
Sounds loud, even when playing quietly. Dense texture. Had Biagi at the piano for a lot of it, and sounds like Biagi without the holes. Some of the late stuff sounds not just intense, but completely bonkers, until you compare it with Biagi. The flesh and organs of tango.

Biagi
Sounds like D'Arienzo with holes in. A lighter texture, and not just intense, but genuinely eccentric. The offbeats are much more unexpected. Appears never to have recorded a bad or boring track. A truckload of amazing valses, not enough milongas. In the late recordings he doesn't fall into the trap of imitating Pugliese; he's influenced by changes of style, and grows, but remains his entirely genuine, electric, eccentric self.

Canaro
Kind of the backbone of tango, including the dodgy discs and the odd hernia, gunshot splinter or missing fortune. Always sounds totally professional, brisk, and organised. Best when there's a really strong tune and Maida singing. But recorded a lot, for a long time, and is very various.

Caló
Sounds glossy and dark. Salon in a dark suit. Tbh I can't describe it very well because are only a few tracks I like all that much, and most of those remind me of the JAWS theme. The ones that are good are magnificent.

Fresedo
Sounds like a 30's Hollywood movie involving palm trees and pineapple hats. Tuneful, romantic, often a bit sugary. Or like Di Sarli with a nicer girlfriend and fewer violins.

Laurenz
Sort of buzzy. Like dancing bees. The most famous tracks have Alberto Podesta doing the operatic tenor thing. When he flies, he still comes down at the right moment. Bermudez has a darker, lower voice. But the bees are still there.

Tanturi
Sounds kind of like teeny-tiny Troilo for a much smaller room. Still a lot going on, but more portably.

Pugliese
The sound of the orchestra itself, with or without the singer, is full of love. This is music of a bigger picture, but expressed for and by two humans in one embrace that embraces a whole world.  Pugliese is never caught up in narrow emotionality; but is deeply and satisfyingly real, like a plate of egg and chips. Pugliese was so influential that all the modern orchestras seem to be trying to sound like him, which is a trap better musicians than they are have also fallen into.

Rodriguez
Sounds like walking along very carefully, one step at a time, not stepping on the lines on the pavement, because of the bears. But either quite amiably tipsy, or, in some tracks, weeping drunk.

D'Agostino
Sauntering, episodic, and sounds a bit pissed off, or rambling drunk. Nice to play with when you're not going anywhere in particular. On reflection, I prefer the ones where Vargas comes in early and sings his thing, and the orchestra provides a fairly brisk, minimal frame otherwise.

De Angelis
Another kind of sauntering and episodic that wanders off in no particular direction and has a giant drama while staring at some random wall. Generally a bit art-movie. History's most annoying Cumparsita, which wurbles on for what seems like twenty minutes, is instantly forgotten, and then keeps coming back in your head for days.

Donato
Probably the one that sounds most like late 19th century opera that you can dance to. Like the Pearl Fishers or Tosca. Properly entertaining music, with loads of rhythm, super tunes, and the occasional quite good joke.

Demare
Lush (Mike Lavocah again). A gooey chocolate hazelnutty sort of sound with a trace of jazz. I love it.

Lomuto
Daaah-dum. Dark woodwind with a distinctive ending.

OTV (Orquesta Tipica Victor)
Victor studio house band: sounds incredibly professional and picked good songs. Wants to be driving scene music for a low-dialogue film.

I usually don't hear the opening of the first track and name the orchestra in my head, unless the track is a particular favourite or has a very distinctive opening: I usually just focus on how much I like it, and who I am most interested in dancing with, based on the general feeling it gives me. When I name the orchestra it's usually later, whether I'm dancing or not. This is why I get absolutely ropeable if the DJ plays their weakest track first in the tanda, or plays inconsistent tandas that don't carry through what the first track promised. Don't do it!

Review: Tango Negro - Film Africa Festival 2015

Dom Pedro, director of "Tango Negro - les racines
africaines du Tango"

Warning: this contains lots of spoilers. It's a documentary, it was only a single showing at the Royal African Society's annual film festival, and the chances that you'll get to see it are limited, so I think you might like to know what's in it. If you feel otherwise, stop when you get to the spoilers mark.

"Tango Negro" is directed and written by Angolan director Dom Pedro, who explained in the Q&A session that he was inspired to make this documentary by a football match in the 1990 World Cup between Argentina and Cameroon. Watching this match on TV in Paris, he asked himself why, given the football teams from Uruguay and Brazil, there were no black players for Argentina or Chile. A look at any globe tells you that this is a rather good question, by which I mean a question the answer to which is not obvious and might be very interesting. He decided to explore this question by means of music history.

The main presenter is Juan Carlos Cáceres. It was nice to hear from him, as he is responsible for this danceable tango nuevo track and for Tango Negro which gives its title to this film. We see him playing and interacting with other musicians and musicologists, black and white, in Argentina, Paris, and Uruguay. We also hear contributions from other musicians, an excellent drum band (pictured), instrument makers, cultural and family historians, cultural influencers, and so on. I'm sorry that I can't give you the names of the contributors, as they were only identified very briefly, and the film's website doesn't list them at all.

