What are DJs doing wrong

[ArbeeNYC]

Yes I and other dancers have skipped going to milonga depending on who was the DJ for the night.

Same. Just isn't worth the effort most of the time and I can go out another evening. There are also DJs who pay little or not attention to how they mix their tandas, with incongruous and unpleasant results. I don't know if they're bad or just sloppy or maybe simply like what they play. OTOH, we have DJs who can play a consistently excellent set of tandas the whole night through. You don't have to bring in Biagi's most obscure songs to make-up a tanda. Nobody wants to hear them for a reason.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Absolutely correct. But here too the question arises as to whether you pay the organizer well enough so that he is even interested in your opinion.

They'd better be if they want to continue having a milonga. They may not act on everyone's suggestion but they need to listen to what the patrons say. And if enough of them comment or complain, they should probably listen and think about making some changes.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

And if you, Dear dancer, don't like my playlist, then go dancing tomorrow when a colleague offers a different extract.

It is more likely that the host of a busy milonga will simply find another DJ who doesn't elicit complaints from the dancers.

 

[opendoor]

...It is more about how the music flows, how the tandas flow, whether it makes people want to dance more than usual..

Well said!

 

[itwillhappen]

Your musical needs seem to have stopped developing at the level of Spotify. DJing is a total different animal, its historical research and a form of art at the same time. And like an iceberg, most of the work remains invisible.

I do not think so. Anyone who listens to tangos on Spotify and collects enough for a milonga from existing playlists and algorithmic suggestions with a little skill is in my eyes a DJ. And just as you usually don't pay a dancer for his or her learning effort, you shouldn't pay a DJ who likes to do something like that either, that's basically the bottom line. Only if a DJ makes the participants significantly more satisfied should he or she be paid for it - in case there is an overall commercial orientation.

When it comes to material costs, you shouldn't forget that there is a risk surcharge. So if I spent €750 (CDs, controller, sound card, projector, cable...), with a 50% chance that it will never generate income, the expected value should be €1500. Now I personally have earned perhaps €1500 by now (minus travel expenses, minus ...), but my material costs are already a total of €3000 (2nd laptop, better projector, high-quality transfers, adapters, galvanic isolation). So I'm not getting anywhere with this in the next years.

 

[itwillhappen]

They'd better be if they want to continue having a milonga.

That is the central question. Do you want to be an organizer, host, DJ, counter worker or toilet cleaner? Why?

 

[ArbeeNYC]

That is the central question. Do you want to be an organizer, host, DJ, counter worker or toilet cleaner? Why?

Well, personally, preferably a dancer.

 

[pianistamediano]

I'd love to be a resident DJ at a milonga organised by someone else — with the two caveats that if my favourite followers are going dancing that evening, they'd go to that milonga, and that I get to dance a tanda every now and then, prioritising DJing of course.

 

[dchester]

It is not the same. maybe there is a translation issue here but "undanceable" is a universal evaluation that implies no one can dance to the music. "I don't like this music" is personal and can't be argued with.

IMO, when someone says a song is undanceable, it usually means, they can't dance to it.

 

[dchester]

I am not a servant of the ronda, although I can certainly read the floor. The milonga dancer is NOT a customer, its just another dance partner, instead!

As a DJ, I make a (personal) offer, just like I always did as a leader. I offer the best tangos I have collected through my tango life!

Also, this thread always philosophizes about THE optimal DJ. But this approach is completely wrong. As long as there are still many tango DJs among us, we have to assume that "DJ" is a corporate entity. We all complement each other, the optimal tango DJ manifests itself in the totality of us all, not just in a single successful or unsuccessful set. Like many things in the world, tango DJing should also follow the statistical characteristics of a normal distribution. And if you, Dear dancer, don't like my playlist, then go dancing tomorrow when a colleague offers a different extract.

IMO, the dancers are the customers of the organizer. The DJ is usually an employee of the organizer, (or a contractor providing a service for the organizer). To me, the optimal DJ is liked by all the customers. That's my goal as the DJ, to play tandas that the people want to dance to. My constraint is that I don't make / play tandas that contain songs that I don't like.

 

[Brummbaer]

IMO, when someone says a song is undanceable, it usually means, they can't dance to it.

Or, it doesn't inspire them to dance [social] AT (tango, vals, milonga) to it. Other responses in other situations may be possible.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

IMO, when someone says a song is undanceable, it usually means, they can't dance to it.

Meh. Some of those songs were not intended for social dancing.

 

[pianistamediano]

I find Scriabin's sixth sonata quite undanceable.

And I can actually play it.

 

[opendoor]

I find Scriabin's sixth sonata quite undanceable.

Looser ! ( )

Its quite simple to dance to. Just map the intensity, the dynamics, the atmosphere!

( I find that some GA tangos are much more demanding dance-wise than that Sonata VI. )

 

[opendoor]

Meh. Some of those songs were not intended for social dancing.

This is a false report spread by untalented dancers and tango studio owners!