BURAK OZKOSEM, PHDas = = ss = They say it takes two to tango, yet DJs and musicians, we prefer to say "If takes three to tango; you and your partner ard the music’. WELCOME! This book is prinarily de- signed for peop e who want to start (or have recently st: ted) DJing in a milor ga. me es = Inthe first chap er, | will seus oon the art of tar go Dung preparation for he milon Classification of tango missic for social danciig, tango mu- sic library man: gement 1p- tions, ss | In the second chapter, w 2 will | take a look at che milonga framework ‘cluding sou 1d system, raxer, speaker 'ys- tems and sound cards, while in third chapter the foous will be on structuring a milonga and guidelines on do and don't for tango DJ's. 0 The last chapter is reserved for tips, resources, and other useful information not only to grow the music library but also to improve the Dying | | skills 5 “laccept new tango music, but reluctantly” FELIX PICHERNA TANGO DJING I would very appreciate your feedback and suggestions You can send them to buraktango@gmail.com | would like to thank Horacio Godoy of La Viruta, BsAs and a’ the other tango Dus. nilonga org wizers, icavircss and n iicngueros for sharing their tango »assion with me. | coul in’t have written th’s handbook wit yout their supper Monti al, No vember 2015 Bura : Ozkésen Tange: Social Club naw. aurakozkoser @x2 This we ris ansee unser a Cr ‘Share ie 40 lntornstonal ve Somrons Attn NonommercaSaad ine he years} several“FOUNDATION Asa festiva|& marathon DJ inthe international tang) scene and the resident DJ at Mont réal’s fi: mous Tango Social Club, aiyinsight: and ex erience have ‘me whatit tales to be 1good Tango DJ. Inthis section,” ou willleumn the foundations of tango Jifing. Have music, Will DJ Have you got a smokin’ collection of tango music you love and want to share it with the world? Well, why not con- sider being a Du for your local tango community? Itis way more fun and sociable than uploading your stuf to YouTube and a chance to share some of the music you love with people who are going to turn it into some kinetic frenzy! REMEMBER! The musics the heart ofa tango event; it ‘makes us dance and Ccontributes stronaly to the success of the ‘evening, ART OF DJING ‘The DJ plays the feelings of a room of people tis alive Performance, That's why itis. creative art Let's not forgettA DJ can mal e or break a mi- loniga.né thiatter it s.a popular milonga, or equipped wifi at iney sound: system or got all the music to play. “" ‘There is so much tango musi: and music to dance tango to, tat itis easy to loose yourself init. Therefore as a tango DJ you will need a system to catego ize music. ‘AtTango Social Club we use ‘he following classification crite ria: -Instrumental & vocal *Rhythmical & lyrical “Slow &fast Energetic & melancholy +Regular/simple & irregular/complex “Old & modem Without Tango music, itis impossible to DJ and Without a ot ofthat, itis impossible to create a structured Milonga. Therefore, Tango Dus have 10 collect Tangos in a certain way. Additionally, it is of high importance for Tango Dus to have a good knowledge of Tango history and especially the history of the big orchestras.CRASH COURSE IN TANGO MUSIC HISTORY Jango is played by small to big orchestras. Interpreta- tions like Gardel’s songs, ie. a singer who accompa. nies himself on a guitar, can be real Tango gems, but willbe very rare at a Milonga and this applies for Some duos (Ike Troilo/Grela or Ziegler/Sinesi) as well The traditional Tango orchestra is a Sexteto (2 Violins, 2 bandoneons, double bass and piano) and duting the golden age, this has been extended (tipiea) to big orchestras with more than 10 musi. cians. For dancing, the orchestras after 1930 aro Commonly preferred however, there are few excep- ‘nally great handful songs suitabe for dancing Tango music can be grouped in a couple of different Chronological phases. Based on the classification by Horacio Ferrer) [2} ~ Origins of Tar.10 (1865-1835) Guardia vieja (ol guard) (1895 -1925) ~~ Emergence (1835-1925) ~~ Formalization (- 910-1925) ~ Guardia nueva (1325-195) ~~ Transformation 1925-19 10) ~The fourties: Th > exaltati sn (4045 7355) ~ Vanguardia (mode mization (1955-1970) Contemporary Tar go (197¢-2000) ~ Globalization (18770-1985 ~~ Perduration (19€ 5 ~ 2000 ~ Current period (.000-today} {ithouah this it. a very useful Usscifeaiiu 1 you lo0k at the Tango as an overall piture, when you \want to classify a certain orchestra then it becomes very difficult and meaningless. Because orchestras Sometimes did not stay in their historical slots, but {hey developed or forced by their label companies to follow a trend. Certain orchestras have changed their style frequently to span more than 2 or three hise {orical phases. A good example for this a well known Frond label producer asking Tanturi while pointing DrArlenzo's most recent top chart seling recording on record player “You have to play fast like these Guys do” in late 30s. Tango definitely had a golden age during the 40s, so Gis tine was called the Cuarentas or the Epoca de Oro (or EDO). As you can see, there is no EDO in the historical classification (actually itis called (Guardia nueva: El Cuarenta: la exaltacion). We have to keep in mind, that the time from 1925 to 1940 was a transitional period, which was actually {Reeded to develop the music and the necessary ins terpretation technique. For Ding, this can be transformed into a slightly eas- ir classification scheme: Guardia vieja Translational period to EDO (20s to 30s) EDO (80s to 50s) Post EDO (50s) ‘Tango Nuevo (60s to 70s) Renaissance <1 Tango (80:: to 90s) Contemporsry Tango (200t\ to today) A Tengo O.' may plar musi from all pt ases, but {hers are some lim.ations in terms of gracticabilty ‘Theie are fow “ecards from the real