Excellent drumming band.

This is not, however, a film even mainly about music or dance. In fact, it is a mixture of musical interludes and a fascinating ramble through current cultural events and the social, political and demographic history of Argentina. I would be very interested to see a film about the music and dances of western Africa and their relationships with tango. This is an interesting film, but it's not that one.

-- Spoilers from here on. --

As a whole, the core argument is: there is a common belief among Argentinians and others that Argentina "is a white country" (as evidenced by the lived experience of actual fifth-generation black Argentinians being constantly asked if they are from Uruguay), which is in a sense mistaken, but is explained by history. A secondary argument, presented as evidence for the first, is that tango music could not have happened, and cannot be properly understood, without the African people of Argentina and Uruguay, their music, and the music and dance of the Congo region of West Africa.

The relevant history includes the active white-supremacist policies (my description, not the film's) of 19th and 20th century governments, which seem to have taken effect in three ways: a 19th century war that was pursued in such a way as to kill a disproportionate number of black men; an immigration project of mindboggling scale; and social incentives for the assimilation by marriage of the remaining black population of both sexes into white families over two centuries. The impression that I took away from the film was that these three processes reduced the visible African-ness of the population over about 150 years from perhaps sixty percent, or even more, to a level almost invisible to the eye in urban areas, while it remained clearly audible, along with other influences, in the popular music.

There are quite long sections where musicians of various backgrounds play together and music is allowed to speak for itself. These sections are really where the musical case is made, perhaps in the best way possible. But otherwise, the subject is much broader than music or dance.

The interviews take place in France, Argentina, and Uruguay, and I sometimes lost track of where we were. The camera work in some scenes is unsteady and difficult to watch. There's no linear chronology either to the history or to the discussion, there are a lot of contributors whose descriptions are hard to keep track of, the English subtitles have confusing mistakes, and the historical events aren't very clearly set out. The music for the film is mostly composed by Cáceres and the sound is good in general.

There are very few women in the film, among very numerous contributors. Two black Argentinian women make important contributions. The first speaks very touchingly about tango as a dance and about her parents, especially her father, an excellent dancer who made a living teaching tango: she was the only contributor who gave the impression of a personal attachment to the dance itself. The second was, I think, the president of a cultural association of African-descended Argentinians, and had eloquent, powerful insights about the historical stories illustrated in her own family. They were the most memorable contributors for me. A couple more women speak briefly, and another handful are unspeaking musicians or dancers.

The general absence of women otherwise - together with the absence of any discussion of characteristic instruments, melody, or social dance practices, and a reeled-off list of Uruguayan contributors to tango that didn't include Canaro - added to my feeling that the dance itself, with its history and development, was in no way a subject of the film and wasn't of much interest to the director. That's not a bad thing; you could fairly say the film is about much more important subjects; but you should bear it in mind if your personal interest is as a dancer.


As a dancer, I would have liked to hear more from the African and European musicologists who appeared only at the beginning. I wanted to know more about the Angolan and other West African partner dances that were mentioned but not shown. I wanted to know more about the word "tango" and it's meanings in various West African contexts and languages, which were mentioned, but not gone into. It's an odd sort of word, that anyone might wonder about. I wanted to hear more about candombe, the music and the dance and the events related to it; a "candombe ceremony" was mentioned as having been practiced annually and later replaced by a carnival, but it wasn't explained. It's possible that the expected audience didn't need that explanation, I don't know. The Kizomba part turned out to be only at the afterparty, which I wasn't still awake for.

This was not that film. This film addressed the question about the football match, the answer being partly "there actually are, in a sense" and partly "because policies sometimes achieve their aims". It told me a lot of things I didn't know, was touching and funny in places, and includes a lot of very enjoyable music. It wasn't a film mainly about dance, or entirely about music. But it inspired me with a lot of questions about those subjects, and if someone would like to go and make that film, I'd be happy to make a modest Patreon contribution.

Playlist and exercise for the interested reader

While waiting for my friends to arrive before the showing, I spent about thirty minutes going through the modest collection of tango music on my 'device' and making a playlist of those tracks whose titles or lyrics unambiguously say they are in some way or other about the the lives, music or culture of black people. Only half of them are milongas. All of them make some kind of musical reference beyond the lyrics, and someone who knows their music and lyrics better than me could certainly follow those musical threads to a much broader playlist. Here is what I got in half an hour, as a YouTube playlist. I'm sure many of my readers can do better, and even make tandas, so go ahead and post playlists in the comments, using any way of choosing you think is interesting, if you feel like it.

Dancing with DJs

Dancing with DJs is fascinating. A few experiments over quite a few years:

Dance results	..... DJing results
Always on the beat, but nothing in between the beats, and no concept of the musical phrase.	..... Strong music, senselessly arranged.
Plain vanilla Salon, sense of emotional  engagement hard to find	..... Careful, well-organised, reliable sets, if unexciting
Talented and fun, salted with a few things he can't actually do, but only occasionally	..... Enjoyable set, with a couple of interesting failures.
Original, interesting, rather vague, and very difficult to follow	..... 20% enchanted, 80% asleep
Good, give or take temporary obsessions with something-or-other, so that you dread it coming.	..... Good, give or take temporary obsessions with second-rank orchestras and omitting the Di Sarli tanda.
Smooth, sensual, salon with a heart, good allrounder, averts eyes from Wonderbra at the perfect moment	..... Strong, unpretentious, disciplined sets with a good connection to the floor
Totally secure in what he does. Total calm, simplicity, self-belief, and feeling.	..... Full range of top tracks, so immensely arranged that everyone present is still dancing in the 24th hour of 24 hours of dancing over three days, or so the icebreaking impetus of an opening set lasts the whole weekend, and I've seen him do this over and over again.

