What are DJs doing wrong

[Bailango]

I agree wholeheartedly.

But the DJ absolutely should not try to "educate" dancers on what's "danceable." That's a personal decision with no objective standard behind it, like creator, year, rhythm, tempo, etc. Some dancers struggle with a simple, monotonous beat at a low tempo because they have no mental metronome, or just bad walking technique, but do fine with music that's full of tempo changes and rubato and such that hides their weak points. Other dancers struggle with highly syncopated music, or music that changes tempos. Many love more orchestral, late-era "radio tangos" because they're closer to music they know better; others prefer old-timey stuff. Who's right? Nobody.


Which doesn't really address the matter of "danceable," because that's personal in all cases. As a DJ, it's best to cast a big net and make sure you have something for everyone . . . including people who don't share your tastes. Avoiding Piazzolla or Varela or whatever isn't going to increase the odds that your "customers" will be happy; if anything, it's going to reduce those odds by reducing the breadth of the selection.

The first point (arrow) in this announcement from a well-known tango influencer really annoyed me. Why should DJs learn to decide a-priori what danceable music is? I, as a dancer, will decide that. There's an ideologically driven movement in tango that wants to ban certain music from the dance floor, Piazzolla for example. This music always draws me to the dance floor with a magical force, and in my role as DJ, dancers regularly congratulate me on playing Piazzolla.

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I disagree with both @opendoor and @JournalInTime.

There is a reason that DJ is asked to play music. If you don’t like the DJ, don’t go to that milonga. That’s what I do.

You are citing anecdotal examples of music you like to dance to which you think DJ finds undanceable. I see it differently.

Last night I was at a sit down tango concert. The music was played by a trio of visiting musicians - (double) bass, bandeon, and piano. Each piece was about 4 to 5 minutes long. The music was good to listen to. More like jazz version of tango. I would not have been at all inspired to dance to it. If DJ played similar music, I would have cursed him/her and left. Later there was live music played for dancing and the floor was packed.

It is possible to dance any thing to any music, from the dances I am competent at. It doesn’t mean I want to dance tango to Ed Sheeran or Britney Spears. I regularly witness the WCS DJs playing music in which there is nothing to dance swing to. People are happily dancing to very bland music which is best suitable to put on when you are trying to fall asleep.

Within a genre there can be wide spectrum. People can like music that falls on some part of that spectrum. But to go beyond the spectrum (which some DJs do) and play music to which you could dance anything is where I draw the line. If I want to dance salsa, I won’t go to milonga and expect DJ to play salsa tanda (not in this century).

The argument then becomes where do you draw the line. @opendoor will want to draw the line which differs from where @JournalInTime wants to and where I might want to. How is a DJ suppose to keep everyone happy.

I think adding one or two tandas that go beyond mainstream of what dancers like is okay. But if 50% of the tandas is the music which I don’t consider danceable would make me want to demand a refund.

As to individual preferences, I think that is very different than dictating what DJs should take into considerations when creating the tandas. DJs should not have license to throw in bunch of tandas of some obscure barely danceable music. There is a reason it is obscure.

A DJ who can’t tell a difference between danceable and non-danceable music should not be asked to DJ. While a lot less in Tango, I have suffered enough of such DJs in other dances.

 

[opendoor]

...Ed Sheeran or Britney Spears. I regularly witness the WCS DJs playing music in which there is nothing to dance swing to.

That's why I changed from WCS to LH as I like traditional swing.

..The argument then becomes where do you draw the line. @opendoor will want to draw the line which differs from where @JournalInTime wants to and where I might want to. How is a DJ suppose to keep everyone happy.

The problem is that the tango crowd at a milonga is not homogenous mass. When I took over my current regular DJ gig, I played 100% traditional music (including Varela, Salamanca, and Sassone). But women, in particular, kept whispering in my ear, "Play something newer". So, the proportion of contemporary (not retro) music slowly increased. At first, the men crossed their arms grimly, but now they enjoy the change. Dancers love variety; some even tell me, "If you're DJing, I'll drive for two hours". But besides the internal diversity, there is the external diversity of the rotating DJs. Once a dancer has an idea of how the DJ plays, they have choices. And my offer currently is ca. 65:35%.