gu wdia vieja, and hese are mostly of ba | quality (Examples: Juan Maglio "Pacho", Eduardo A olas). in ter ns of anceabilty and listening g salty they ae really limited. This means, they a e rarely hee rd at milon- {985 ‘ind even if some DJs tray play thi: music now and "ren, they are not a coitinuous par: of milonga musi. Very early tango mu sic also corr 9s from the trans tional period, but here typically the quality is (uct better. You may pick! ere music f om the early work: of Canaro brothers, Firpo and Jul o'de Caro, Som times also the older “kibel Orches ras” (ike OTV ind OT Brunswick) cali be classified into this Grawe f-They are frequently jlayed in Noth America and Europe but not so comr.ion in Buenus Airs based milongas. Music from the real golden age is typically the center of my attention in this handbook. Approaching the end of EDO and later, the orchestras changed their Sivles, because now they did not play typically for mic longas but more for pure listening. Orchestras from {hat period (like Hector Varela or Julio Sosa) have a 900d quality (in 1958 the stereo method has been introduced) but a limited danceabilty, so the tango DJ has to select very carefully. After the reestablish: ment of democracy in Argentina, Tango had a renais- Sance in Argentina and internationally. New orches.- 4 =) 2 gd J J i i ia tras have been founded (like Sexteto Mayor, Ro- CANT DANCE dolfo Mederos ar Horaci> CANTDS Salgan). Again the dance- Tango DJneeds some ability is imitec and DJs ‘Wedge about the Tango history, good need to have a good tas. Aatan abs to Ss = and experienct to pick tie determine the more danceable. danceability ofa song) i oon = Jnowdedge about the Today Tango music of EDO orchestras contemporary «rchestra s can be divided into orch »s- ‘ras following the styles: xf Di Sarfi (OT Gente de Tango), Puyliese (Color Tango, Ov Femandez F - erro, Fervor de Buenos Ai res) or Piazzolla (many. (On the other side are the orchestras and groups play- ing Tango fusion (or Neo- tango), | will briefly mention about that later since the rise and the decline of this subgenre occured from 2000 to 2008. as = ms = = x The problem with different sounds and speeds starts = os Do You KNow WHERE YOUR TANGO MUSIC = COMES FROM? ifyou find asong youlove but the Sounds poor, keep tooling, There may be another transfor with bettor qual, ifthe tempo sounds unnaturally craggy oF fant, or very Seratchy, it may just be wrong. wit digitizing: ve'y offen see re-rerrastered bad sound- ing tracks on CIs or on ‘unes that o iginally come from an LP that uses a remast sred track fram a 78 shellac record ‘Scie of theses recording: were dubb sd too slow on LP. {in the 1970s unfortunate y nobody ¢: red for the correct sp red of the shellac reco ds: until 1912, there was no int ational norm for the recordings: British and Ameri- ca. Columbia usually wo k with 80 to 82 ¢pm from until<1 > @ ip AECe PMA gy. MAGE oan te One amb aot <> ie 308 Coarse St -RCA Ver 105 + va 258 cates su est Seton 2 Wa $300 cane a ‘rit 2 vias 301 canoe ise CA Wr 100 Are Visor 307 cate sa 20658 Vint 259 cree st rose a8e 1928, German Brilliant works with 78 to 84 rpm until Ca. 1996, and Argentine labels followed the Ameri. can labels. For instance if one of these recordinas was ‘os un. LP with 78 rpm (about half a note to 2/3 of a note to .aw), and now for digitizing the LP does ot run at 33 +S, but at & or even slower, all over Sudden you get «weird scund and some second too low sounding music: a track can get up to 20% longer, instead o 2'50" it vill be 3124" Here is the situat on in my iTunes library for Viviani by Carlos Di Sarl. The sare song, but different times and perhar s differert bom. Di Sarli recorded this song twice, however, # you take a look at 1956 recording, it looks like then are multiple versions, right? Wrong, tis the same vers on. If | process the files to have the same playing tine, they play in perfect unison. Every no e and ev xy nuance is exactly the same, The filtering/re:aastering in the 50s, 60s, 70s followed othe ideas of rest ration: very often. snuind, vuyiniccrs added some. echo, fixed the treble into ‘some unnatural sharpness...Some collectors's shel- lac collections, there are some "remastered" 78s {hat even in the late 1940s/early 1950s already show Some “bad corrections’. Here is a case study by Jense-Ingo Brodesser on his biog discusses the Speeds of many tangos we listen and dance to are not correct. For instance, Edgardo Donato record ings “Jense-Ingo checked on the title Chapaleando barro trom the recording year 1939 and recognized that al other CD labels present the same duration of the music part in the recording which is 2:28 min fing Daw Yow erm eae acc ot Tce eee ee ok 2s noone. I 2 sa86 20s 09 2 258 ttpe 210124 e099 1 1056 ashe 180t20 Te O + m6 tzareps 20120 Tango ante 6 190 zeit e0t20 Ts eke 11066 2eitee a2ct22 1 Selene Ye tae 2000 eho 3 (2:31 with beginning and ending silence). The El Ban- doneén recording was shorter: 2:17 min (2:19 min with silence) which makes a clearly peresivable dit- ference of 0:11 sec, Ch paleando t arro trom EI B wdoneén is much fe s:er and the vaices and instru- mants were distortec’ an sound too high!” The re- verb finer has been usec on certain 3CA Victor LP Cc lection, like se me tre cks on the *0 LP Set “Serie Tengo De yer" ‘rom 19:0 which has: been cut by dif- fe ent subco-t actors lik» by Sonolu:: in Columbia on Gtite cheap and light vin (180 gran ms max.), espe- ily on LP n#3 "Juan D Arienzo cor Rodolfo Biagi al slano 1938-1938 Vol. 3". It must h.ive been a kind of Destseller edition when several su scontractors had to manufacture it. Tre original 7¢ RPM record fron 1937 has no reverb fier, they were not in- Ve ited back then. There were nearly no secondary lat els issuing d'Arienzo &t that time Lecause of high prc duction costs and tigh er lice nse policies. Th resultis that exactly he same original recording froin one record label is fuster than ai other record lab31. If you compare a song from three different ‘Sources you may find three different speed levels. And not only the speed is different, but also the height (pitch) of the tones, because if you play a disk faster the pitch goes up (the Mickey Mouse effect in Some tangos played too fast). Similarly in many occa Sions, the sound engineers in those years added some echo to make it sound a litle more "modern", like the ideal of 1950s pop music [2,3] TANGO ORCHESTRAS OF EDO= == l Epoca de Oro (EDO) is the time from around 1940 to 4955, when all the big orchestras were playing and recording simultaneously. Tango orchestras are. named after their orchestra leader, who typically also wrote the arrangements of the music, Most important orchestras for Milongas are those 15 ones (given name, lifetime and instrument the orchestra leader played himself) (5} Rodolfo Biagi (1906-1969) Piano Miguel Calo (1907-1972) Bandoneon Francisco Canaro (1888-1964) Violin Julio De Caro (1899-1980) Violin ‘Aifredo De Angelis (1912-1992) Bandoneon, Piano Lucio Demare (1906-1974) Piano Carlos Di Sarli (1903-1960) Piano ‘Angel D’Agostino (1900-1991) Piano Suan 5Mtienzo (1900-1576) vivinn Osvaldo F esedo (1897 1984) Bandoneon Pedro Laurenz (1902-1: 72) Bandoneon Osvaldo Pughise (1908-1995) Piano Enrique Rodric uez (1901-1971) Bandoneon Annibal Troilo 1914-195) Bandoneon Ricardo Tantut (1905-1173) Piano, Violin In addition to these tanco orchestras, there were label orchestres for in-h suse productions i.e. Orchestra Tipica Victo: (or vj, anu Orchestra Tipica Brunsv ick (OTH). ‘As a DJ, the rr ost impo: tant factor here is the style of music in terins of rhy:hmn, emotional content, diffi culty level, ene ray level and general style of sound — some DJs call this flavor. For everyday Duling, | fol- low El Corte’s guidelines for classification scheme to six groups: +Instrumental & vocal sRhythmical & lyrical +Slow & fast “Energetic & melancholy “Regular/simple & irregular/oomplex Old & modern Knowing very well, that it is very difficult to classify tango orchestras into this scheme, because many of them have played different styles and some even de- veloped their music into new dimensions, here are the typical Orchestras for these flavours: NSTRUMENTAL & V CAL Scme tangos are mi.s c without sit ging. Other tan- 30s “ontain also si git g, where misic accompanies fhe singing, Tangs wi hout singing are instrumental ‘angos vith singing an: vocal tangs or tango can- ‘ando's. Some dan. flatly refuse to dance to tango can- tando’s. Of course this depends ot the way a singer sings. Singing which is integrated ato the music will meet less opposition tan too dem anstrative singing, winich only uses music as a backg ound. Too demon- strative singing can be fun for a spacial occasion, but it soon might inital» the dance s. Whatever you do as a Dy, itis always wise to alt mate (series of) instrumental tangos w th (series of: sung tangos. CAFEDE LOS MAESTR = ‘6 Marr 194 amplags os ane ‘Tage ns 0 Binet de jaca vi 1961783 @olenan 7RHYTHMICAL & LYRICAL, ‘Some music is clearly more rhythmical than other music or at least the rhythm is more obvious. Rhyth- ‘ical music is music in which the musicians clearly accentuate the music. For dancers its clear when to make the next step. Especially beginning dancers are fond of rhythmical music. D’Arienzo is super rhythmical, just listen to his versions of Eduardo Aro- !as's Derecho Viejo or Enrique Delfino’s Re Fa Si and you know what rhythmical means, Lyrical music is music with a less clearly accentu- ated pattem. The musical theme in lyrical music is more relaxed, more freely interpreted (more rubato). Lyrical music is harder to dance to and poses more challenges to be creative. One of the best examples of lytical music is Carlos Di Sarii after 1942. His ver- sion of Verdemar is a good example of lyrical music. ‘Thre sinydins is hidden beh d lyrical music lines and fomantic Iyris sung by Rc berto Rufino. Carios di Satll, El senor 4el tango, changed his musical style in September / Cctober 1642 from rhytmical to iyri- cal. The reason fr this is ot known, but it might have to do with Alberto Po desta’s joining the Bi Sart orchestra, On deciding whe her musi : is rhythmical or lyrical, just ask yourself the mel idy or the thythm is domi Nant, If the melocy is domi rant, a song is lyrical. SLOW & FAST The beats per mitnute (BPI) or tempo determines Whether a piece cf music i slow or fast. Pieces of music with less th an’a cert 1in BPM can be consid- ered slow, etc. Ary divisior of what is fast, medium or slow is arbitra y. These days, a', the DJ soft vres for usually has a BPM facility. While DJ-ing « iways realize that too sium ut wu fast music eventually will resutt in an empty floor. Too slow means that dancers can not get rid of their energy and become frustrated, too fast means they will use up their energy too soon nd are no good for the rest of the salon, which will also leave them frustrated. Most of the music you will play should be a normal, medium rhythm. Occa- sionally you can play fast or slow songs. ‘Slow and fast pieces of music can be used to induce another mood. Sometimes you will have to tamper the enthusiasm of the dancers, otherwise it will get 00 hectic on the floor. A tanda of slow music can do the tick (D'Agostino). Vice versa is also a possibilty. 