.

The Travels of Tuneage - Dark Eyes

It appears that the words of the song known as "Dark Eyes" were written by a Ukranian poet called Yevhen Pavlovych Hrebinka, who published a Russian version in 1843, possibly as a compliment to the woman he later married. It was then set - it doesn't seem clear by whom or when - to a waltz written, probably in Russia, perhaps as early as the 1810s, by a German (or possibly French) composer called Florian or Feodor Hermann.

First, here's the playlist link for this post, in case you want to open it in another window and just let it play.

The title of this waltz is given by Wikipedia and others in French as "valse hommage", but this pianist, Alexander Zlatkovski of Alaska,  calls it "Recollection", which seems to me like a reasonable translation. His research has found one account saying it started out as a march and was changed to a waltz by the composer, which is interesting in relation to what happens later, although he's not at all convinced.



The result - perhaps with a minor rewrite adding some gloomier words, since Hrebinka and the young lady seem to have got on fine - was the song popularised by the Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin. The title Очи чёрные is written in several ways in Roman letters, but most often as "ochi chornye". A similar version is played by violinist Albert Sandler in this Pathé clip (not on the Youtube playlist).



At about the same time - 1915 to 1920 - it seems to have been rewritten with English words by an British Italian composer, Adalgiso Ferraris. He made one big change; the rhythm. Here's Al Bowlly singing. Rhythmically and melodically, and minus the over-drastic changes of speed towards the end, this would be a sweet tango, a bit like Rafael Canaro's French ones. It doesn't have enough oomph for me, and it's too dominated by the vocalist, but it's quite nice.



Ferraris is also the credited on this '78 by Harry Parry and his radio sextet; but they're taking it in a totally different direction, dancewise.



Toto, I don't think we are waltzing any more.

Nor, apparently, did Louis Armstrong, or his percussionist:



That's the one that started me making this little collection, when Deborah Segantini posted it on Facebook.

 So, we get lots of different versions, each artist adding their own riffs to complement the simple and memorable tune.

Django Reinhardt called it "Les Yeux Noirs".



This French movie version of Les Yeux Noirs, is a waltz again, with accordion. But only until the end of the vocal line. Then it changes at 1:50 and goes for the 'gypsy' sound.



This bombastic performance by the Red Army Choir does the same thing. Eventually.

There's also a German waltz version which seems to be just a translation - Schwartze Augen - of Chaliapin's hit, and, in my opinion, need not detain us, not even on the playlist. I far prefer the drunk-sounding jazz one from the soundtrack of Das Boot.

Chet Atkins' version follows Les Yeux Noirs in starting out as a waltz and then changing after the first minute and doing something else.



I can't really compare all these very different styles of music. But of all the ways this melody gets extended and enhanced, I think Francisco Canaro's B-tune in Ojos Negros is exceptionally good. Instead of brilliant variations on the tune and rhythm, this beautiful tango - with Roberto Maida singing the Spanish words - adds a second melody the equal of the first. As far as I know, the second melody is original to this piece - if anyone knows otherwise, do put it in the comments.



Now, let's meet a totally different sound world. This one was written in Sundanese (the language of the western part of Java) by an Indonesian composer Ismael Marzuki in honour of his wife, who was from round there.



It actually reminds me, a bit, of the more lyrical kizombas (kizomba is the "angolan tango" that I sometimes play at work to drown my colleagues' wittering - check it out on YouTube. It varies a lot).

 Panon Hideung comes in a Karaoke version, with dancing. Go on, click.



You may already be wondering what this song is called in Japanese.

It's called Dark Eyes. The title is written 黒い瞳 and pronounced Kuroi Hitomi. Embedding is disabled on this version by popular 50's crooner Frank Nagai, whose singing I must say is lovely. I thought I had the wrong thing at first, but then realised it does the reverse of what Canaro does: the words have their own, different melody, and Dark Eyes doesn't come in till 1:38, with the instrumental section. There's a very regular ballroom tango beat.

Once you know how to copy/paste the title, you can quickly find versions with the "Dark Eyes" melody sung. Here's a Karaoke one. I notice "J. Iglesias" is mentioned in the opening credits. Investigating Julio Iglesias' involvement with this particular tune is left as an exercise for the reader. there are probably lots more directions we could go in.

I will sign off for the night, however, with this indescribably sweet Japanese choral take. It's a waltz to begin with, then changes, like Les Yeux Noirs. It seems a lot of mid-twentieth-century French songs have versions in Japanese, and that may well be where this came from.



Special thanks go to Deborah Segantini for the idea and to Hidemi Asano for her Japanese research.