 

[brujo]

I think it’s super easy to overestimate the amount of tango people listen to before they become DJs but in reality a lot of them are put in that position in smaller communities because no one else wants to do it.

It’s great if you’re in Germany or Turkey or Argentina where it is everywhere, but if you have a tiny community of ten to twenty people, having guidelines like “in a traditional Milonga people don’t love the Gotan Project is very useful”.

For example, this is an initial list of orchestras that ImsoTango suggests building a social dance list from, I would be happy if that was the only music played:

1. Ricardo Tanturi
2. Lucio Demare
3. Rodolfo Biagi
4. Anibal Troilo
5. Hector Varela
6. Enrique Rodriguez
7. Roberto Firpo
8. Angel D'Agostino
9. Alfredo Gobbi
10. Orquesta Típica Victor (OTV)
11. Pedro Laurenz
12. Francisco Lomuto
13. Miguel Caló
14. Florindo Sassone
15. Carlos Di Sarli
16. Fulvio Salamanca
17. Osvaldo Fresedo
18. Adolfo Carabelli
19. Alfredo De Angelis
20. Orquesta Francini Pontier
21. Juan D'Arienzo
22. Francisco Canaro
23. Edgardo Donato
24. Osvaldo Pugliese
25. Julio de Caro
26. Ricardo Malerba
27. Domingo Federico
28. Osmar Maderna

She then expands the playlists to include modern orchestras, vals, milongas and neotango artists. Overall it’s a very interesting way to learn about tango music from a beginner perspective.

Tango Music Playlists | Integrative Method Social Tango

imsotango.namastream.com

I don’t think the audience for stuff like this is people that have a substantial tango collection at home.

 

[brujo]

In case you’re curious these are some of the playlists

Alt tango
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/01swGAK6t791qxdKaTroF9

28 orchestras

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1fO8xlPHvZv7I2Wk0zA0OK

Contemporary orchestras

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/65Q6N1ngbrNVKdbuZ7Kccu

Then there are individual playlists by orchestras like this one Best of Fresedo

 

[itwillhappen]

Why should DJs learn to decide a-priori what danceable music is? I, as a dancer, will decide that.

A DJ has to decide in time which music is played. His clients can only decide whether that music was for them danceable or not.

 

[opendoor]

No, itwillhappen! My context is quite different:

-The manipulating of newbie DJs' by influencers.
-The DJ's ability to communicate, both nonverbally through reading the floor and actively by taking requests into account.
-And ultimately, a dancer never is at the mercy of the DJ, provided the DJs makes their style transparent.

(I also don't want to hide the fact that DJs who have a similar taste and style to mine bend over backwards to be invited to the influencer's regular milonga, or to be introduced to certain encuentros)

 

[Rabbit]

The argument then becomes where do you draw the line. @opendoor will want to draw the line which differs from where @JournalInTime wants to and where I might want to. How is a DJ suppose to keep everyone happy.

I'll just give my approximate recipe that solves this. (Most of the top 20+ orchestra lists people make are awful and should be deleted.)

~50% top ~5 orchestras. High quality, lots of songs available, almost everyone agrees they're good

~25% lesser orchestras played according to general milonga vibe

~25% personalized tandas that (assuming I can guess what you want) I'll play one for you and one for him, and if I can't tell I will play a modern recording and gauge the response. It's ok if not everyone likes every tanda, so long as they got other tandas that they loved. And because I played 50% top 5 orchestras, they most likely did.

The set list is 100% improvised on the day.

 

[opendoor]

In case you’re curious these are some of the playlists..

Thanks brujo, and sorry if I come across preachy again. But a DJ shouldn't stream from Spotify. At least a tango DJ shouldn't. It's simply a matter of professional pride (at least in Europe it is). Unless we are directly DJing our own analog records, we buy audio tracks from only three colleagues who digitize and market their own records.
Furthermore, in your examples, the tracks aren't arranged in musically coherent tandas. That's a serious flaw in the craft.

The dividing line doesn't just run between alt and vint, it also runs at a right angle to it between superficial and nerdy.

 

[Brummbaer]

But a DJ shouldn't stream from Spotify.

I agree. It's too unreliable, especially for that setting. Nevertheless I have no objection to someone else's curated playlist.