7 Some times, when it all gets to sleepy, you can spice v itup the lot by playing a faster tanda, ” Fresedo’s music is generally quite slow. His tempo a seldom reaches the 65 BPM. If you listen to Vida i Mia, you realise this slow music. On the other hand ie Donato Racciati's tangos are usually quite up ‘tempo, listen to his version of R.l. Brignolo’s Chique, k |i general music of the thirties is slower than music Of the forties. The difference in BPM can be more _t than 5-7 BPM, yi I ENERGETIC & MELANCHOLY é Energetic music is music with a drive in it, it pushes’ u You ina direction. Melancholy music lacks this drive i almost completely, so that it‘pulls’ you in a direction, ‘ {n the beginning of a milonga, atleast the first twoor >, three hours, the accent should lie on eneryeiie sue ‘ Sit, After that melanch-. music can be played more t of en. Too much meie.acivoly music vill depress the at dencer., in my opin‘on ! least 70 to 80 percent of i {th muse in a milenga s rould be enurgetic. Ener ' etic music is m' sic whith gives you ‘dancing en- 1 er yy that is 30 nething jou can find n Osvaldo Pug- ‘ liese's oeuvre: La Yumb 1 is raw ene gy. The king of 1 mutancholy is probable ¢ arios Garde |. Listen to 1 Velver and weep, then y 2u will know what melan- choly means, Or deciding whether mu: ic is energetic or melan- Ch ly, just ask yoursel: ¢es it give mie energy or dos it consume my enei ay? REGULARISIMPLE & IRREGULAR/ COMPLEX Re ular music is music with a fixed rt ythm and a sin ple theme, which repeats itself. By far the most of tar go music you hear in z milonga is simple, regular music. Most dancers (but especially tuyuners) ap- Preciate this simplicity, for most of the dancers dont, dance to the music but to the beat. They love it for its predictability. There are also orchestras, who love to play with the rhythms and use several themes in their music, The result is that their music is irregular and complex, for most dancers it will soon be too ‘complex. Experienced dancers love to play while dancing to this music, but remember that a tanda of 3-4 complex tangos is already quite tricky, The em- Phasis in a milonga should be placed on simple, regular music.aq ee: ‘The king of rhythm is Juan D’Arienzo. His El Choclo versions (Angel Viloldo) is the most regular music we know. One of the best examples of irregular or complex music is Julio De Caro, Listen to Floras Negras and you will realize how complex and irregu- lar this music is. His music is so complex and irregu- lar that it was and stil is considered by most Du's | know as hardly ‘danceable’ at all OLD & MODERN Since the early 50s tango has lost much ofits popu- larity to the emerging rock and roll, rhythm and biues and pop, which heralded the era of the youth culture. Alot of tango orchestras folded, were lost in anonym- ity or continued their activities with a more con- densed line up. In the fifties tango went under- ground, only to make a (modest) comeback in the vigities. To draw the lin » venween o1@ ana modern tango mus’ is risky, but itis certain that the mid fif- ties to early cixties meaitt a distinctive trend break in tango music. However befor2 and du ing the fities and sixties, there also wert: musicia 1s who innovated tango (Gobbi, De Ca 0 & Piaz :olla) and in the sixties the retro tango orc restra of Miguel Villasboas produced music, which r minded f the thirties. So far we offer ad you a system to label your music collection. When you stir labelling your music, you will encounter several ¢ ficulties: + some dichote "ies are subjective. Whether a song 's energetical y or melancholy, is a matter of taste. ‘some dichote mies are continuous. Its hard to tell where to drew the line between rhythmical and Iyti= cal. There will always le songs which can go ei- ther war ‘Apart from these two problems, what to do with Al- {redo de Angelis? His music seers to be neither thythmical nor lyrical and also neither energetic nor melancholy. This is clearly a problem, out also offers ‘you an opportunity. How about using Alfredo de An- Yelis's music as a neutral reference point? For a Dd, itis important to keep the flavor the same inside a tanda and to adjust the progression of differ- ently favored tandas according to a general plan and according to the needs of the dancefloor. If a More precise differentiation of flavor is needed, it may be necessary to introduce another dimension of the tango, which is the singer. Most orchestras dur- ing the golden age used singers (mainly as estribilis- tas, which means the singer only performed the re- fain or single verses to give more focus on the or- chestra), which significantly changed and dominated the final flavor of the music. Some of them so se- verely dominated the orchestra sound, that they might represent a new category of music (like for ex- ample Di Sarli with Roberto Rufino versus Di Sari with Alberto Podesta). This is why the general rule is, that inside a tanda the singer should not change. This is a lst of the main singers for some of the big orchestras (I do not intend to present a comprehen- sive list): Rodolfo Biagi: Andres Falgas, Jorge Oriz, Alberto Amor, Hugo Duval \iquel Calo: Raul Beror, Alberto Pode: ta, Raul Inarte ran isco Canaro: F.nes o Fama, Frar cisco Amor, Roberto aida Juan D’A.jenzo" Alberto f chagile, Hee ar Maure, Mario Busios, Albu to Aeynal, Jc‘ge Valdez Alfredo De Angelis: Cark s Dante, Julic Martel, Floreal Ruiz, Dacar Larroca Luclo Demare: Raut Bero 1, Horacio Qt ntana, Juan Carlos Miranda arlos Di Sari: Roberto Fulino, Jorge Duran, Alberto Podesta, Oscar Serpa, Me tio Pomar Osvaldo Fresedo: Rober'2 Ray, Florea Rulz, Oscar Serpa Dsvaldo Pugliese: Albert » Moran, Rob sto Chanel, Jorge Maciel Enrique Rodriguez: Arm: ndo Morano, Joberto Flores Ricardo Tanturi: Alberto Castilo, Enrique Campos Anibal Troito: Francisco Fiorentino, Alberto Marino, Fioreal Ruiz, Foberto Goyeneche ‘These combinations provide a huge palette to pick different styles and flavors for a Milonga. Combining 15 Orchestras with an estimate of 4 singers for each of them