Sharing music

Completing the incomplete thought of my previous post, I want to explain again some of what the pleasure is, specifically, in dancing the way I dance.

Imagine you were very young and you had some favourite music and you found a friend who thought it was as just as cool as you did. You could listen to it together and you knew it very well, but you were still two people, hearing it with four ears. You could look at each other and you could wave your arms or go "dum, dum, DUMMMM!" at all the cool bits, and sometimes your friend would notice something you hadn't noticed and go "Laa laa laaa diddly PLINK!" and you would pick up on it as they were saying it and by the time they got to the PLINK! you were doing the same thing, only differently, and more so, and there was so much more happiness in sharing that, than in appreciating it all alone.

And imagine you could hug each other and climb inside the music together, telling each other's bodies without any words exactly how it sounded for each of you.

[Edit: here's a video suggested by Matthew in the comments. It's lovely, and it pretty much makes the same point. :) ]

Musicality with Dawn Hampton and John Dokes (Swing)

My favourite thing about this video is that the band is LIVE and both of them still dance as though they know every split second of the music. Because they understand it as dance music, and so does the band, and they're all paying attention to each other, and when you cooperate and you understand the form and what each other are doing, you don't need to know exactly what's coming next.



For example: at 00:50, the feigned surprise is funny because he completely hit that, and that's why he seemed like a leaf on the wind of sound. And at 05:05, again.

The band would appear to be The George Gee Jump, Jivin' Wailers of New York City.

I've posted this video before, in 2009. It still makes me happy - it might make you happy, too.

Minirigs

I knew I wanted one, because I'd heard them in action. Two of them chained from a laptop are plenty to fill a good-sized room and have a perfectly good pop-up milonga with twenty or thirty people or so. Which is a nice thing to think, even if you don't do it. But they come in several charming colours, and I put it off and put it off partly because they are rather expensive, but mainly because (they being so expensive) I wanted them to be perfect and I couldn't decide which colour to get.

Then they brought out these purple ones with the yellow ends, and totally made the sale.

I played with them for a while after buying them, enjoying both the sound and the purple-and-yellowness. They're not cheap. They're a bit lurid. As I smiled at them, one of those flashes of self-knowledge informed me that these have now become the thinking woman's Comme Il Faut.

I've taken one on trips a few times, and used one this Spring (turned down very quiet) for dancing outside Pisa airport. And it was enough. I thought I wouldn't get the use out of them that I should for the price, since dancing in airports doesn't happen as often as it ought, but they're so small and so good that I use them all the time. I have one constantly on the dinner table for listening to lectures and radio programmes from my tablet, and the other in the bedroom. The only annoying thing is the bright battery-status light, which I cover with blu-tack if I am playing a lullaby.

But I am just as much a sucker for a clever, expensive consumer product as anyone, so just recently I bought the gold subwoofer as well. And it sounds GREAT. Of course, it enhances any music where the bass is important - and if you were teaching a muscality class, you'd probably find it very useful. But I also like the way it enhances speaking voices, especially male.

Now it lives on the dinner table too. In the picture I'm listening to a conversation about how the Hubble Space Telescope is steered. As for playing tango music from my computer, I like all sorts of things that I didn't much enjoy listening to at home before.

Anyway, here are Richard's in the form of action most likely to interest my readers - DJing from an iPad at a party. He didn't bring a subwoofer, as it's not needed in such a small room. I really WANT the pokketmixer you can see at the front (which is unpowered and lets you plug in headphones and switch channels to prelisten) but I have absolutely no sensible reason to buy one and they're, like, 90 EUR. So I'm not going to do that. Really. Not yet, anyway. It's so cute and clever, though. Maybe I could get one for Christmas.



The Minirigs are made in England - in Bristol, I think, or at least they are designed and tested there. They all come with their own padded cases and cables, and they sell a special backpack for carrying the whole setup and turning yourself into a walking sound system, but I don't like the design for this situation - I'm visualising an adapted hard-shelled briefcase that would open, maybe slide and click, and sort of fold itself inside-out, and be ready to go. It would need pockets for up to four minirigs, the subwoofer, the pokketmixer, the cables, some headphones, the ipad perhaps - and some reading glasses, in case you forget.

You can chain together as many as you want, which is very efficient if you are having a party and several of your friends own some. Obviously, though, you pay for the portability and style, so if you want a proper sound system for a big room, two big speakers of equivalent quality are going to be much cheaper than six little ones.

No they have not given me anything, but it would be ACE if they did.

Was that good? DJ questionnaire

DJing well is a tremendous amount of work. Owning a lot of music is not enough; it also requires knowledge, taste, and immensely time-consuming preparation. I'm not interested in doing it, because it's far too much work, and I'd rather be dancing. It's only done well by people who really like doing it for its own sake, and who really like doing the work that's required.

Uninformed dancers with no expectations create bad DJing and help it persist, and bad DJing limits the overall quality of dancing by making social dancing much more difficult than it needs to be.

I'd like DJs to be more appreciated. This checklist aims to help the dancer, especially the beginner, think about DJing. It assumes no more musical knowledge than the ability to tell the difference between tango, milonga, and vals, but it does partly rely on tango music making some sense to you and making you want to move. Some of it is very subjective, but some of it is not. Enjoy the usual bitchy bits.