I don't really care how the music is recorded or reproduced, but analog nowadays seems a pointless affectation - although, doubtless, some are influenced by a retro feel - including pops, scratches, poor quality and fragile.

There are few DJs who are competent, and with a wide selection, to improvise on the fly - and they don't really travel out to the sticks for a small milonga. So you settle for the playlist(s) you can get which generally work.

I'd happily get rid of the DJ for live music, but even there some other danceable music source is required nowadays.

 

[brujo]

Thanks brujo, and sorry if I come across preachy again. But a DJ shouldn't stream from Spotify. At least a tango DJ shouldn't.

It’s weird that this is the takeaway you got from playlists being shared like this. Spotify is just one of easiest way to share song knowledge in a way that is accessible to most people. And there are converters out there that allow you to change them into stuff like YouTube music or Apple Music. Seems like unnecessary criticism.

I think the intent is to present a series of songs to start building a DJ catalog from scratch or to improve an understanding of music for dancers and presenting it this way is obviously better than just having artist + track and hoping people can download the right song. I don’t intend to be a DJ but the way that music is presented allows me to listen to it on my drive which is convenient and nice.

 

[brujo]

Furthermore, in your examples, the tracks aren't arranged in musically coherent tandas. That's a serious flaw in the craft.

They are not because they are set as discovery playlist for music type and artist familiarity. There are example “dance playlists” such as this one as well.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/22fBYktVGfYMZQYOqrjWni

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Why should DJs learn to decide a-priori what danceable music is?

Hmm. Probably no point in being a DJ at a milonga if you can't tell the difference.

 

[pianistamediano]

Hmm. Probably no point in being a DJ at a milonga if you can't tell the difference.

To be fair (and hopefully stir up even more discussion ), what people want to hear/dance to and danceable music are distinct sets with an overlap.

One problem that comes to mind is that people don't necessarily need to be able to dance music — or do justice to it — in order to enjoy moving to it on the pista. I don't like playing late Troilo at some milongas because the skill level is lower and they can't do it justice, but if I know for a fact that they'd enjoy it anyway, well, Danzarín IS coming up!

The (much bigger) problem is that most dancers don't really know (and if they think they know, they don't know for sure) what they want until they actually hear it, and if you ask a dancer at random what tanda they'd like to hear next, chances are, they'll give an orquesta that they like, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the best choice for them even though they said they'd like to hear it. It's one thing to mention one's preference, and another to think about said preference and orquestas with a similar feel, then say one's preference anyway.

More often than not (but not always!), what people want is a solution to whatever problem or need they have: a dramatic tanda, a slow romantic tanda, a tanda that lets them take a break, et cetera; and not really a specific orquesta.

I've lost count of how many times people have told me that they enjoyed my set afterwards despite asking for tandas that I said I couldn't fit or would try to squeeze in but ultimately couldn't or didn't.

For example, a dancer could request Tango Bardo. I could play La Juan D'Arienzo and they'd be out there in a flash, dancing happily. If someone requests late Di Sarli, I could mix in two Salamanca vocals and they'd still be happy, if not happier.

I think being a DJ requires one to be able to read between the lines (or read the room) and maintain an overall high level of enjoyment. After all, what's the point of a DJ if the pista is empty?

 

[opendoor]

Well said (written), pianistamediano !

 

[Brummbaer]

One problem that comes to mind is that people don't necessarily need to be able to dance music — or do justice to it — in order to enjoy moving to it on the pista.

An aspect might be how they move on the pista. Piazzolla (purely as an easy example!), whilst some are 'danceable', doesn't invite the same movement around the ronda. I could sit down and enjoy listening to it, or some swirling, circular, movements in-place blocking the ronda. Most other compositions invite (for many), or should invite, a movement around the ronda. It's Argentine Tango! So music to dance AT.


IIRC, Gerhard Riedl in one of his 'guides to the milonga' put it that all music is danceable, but the question is how strongly it motivates one to dance. And, perhaps, how you dance that music.

I don't like playing late Troilo at some milongas because the skill level is lower

Rubbish! If you don't play it (and it's danceable), people don't learn to enhance their skills. You perhaps expect people to study the musicality and determine their choreography? But you have a valid point if they're all beginners. There might be a question of whether some like it, or whether it's AT as they know it - so not everything fits.