offers the chance for at least 60 Tandas. This is way too much to be played in a normal 3-6h rmilonga, s0 a DJ needs to create a good selection of ail these different possibilities,biagi Crisp and ciean, Biagi pares Tango down to pure rhythm Calo Smooth and meiodic, Calo's “Orchestra of the Stars" produced some great artists CaNaro Whether experimental or traditional, Ca- naro's style is irrepressibly cheerful d'agostino The ary white wine of Tango ~ crisp, clean and elegant d'arienzo The toot-tapping revolutionary who brought the dancers back to the dance floor de angelis Fabulous vaises and ‘swirling violins characterise this unmistaken de caro De Caro broug it classical sensibilities nd training to ingo befoe Piazzolla was born. demare The mastor of relody i Sarli Smoot: and ele ant, Di Sart’s orchestra is iconic onato Happy dance rithms federico One «1 Calo’s : tars, Fedetico's style is ‘energetic and upl fting firpo A key revo utionary of the early years of Tango recordin, by the 111308 Firpo was producing reliable, upber.c dance mus ¢ francini-pontier Pushing the boundaries of dance music in the late 1940s and early 19508 fresedo The Tango artist of choice amongst the Buenos Aires elite, Fresedo's orchestra of the 1930s and 1940s is the most suave in the history of Tango gardel The most successful singer ever in the his- tory of Tango ~ this is not dance music! gObbi The Romantic Violin of ‘Tango — an under ap- Prociated artist faurenz A great bandoneon player with an innova- tive sound Tomuto One of the great dance standbys madera Another of Calo's stars, his piano style is hugely influential Piazzolla Like everyone else, in the 1940s Piaz- olla played dance music Pugliese His passionate rhythms get the dance floor moving like no one else rocriguez Great, #107 tapping music Silgai’ A unique voice pushing the limits of dance music suxteto mayor Gen sally consic ered the best Tego band working toe y fanturi A really reliable orchestra o' the Golden Ace troilo Perhaps the mos popular Ta igo orchestra ever Vérela Following in the ‘ootsteps of D'Arienzo, Valela gives dancers whet they want 10SS SS es = =a = es =4 & os i | Ses SF see SS = SS = GREETS Tango OJ Handbook DJSETUP DJing mea 1s you: Iso have to be able to operate sor ne tech nical equipment and try to get the mu:icto sonnd.as good as possible. is sectio a will g ve you some fundamental insi; ‘in ‘che mut ical set: mu ‘come across while DJing. As the of this section isis asimple introduction | old times, when we just had leamed to record cylinders oF discs, playing music was simple. Just put a disc on the Player, With the invention of the tape recorder we even were able to play pre-recorded lists of music, All this really became different with the invention of computers and Audio fle formats, Today, we can have hundreds of thousand single musical files on hard disk easily transportable, Even the invention of the CD has made that much easier, but carrying 200 CDs is stil today a weight not easy to ignore for a DJ. For the DJ everything is quality, handling and easy accessibil- ity of required tracks. This can be really tricky if you juggle NOCD PLAYER? ‘Apple discontinued the CD/DVD playors from the laptop models few 8.490, $0 you right wart ‘twice buy tango CDs! FOR AUDIOPHILES tangotunes.com offers lossless tango songs digitized directy from shelacs and more with 200 CDs, it 1s0 can be j: matter of sec- conds, when you \ ork with tac ged music fles and a powerful diitabase. | stl remember my first DJing years '7 Minneapo is. | would bring ‘my CD case to th2 milonga ad hope that none of the CDs scrate 1ed and wo 1"t skip during the tanda, What options de you have is DJ? Vinyl Records Even if today sonie Dus lke t» play vintage vi- ny, the days of te record ple yer or even the CD player are over. Some Dus sui use US (they have good reasons for this), but most modern DJs use computers, which is really convenient. First let us look at record players. They are perfect for playing vinyl records. The problem here is that DJs want to create a certain se- uence of tracks, so we need two players. Actu- ally this will make it difficult to play two tracks from the same record and we need some extra equipment to connect both players. The real challenge is to carry all the records. A typical Tango D4 will need at least 50-200 Records. Es- timating the weight of a Vinyl to be around 180g, 1we calculate ‘8 kg for 100 r scords. and around 2 Crates with @ goad system t keep that organized So | haven‘t seer, Vinyl Dus in Tango during the last 10 years. In other riusical styles, Scratching with Vinyl either analog or digital s still popular. Compact Disks CDs, invented in th early 8¢s are versatile, have 900d quality withou scratches and hiss and are 2asy to carry. So st I today keto 3! Tengu ods are 2aving with CD pla ers. CDs can be individually r- 7orded and always srovide a good digital quail. {his means, the music is cil ized into numbers and itored on the surfac of the €D, where it can be ead with a laser be im. :\gain, you will need two Play 2rs (Dus call them ‘lecks) and some eruipment i> connect both, CDs (an have a certair weight as vel. if the CD comes 1.8 jewel case, ‘ne weight of ne CD is around 1000. 