Start at 0. Add or deduct points as shown to compare DJs. You might choose more than one answer for some of the questions. If you wanted to customise it to your priorities, obviously you could change the scores. I tend to penalise bad performance on the more mechanical, measurable things, because there's no good reason for getting that stuff wrong.

Musical Basics

Was any of the music unsuitable for dancing tango socially? For example:

• It asks you to stand still and pose, like a pillock, rather than dance
• It is impossible to keep exactly with it unless you know the particular recording by heart
• It strongly suggests big, fast dramatic movements and sudden changes of speed that are rude and impractical for social dancing in the space available
• It is great dance music, but brings out the worst in the dancers who are actually there.

If in doubt, look at the room as a whole: giveaways are that the line of dance stops flowing and collapses into chaos, there are lots of crashes, and most of the actually-good dancers sit down, hide, or go for a smoke unless somebody grabs them. If that's what your place is normally like, adjust your judgement accordingly. [Edit: What you are looking for is whether the DJ, or an individual tanda, makes a difference].

1. None of those problems happened (+10)
2. One or two dodgy moments (-5)
3. Several dodgy sections (-7)
4. Tanda after tanda, I was bored, bruised or both (-10)

Were you ever caught out by a piece that did not fit in that tanda and caused difficulty, embarrassment or disappointment to you or your partner? For example:

• A jarring change of mood or style mid-tanda, so that you felt you had to unscrew your head and screw it back on again
• A misleading opener that meant you missed out on a tanda you would otherwise have liked
• A weak or disappointing piece in the middle, or to finish
• Excessively jarring changes of speed
• A mixed-up tanda of music you would have preferred to dance with two different people - or some of it not at all.

1. None of those problems happened (+10)
2. Once or twice, maybe a matter of opinion (-3)
3. More, maybe a matter of opinion (-5)
4. Once or twice, definitely! (-7)
5. More than that (-10)
6. All the flipping time! (-15)

As a whole, not worrying about specific tracks, how was the sound quality?

1. Good - I could feel the music and really get into it (+7)
2. OK - I could hear it everywhere (+5)
3. Poor - I couldn't hear it clearly enough to get into it properly - muffled / no detail / no depth / too quiet / loud-but-muddy / distorted / too loud because DJ is deaf (-5)
4. Not applicable, the equipment at this venue is poor so I can't tell (0)

Were there any poor choices of specific tracks, like something much too fast, much too slow, or with unacceptable sound quality?

1. No (+5)
2. One or two, not sure (0)
3. More than that (-5)

 Did the cortinas make you happy?

1. Yes (+5)
2. They made people happy, just not specifically me (+3)
3. No, they were generally annoying (-3)
4. They didn't do the job, I couldn't always tell what was a cortina or they didn't play any (-5)
5. Not applicable - this milonga has a no-cortinas policy (0)

Basic Basics

Were there enough vals (V) and milonga (M) tandas in proportion to the tango (T), and were they played in a regular pattern so you knew where you were?

1. About right - somewhere in the range TTVTTM or TTTTVTTTTM, whatever made sense given the length of this milonga (+5)
2. Not enough - TTTTTTTTTTM or something (-5)
3. Too much - TVTMTVTMTVTM DJ WTF? (-7)
4. So chaotic that I couldn't tell - TT VV TTTTVTTTTTMTMV, or something. (-10)
5. "Tanda" isn't the right word. (-15).

Were the cortinas long enough for you to clear the floor and find your next partner without obstructing anyone else's view, given the size of the room, and supposing there was somewhere to sit down?

1. Yes (+3)
2. No (-3)

Did the DJ sign off gracefully at the end with some non-tango music for people to calm down and clear up to, assuming that was possible?

1. Yes (+4)
2. No, they used all the time available and just stopped there (0)

Professionalism

Did the music have the DJ's full attention?

1. Yes, all or almost all the time (+5)
2. Yes, as much as necessary in the situation (+3)
3. Less than that (-3)
4. No, they went out for a smoke and the music stopped (-10)
5. No, they put on a playlist/CD and buggered off (-20)

If there were any problems with the equipment, did the DJ deal with them calmly and competently?

1. Yes, outstanding - e.g. drove home and got some better kit, found another computer (+7)
2. Met expectations - worked around it, fixed it (+5)
3. Drama! But dealt with it (+3)
4. No (-5)
5. Not applicable (0)

Did the DJ have any difficulty operating the sound equipment?

1. No (+2)
2. There was one cock-up (-2)
3. There were some problems, understandable in the circumstances (0)
4. The DJ was clearly unprepared (-7)

Did the DJ seem at any time to forget what s/he was there for? Did they, for example, follow a twenty-minute performance, in a three-hour milonga, with a five-minute jive track for just one single couple to dance to in an unofficial bonus performance, while everyone else waited around like lemons, as though for the photographs at a flipping wedding, and in the awkward position of having to pretend that they weren't at all annoyed and didn't have anything better to do than watch this vanity?

1. No (0)
2. Yes (-5)
3. Yes, and that couple included him/her self or his/her spouse/partner and/or at least one of the couple who had just been performing (-10)
4. Yes, but, I was ok with it under the circumstances (0)

If there was an interlude of country dancing, like chacharera, or some other dance like jive or salsa, was it considerately timed, not too long, and enjoyable by a reasonable number of the people who were there?

1. Yes, it was fun, I enjoyed it / I didn't mind watching (0)
2. No, it was a tedious mess, nobody could dance to it, or it took up the last hour before the last train! (-5)
3. It was annoying but it was required by the guest teachers or the venue (0)

Harder Questions

Was the music:

1. Pretentiously salted with the undanceable, the obscure or the inappropriate (-10)
2. Thoughtlessly arranged over time, with good things spoiled by being too close together (-5)
   
3. Ok, but one-paced, too much of one kind of thing (+5)
4. Good, but with a strong DJ style that just isn't my taste (+10)
5. Appropriately varied, with a good mixture between rhythmic and lyrical and dramatic, given the situation (+15)
6. Brilliantly mixed, with every tanda feeling like a perfect change after the one before (+20)

How did you feel about the 'energy' in the room?

1. Confused and chaotic. (-7)
2. Low. I couldn't get started, or my favourite partners couldn't. (-5)
3. A bit flat, I liked the music but somehow didn't really feel like getting going (-2)
4. Good, it was going consistently well (+5)
5. Beautiful, it really came together with varied good feelings (+10)
6. Fantastic, I had a great night, everyone was buzzing, everything flowed and I was also really happy when I was sitting down (+15)

Pick three very good social dancers who were there, preferably single ones. How much did they seem to be dancing?

1. Not at all, maybe one or two tandas with the right person (-5)
2. A bit, same as usual really (0)
3. More than usual (+5)
4. All the time, and taking more risks than usual with partner choice (+10)

Subjectively, what did you think? No scores here - compare with what you got above.

1. It was genius / it was a revelation to me / it transformed the place or situation for the better.
2. It was very good. I was very happy with it.
3. It was good but had some flaws, or it was well-done but not my thing.
4. It was good and consistent, I could trust it, but maybe it wasn't inspiring.
5. It was generally innocuous and didn't cause me any serious problems.
6. Not good - it was weak or annoyed me a few times.
7. It was poor. I couldn't trust it. If something good came up, I had to grab someone.
8. It was bad - I, or my desired partners, just didn't want to dance. No point in staying.

I'd draw the "ask them back" line between 4 and 5.

[Edit 24-08-2012: Cet article maintenant disponible en Francais. Merci, Ben de El Recodo Tango.] 

Tuneage

A tango that recently got stuck in my head for twenty-four hours - Ventarrón, Orquesta Típica Victor. I would have posted a performance but I couldn't find one I liked.


I actually rang up a friend in another country in order to hum it to her: and just like me, she and the other tanguera sitting with her knew it perfectly well but couldn't think what it was called. The words are here; only the first two stanzas are actually sung, but the whole (as far as I can guess) appears to be about an aged warrior of the streets, his fame once, his loneliness and infirmity now.

I didn't know the words, which is why I couldn't remember what it was called. But one of the reasons it got stuck in my head was that this wonderfully rhythmic, fighting and plangent tune reminds me very strongly of the final scene of the first act of Tosca - specifically from where Scarpia (the villain, chief of police) comes into the church to the point where, after soliloquising of sex and violence (he's planning both, but sex is the current priority) with his back to the pious crowd, he joins, with magnificent baritone hypocrisy, in the Te Deum. That whole bit would be too long, but there are lots of versions on YouTube that just do the last bit of it, from "Tre sbirri, una carozza". This one is good and doesn't suffer from anything particularly bizarre in the sets or costumes. Scarpia's makeup is explained by this being a stage production - inevitably strange on screen.


I don't know exactly why the one reminds me of the other. Of course, there's a fairly close relationship between these two genres of music, only two generations apart. Something about the melody, something about the rhythm, something about the relationship between them.

There's a Lego Tosca on YouTube. If you look.

Hah, a small victory (Magalenha)

The Samba Lady pretended, at the end of the class, that she was going to have us do the basic samba step at sprint speed from where the drums come in at 00:45 to the end of Magalenha.



She stopped the music before half way through because too much of the class had dropped out. But I already knew I could do it, because I'd practiced it at home until I could, and that blonde on the left is not going to get the better of me. Hah.

I don't think what I did makes a lot of sense,  musically speaking, and I think the rhythm in this song also has another name, as well as samba, that I can't remember. Most people seem to call it samba, however, and sambaing to it right through at the faster of the two possible speeds is a very good aerobic workout, at least if you remember to breathe, which was why I did it. It's a wonderfully infectious song that keeps you moving pretty much regardless of what you do.

This performance I think is really beautiful:

Music with Holes In - Biagi and the Dancing Flower

Biagi, to me, is music with holes in; it has an open, airy texture, like a Swiss cheese. A lot of people find it challenging to dance to, perhaps in apprehension of falling down the holes and embarrassing themselves. It's wonderful stuff, though.