100 CO, would then weis!s £5 iy. oUt ino vole ume is smaller. ZThe same problem of not being able to play two racks of the same CD in a proper way applies to CDs. Clubs Dus typically play with two separate Gecks, in many venues, dual CD players are pro- vided. Computers or Digital Players Computers easily can store and calculate digital infor- imation. So the idea to use the already digitized data fom the CD and store it on a harddisk is logical, Un fort netely, Computers va problems 19 store a huge > amcunt of data durine the 30s and pat ly during the 908, But t.2n storag : bec: me ineredit ly cheap ane! also methoa. of de.a comy-ression sp¢ cially for mu- = Sic ave been ‘nvznted. Nowadays, Cc mputers are able to store 10,008 of musical piece: and they are also able to search and ret jeve music n moments, For itis, we just need enot gh space or the intemal OF ar external Harddisk ani a Software to handle ug | this. “or mobile Dus typical y mobile Cc mputers are used like Laptops, tablets ct small dedi sated Music Players. Typical systems used here are Apple Note- book: or PC/Windows style notebooks, luse 13-inch Mac Book'Pre for’ ‘Ding aid | came ac- Z gross with two major issues the storage capacity | and linited USB ports. First for extra st orage; Un- 3 Jess | want to spend $700-8 1000 to get nereased 1f hard «live capacity, I needed to find a mure aoroe jm able solution, | -2 |use two diferent extemal drives to store my tango music. A: Samsung External SSD 1B ($550) B- LaCie 1TB (not SSD) ($199) Although the Samsung is the half size of LaCie, i use LaCie with lightning port so my USB port is not oceu. ied, and of course the price is halt. They both use USB3 to connect to laptop yet LaCio an connect via lightning port as well. 12 eshte ear cere enero aSS es Ss asa Ss = eS = SS co ee ses Most recently, a brandnew storage option called Basegi was introduced by a Taiwanese company us- ing MicroSD card adapter for the SD card slot in Apple laptops. The maximum storage capacity is lim- ited to MicroSD card manufacturers specs which is 128g as of today. My tango music library holding 25,000 songs fit inthis MicroSD card and the trans- ter speed is faster than USB3 and lightning connec- tions. 4128gb MicroSD card ($100) Baseqi adaptor ($24.99) ‘The best part of this option is that you never have to disconnect or eject like we do for external drives, ‘When the laptop wakes up, it automatically recognizes as an additional disk volume. Computers "ave to tran sform the music data from the digital .ormat into ar analog signal, which can be heckos up to other devives. Tinis step is typically called decoding. In older Computers, a “sound-card” Was used for this. Modern Computers have Chipsets onboard. Typically these devices only provide one audio output, which is not sufficiont for DJ use (we Need actually 2-3 outputs, one per deck and a head- Phone connection for pre-listening). Additional to these restrictions, consumer sound cards are limited in quatity. So for typical DJ use, keep in mind that you will need at least 2 USB ports, unfortunately most of the re~ Cent Mac and PC laptop models have only 1-2 USB. Ports. Moreover, external sound-interfaces are digi- tally connected to provide these necessary outputs and also inputs for certain additional signals. Today external aucio-intertaces are connected via USB2 to provide speed and quality. Some of these devices have better quality chip decoder, so the use in semiprofessional environments is possible. In chapter 3, | will alk more about DJ peripherals and setup for a milonga. However, you do not need a sound card for building your tango music library. How to find high quality tango music Often | get asked where I find all these tango music and special cortinas. Barely @ saturday night milonga at Tango Social Club in Montréal or tango festivals/marathons pass without this question. ‘So how can you find good danceable music? Te>-down approach This way, you will yet raference so 1gs in lossless or high cially mp3 .orme t with apprc ariate tags such 2s: + recordiris ye ar (some times exact date) + singer (if "are is any + genre (tango, milong., vals etc) TOTANGO Keith Elshaw of totang>.net offers the largest selec- tion of restored tangos You shoulc continue building your library top of this eference litrary. Yes, you will ‘ave duplicates but ne: exact copis, and you can sompave the versions TANGO TUNES Recently, Christian and others at tangotunes.com of- fer minimally touched direct copies from shellacs with the help from Buenos Aires city government. The selection is growing everyday and although their tagging system is similar to Keith’s system, the restoration/cigitization approach is quite different. 13You) The last resort and with tight budget, there are sev- eral YouTube channels offer pre-built tandas for dancing by internationally known DJs and other tango aficionados. | would like to remind you that | don't recommend Youtube as reference source yet an inspiration to help you build skills so you can make your own tandas. {'m sure there are more YouTube Channels with repli- cated tandas or different sets, | will ist my favorites here, YouTube Channels (tandas) ~ Tenia by Yuksol Sise ~ Tanda of the Day ros Giana- Tango D, Bottom-up approah Unless, you are cc lector, thare is no need to buy tango CDs anymoi2, have had enough with tanc 0. CDs if thé past. =Mtansferring music to comp ster + manually adding -ags and nfo for each song. transfer errors New generation le ptops do 1't have builtin CD Player anymore These issues were enough fr me to stop buying tango CDs. As an ¢ verage jee tango dancer, you could buy tango alt ums dire :tly from several online stores and they wculd be avilable on multiple do- vices. Some of these online hops are listed below, itunes.com| amazon.com There are several record labels still producing tango CDs, you can find more detailed information about ‘which labels to choose and which ones to stay away on Michael Lacovah’s website, you ask me, there is no need to reinvent the wheel, and top of that some professionals already Spent time and money and expertise to digitize bat- ter quality tango music for the tango aficionados, 1 Tecommend supporting those creative projects like Tango Tunes and ToTango. 'f you are looking into manual data entry and have time and aporeciation for organic sour’ quay, iiett Civ Tango Argentino TA) CD col ection is for You. anks to Dr. Akitsito Baba over fi decades and Berthar 4 Gehberger of ta1go-dj.at for making the 276 CDs evailable far all cf us, You have access to non-cimmercially transferred tango songs which have d stinct differe nee in the Sound quality and original speed of meny tango sons. Don tget me wrong, I stilt ave to get come’ songs {ror itunes or amazon if | cannot find t em any- whe © else. In this case, 11 30k for few vollections in thes? stores. DyM releases are my favor- ites in iTunes Store. if you search for this company, sadly nothing comes up in iTunes, however, if you type any or- chestra name, you can look for this album cover format. That's how | browse their new feleases on iTunes, or sometimes | visit their website directly to check out the cool stuff. They released over 10 Firpo albums in last 2 years, Je vow bee! oodas orooers aay a0 ic i Ss 3 ea = ss See Ss Se PS ss = & Another collection to look for is Archivo Columbia. This collection has very good qual- ity transters of major EDO orchestras. Archivo Colum- bia offers recordings mostly from late 40s and 50s. ey) COLUMBIN. Most of the Guardia vieja and EDO orchestras also got an amazing sound quality with Serie 78 RPM collection. This collection has more variety than Archivo Columbia, yet found majority of these al- bums in Tunes UK or Geornean,! Stores not in US ur Canada, Music from th. EDO ere and before is only pre- served on reccrds. The naster recordings that these records were riade fron are long gone. No seems to have thougtt about p eserving them, and itis prob- able that companies did not want to spend the money to store them. T 1ose that were saved were recycled to prc vide mat-tial for World War Il When you buy this old rusic i any aigital format, what you are Euying is music that someone digitized from an old rec ord. Thi: is true of all music recorded before WWII, 11 most cesses, this work is done by ro- Cord collectors not by a big record company or an archive. There is a real art to getting the best sound from these rec ods. Sorte are good at it, and some. are not. Unfortune ely, many tranisters are not done to the tnt standards, The proot is ine tact mat many of these transfers are not played at the correct speed; this is the easiest part to get right. This song is glar- ing evidence of that, but I have many, many songs with subtler problems. You notice the problem when you have two copies of song with slightly different pitch, or when you try to play your instrument along with an old recording and You can\. It is fairly common that these transferred ‘eoordings are out-of-une or are in a key that no tango orchestra would have played in, Even if this ‘were the fault of the original record, itis simple to cor- ‘ect in the transfer process. So, this is a warning that not all copies are the same. Ifyou find a song you love but the sound is poor, keep looking, There may be another transfer with better quality. If the tempo sounds unnaturally draggy or frantic, it may just be wrong. We should be very thankful that all of these collectors have gone to the incredible effort of pre- serving this music and making it available to us. But we should be aware that the quality of the digital transfers varies greatly. DJ SOFTWARE / MEDIA PLAYERS. 30g is a free open sot rce audio player for Mac OS “lt supports many dif erent formats. It used to be very popular among Tengo Dus in sombination with Tunes. Tunes as pre- istening pla er, and Cog as nain player via extern.t) USB sour deard. It hasn't deen updated since 2(09. Hey, it sll does the job :) diay pro diay is an affordable DJ system using the iTunes library. djay is available for Mac, iPad, iPhone, or IPod touch. djay for iPad was selected in many coun- tries as the “iPad App of the Year’ 15Exaile Exaile is a free open source nythan.in ad listening, advanced tag-b.ised music categorization, and a manual BPM count x. i Seuueceuseas ditiver h. There's is probably no one out there who doesn't know Apple's media player, available for free for Mac dows. If there v. ould be a pie-listening op- player avay‘able on Winde ws and Linux. The latest tion, no other software. vould be nec essary. How- felease canc'date includes plugins that support pre- ever, many Du software use the HTulies library. JF iver Media Center is vary popular among Tango ..s on Windows systems. I's for menaging and play- ing almost all formats of 1udio, videc and imanec Media Center can also record television and manage documents, and itis fully configurable. Free trial foobar2000 foobar2000 is an advanced freeware audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats. Other features: easily customizable user interface layout and advanced tagging capabilities, version available. 16 n H i ias MediaMonkey Ss ss = = MediaMonkey Another popular software among Win- dows users. MediaMonkey is a media organizer and manager for small to lar ye libraries, with many differ- ent feature. Free versic n available. MegaSeg MegaSeg 's a DJ and ré dio software for Mac and Tunes ", comes in two *iinne- Magnfng PPO ig more for Pro Ds, Vus, radios and businesses. MegaSeg DJ focuses on mobile and club DJs and covers many core features of the Pro edition. Free demo available. Ss se ewe SE Se SS ss = == 3 Mbox Free open source DJ software with iTunes inte gration, DJ MIDI controller support, BPM detection and syne, supports MP3, N4A/AAC, OGG and FLAC rudio. Moc is availat’e for Winda as, wae US A aud Linux, PCDJ Wed Mot le 3 PCD4J Red Mobile 3 fo Mac or Witidows is a Du soft- ware designed for pro Ds and en‘artainers esne- cially for mobile use. It reads all kind of sound for- mats including non DAM songs. The software sup Ports iTunes library import, Free Trial available. 