Here, then, by the request of some very dear friends, (one of whom said that her perception of El Flete had been transformed by the Dancing Flower's interpretation) is Biagi's "La Viruta" danced by a piezoelectric plastic flower. Just in case you were in danger of taking this tango nonsense too seriously.



The Dancing Flower loves Biagi! Analyses in the comments please. (I know the video quality isn't too good - the original is high quality but my internet connection doesn't really have the upload speed for HD - sorry).

Mucho Mucho - D'Arienzo

A-ha! I can now give you links to (some) things I'm listening to. You might not have to download the Spotify player for this link to work - but if you do, it seems pretty reliable, and makes talking about music on the internet easier. You can stream it:

Juan D'Arienzo – Mucho Mucho

The above link gives you a high quality stream. There's a version on YouTube with some meaningless graphics, and you can get it on iTunes. It doesn't sound great on my computer speakers - if you have quality earphones you'll probably want to use them to hear the bass. I can't hear it at all if I don't plug mine in, and it's very important.

It comes on this excellent-value 10-cd set El Tango. Some of the recordings are messed up - there's one D'Arienzo milonga which seems to play at half speed, and there's something wrong with all of the Di Sarli. But it's full of interest.

I listened to this one a couple of times and absolutely loved it - most of all because it reminds me of someone I know. In fact, when I played it to my regular practice partner he thought of the same person.

So why had I never heard it played? As a piece of music I think it's brilliant.

I can only make out some of the words, and as usual I've failed to find them online. But I think it's about that sensation of being in love for five minutes while you dance, forgetting everything else, and the music seems to be about the sensations of being in love generally.

The violins have these butterflies of melody (at the start, and at 00:45)- the piano catches its breath a few times, skips a beat and goes crazy (01:05-01:15) - the bandoneones enclose you in a swirling, disorienting, obsessed wall of sound, especially when the voice comes in after 01:40. What a dark voice (apparently Armando Laborde, recording dated 1953). The sung melody has a little change at 02:30 like a plea. It's telling you to dance along the edge of chaos.

Oops. That doesn't sound like a great idea.

D'Arienzo in general makes some people feel a bit seasick, and this is a very marked example.You might listen to this and feel alarmed and queasy rather than excited - it could go either way.

And, on a few more repetitions, I decided that I just don't think it's a good choice for social dancing. At least, not when the voice comes in and pushes and pulls at the rhythm. It's great as art-song, but both melody and rhythm are really strong, and whatever you do, you're going to be fighting one of them. That's not a good thing on a social dancefloor. There's this beat, this melody, and the swirling walls of sensation, shutting out reality, the sense of risk and disorientation - I can just see this causing mayhem, purely by people dancing to it in ways that make perfect musical sense. It might be rather good for an exciting stage performance, I'm not sure, but when I play this and try to imagine a social dance floor as a whole, it just doesn't work for me. You may disagree, and another practice partner said he had heard it played, just not anywhere I went.

But I love it for listening.

Evelyn Glennie on sound, the body, meaning, and music

Well worth paying attention to, on so many levels. If you're a dancer and you don't have 32 minutes right now, I'd suggest 05:30-07:50, in which she goes from the relationship between music and the body to a beautiful demonstration of the difference between playing music and giving it meaning. Like the difference between reciting a platitude and speaking a thought.

From the TED website:

In this soaring demonstration, deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie illustrates how listening to music involves much more than simply letting sound waves hit your eardrums. Scottish percussionist and composer Evelyn Glennie lost nearly all of her hearing by age 12. Rather than isolating her, it has given her a unique connection to her music.

Hat tip C.W. who shared this on Facebook.

No hay tierra como la mia

Some music: Ian Bostridge – Semele HWV58: Where E're You Walk - George Fredrick Handel

Where'er you walk ...

... cool gales shall fan the glade ...

... Trees, where you sit ...

... shall crowd into a shade ...

... Where'er you tread ...

... the blushing flowers shall rise ...

... and all things flourish ...

... where'er you turn your eyes ...

... where'er you turn your eyes ...

I wish I could convey to you the velvet texture of these young oak leaves. Not very good pictures, as I don't practice this enough, but there are so many sorts of bluebells.

iTunes Smart Playlists for music education

Here's a quick computer-use tutorial for some of my mates. If you already know how to use iTunes Smart Playlists and why you might want to, and you already have an opinion about Di Sarli with Rufino versus Di Sarli with Duran, you can probably skip this post.

The task: A friend was annoyed, some weeks ago, when somebody played a mixed tanda of Di Sarli with Rufino and Di Sarli with Durán. I hadn't noticed, but it makes him feel jarred, as though he had to stop, change all his settings, and screw his head back on again. I asked why, and he explained that it's not so much about the singer sounding different, although they do, it's that they worked with Di Sarli's orchestra at different times and there's a big difference of style. So although he likes both, he doesn't like getting up for a tanda of one and then finding himself dancing with the other half way through.

To find out whether I agreed with him or not, I had to listen to a string of Di Sarli/Rufino and a string of Di Sarli/Duran and think about the difference. A good time to do the listening is on my commute, but I don't want to be fiddling with my ipod all the way, peering at the tiny screen, so I want a playlist of each, as long as I have available.

The solution: This is obviously a job for the computer. Finding all the tracks I own with a specific combination of orchestra and singer is the kind of thing they can do quicker than us. iTunes is in many ways annoying, but the easy-to-miss 'smart playlist' feature does this job quite well.

Go up to the top menu and go File --> New Smart Playlist, or on Windows you can do Ctrl+Alt+N. Now this appears, and I put a singer's name in it:

I'm telling iTunes to find me everything with the words "Roberto Rufino" anywhere in the Artist box. The playlist should be of unlimited length - I want to hear everything - and "Live updating" means I want it to update automatically whenever I add more of this artist's music to the collection. (All I have to do is read the album track lists carefully - sometimes they identify the singer for each track somewhere at the bottom in small print - and make sure I put the names in the boxes. "Album Artist" is for whatever it says on the cover - in "Artist" I just identify the artists for that track).

If a singer appears in my collection with more than one orchestra, I could, if I wanted, add another rule by clicking the + sign to the right. So in the smart playlist below, I'm saying I only want Podestá with Di Sarli, and not, for example, Podestá with Pedro Laurenz.

The + is also very handy if you've used more than one spelling of a name, say you've sometimes written "R. Rufino" because that's what it said on the CD insert. I tend to write exactly what it says, and not assume that two non-identical forms of a name are the same person without good evidence like seeing both forms on the same CD, in which case I write the full version throughout. That way I don't lose information, and I don't risk accidentally generating false information through my own ignorance. There's no real need to standardise, as it's so easy to use multiple forms in a smart playlist and have the computer search for all of them.

You can name the playlists and arrange them in folders.

I have playlists for milongas and valses (I use the 'grouping' field) and for various combinations of values in "Artist", which gives me playlists by orchestra and by singer.

So, what was the answer?

There really is a big difference of style, which was obvious once I separated them out and listened to them in bulk on the way to work. The ones with Rufino are warmer, darker and more flowing. They seem sort of earthier to me. Di Sarli / Durán I can only describe as stately and glamorous, but with less forward drive. And with heavily-signalled, squishy endings. They make me think a bit of a Hollywood set for an early-colour musical. Durán's voice is more towards a trumpet sound than a clarinet, and the arrangements are quite different. I know that all sounds like wine talk, or like people saying Pugliese is purple, so if you want to figure it out you'll probably have to listen and come up with a description yourself.

My friend's dance is very expressive of those kinds of variations, especially the differences in drive and flow and swooshiness, and although he would probably be equally happy dancing to either Rufino or Durán, I can see why the change in dynamics would really wind him up in the middle of a tanda.

If I add "Year" to the columns displayed then I find that the ones with Durán are later, so this seems to be a change in Di Sarli's style over time. The ones with Podestá sound sort of in-between in style, so is this also true of the years, I wonder? Mostly, it seems so.

Papalocaradiotango

Internet radio, it's here: PapaLocaRadioTango

It doesn't broadcast all the time. They announce when it's on in the Facebook Group, where you will also find online chat about the music (in Italian).

Right now they have a guest DJ, Giovanni Carta, and I've just been listening to a tanda of beautiful Biagi valses. And now it's Tanturi / Alberto Castillo. Giovanni is posting quotes from the lyrics on Facebook:

La vida es corta y hay que vivirla,
en el mañana no hay que confiar ...

And:

Y en el pecho tembloroso de la reina suburbana,
un jazmín agonizaba cuando ella dijo: “Sí...”

LOVE it.

Wanna dance but there's nobody here!

Cabeceoing people on Facebook chat in three languages is hilarious but frustrating.

El Huracán

Another brilliant tango tone-poem. An instrumental, no words, but you get the title - "Hurricane".

Listen to to the slowly rising wind - whipping up the sea, blowing the branches from side to side, then trees, then there's heavy rain (plucked strings), and it starts to whistle, turning and wailing, with bigger and bigger things flying around over longer and longer distances:

Alfredo de Angelis y su orquesta – El Huracán*

Notice at 02:09. There's an eye in the storm! The pause is only tiny, but the cadence before it makes you think that it's the end. And when this was played, almost everybody stopped there and started talking (not my partner - he was wise to it) - and it seems to me that after the eye, the arrangement differs so that the wind is going the other way, until it's really all over. There are several versions of El Huracán by different orchestras, but this is the only one I've heard with such a pronounced, catch-you-out eye.

Great.

*Note: You'll need Spotify, an advertising-supported music streaming service, to play this link. I gather it will  not work in the USA, but the De Angelis version of El Huracán is also available on iTunes. I don't think US'ers will be able to stream it legally from anywhere without paying, you'd have to buy and download, but I don't know.

How much joy of music can one small body hold?

If you can watch this right through and not be at least briefly happy, consider seeking medical advice.



hat-tip Theo Chatzipetros

Milonga Brava

Can anyone find the lyrics to Milonga Brava? I have searched and failed. I have always been able to hear the first line, "I am the milonga brava, candombe ..." and then a line that sounds something like "I am the sound wave," which would be really good, better than "you are the egg men, we are the egg men, I am the walrus, boop boop be doop!" but I can't make out anything else.

The tune is one of my favourites ever.