7Traktor Pro 2 Traktor Pro 2 is a DJ software for Mac or Windows, !tcomes with full ‘Tunes integration, up to four decks are available and you can visually search through ‘tacks via Crate Flick cover art browsing, Free demos available, Traktor 25c pruvisics iu auuno Mm. terfaces an controllers. Winamp is a popular mutt-format mers x \indows, Android dev.« es and now also for Mac. it’s extensible with plug-ins and skins. free version and Fro vorsion availat-e. VirtualDJ | tried to vover riost cor mon free ard paid media Flayers hei fcr tango £ Jing. At the end you will de- de dependh.ig on Mac or PC platicrm you prefer 21d the functionality of re player sc ftware For Tango DJing, we art- dealing wit1 more than 50+ Crohestras and we neet'a good wa’ to structure a lection of 5000+-+ Souigs. This m¢ ans the player 3 Software needs to be co mected to ¢ database, waich should be able to randle the 123tags and S'2r@ playlists and small playlist snip 2ets (Tandas). i Tis database needs to ve quick ant safe for use during a live gig Virtualbu is a ardio and vi teo mixing software for Dus. There are differen: editions available, “Virtu- ‘There are a lot of things Tango DJs night not need alDJ Home" .s the free version for non-commercial by mmatching, scratching, sample piojci ain’ w ii — of effects are typically not needed in our business, but there are some exceptions like Tangofusion. The only thing that is of a certain value is the bpm and ey detection and the feature of normalization, which makes the work of the DJ much easier. As always there are cheap solutions and solutions you have to pay for. Several tango Dus like me use iTunes as a database and play with professional DJ software accessing iTunes. 18EELS ta igo DJ Handbook. Ifthere woul 1beap ~e-listening option, no other softwa e woul dhe neces: However, mz ny DJ ‘oftware use the iTunes rary: Avail ble for Mac and PC with the Imusic service -allediTunes Match, you can save you: music ibrary in the cloud and play your r-usicusin z any device connected tointerne ¢, Congratulations! You hopetully opted in for already digit ized and pre-tagged high quality tango music, f not, that's ok but there is a lot of work to do to set up a good catalog- ing system so then you don't end up duplicates, spanish Character failures, and my al time favorite which is genre Imislabels (instead of tango GraceNoteDB insists that your Song's genre is Latin or races, or worse Rock) during the CD ripping process. CLOUD SERVICES? I personally store my library in the cloud using Tunes Match wich costs (624.99) a year, ‘TAG YOUR MUSIC | stil ave songs with Unknown Artists or missing gonre info. My suggestion isto start tagging while you have Jess number of songs inthe beginning Before siscuss how to organize your music in ‘Tunes or any other software, snce as a tango J you will be work ng with mu sie library and auidio files, its imp ortant to kn w about few basic music termine logy. MUSIC TERMS For tango DJ's it ca 1 be an adv antage to know Some musical terms. Itis also ¢ tool to describe and categorize mus ¢, Musical iarms can be di- vided into four sube ategories: = tempo, = dynamics, ~ articulation and + interpretation / expression. ‘Most of the musical terms are in Italian, since ttaly was by far the most dominant musical ‘source in the period that muisc notation (sheet music) became widely used by musicians. in this paragraph | will discus some of those terms Tempo ‘These tempo terms are used to decribe the “speed of the music. It varies from very slowly to very fast or in musical terms from largo (40 BPM), larghetto (50 BPM), adagio (60 BPM), 20Ss mn = =o = —— a | = a l SS = ca = andante (80 BPM), moderato (100 BPM), allegro (120 BPM), presto (160 BPM) to prestisimo (200 BPM). Within classical tango the tempi usually vary be- tween 50 and 180 BPM. This is however related to the musical genre. Tango' s tempi usually ie be- tween 50 and 80 BPM, valses between 60 and 85 BPM, milongas between 65 and 110 and candombes between 100 and 130 BPM. ‘There are some other related terms, such as accelerando (an increase in musical tempo), ani- mato or vivace (vivid, lfely, animated) grave (slow and solemn), ritenuto (stightly slower; temporarily holding back) and rubato (free adjustment of tempo for expressive purposes). Dynamic. (relative fot dness) The dynam. 7s of music (the relative loudness) can be described ‘sing the ollowing terms from rela- tively silent tll very touc: planisimo piano (ppp). pianisimo (pp) piano (c), mezo piano (mp), Tango's relativ 2 loudne:'s usually varies between piano andifort simo. Re ated terms are crescendo (playing oF sin jing witha increasing amplitude, de- ‘crescendo {0p aosite of srescerido: playing or singing: with a decreas ing aimpl sic), mareno (is a form of staceato; playiag or sinijing in a louder way than the other acompai ying noti's. Stressed, pronounced.) and morendo dying away of music or vocals}, Articulation Articulation rel 3rs to-me de of connéoting a single ‘musical note sr betwee 1 multiple notes or sounds. Simpified tere are five main forms of articulation: legatisim (125%, lega 0 (100%), portato or non le- 2 (75%), Stacato (50 70) aii stavausitno (20%) ‘Tho percentage refers to the amount in which the Notes are connected or disconnectéd; legatisimo Teans that two following notes have an overlapping Part, where as stacato means that there is no con- ‘ection between the notes, but that they are Separated by a silence. Interpretation and expression €d libitum LUterally at one's pleasure. In music it refers to play a Musical passage in free time, rather than in strict “metronomic" tempo. appassionata Played with passion, with gusto. arrastre Dragging play of violin, the bow is dragged over the strings. burlesco Funny, witty, humouresque corte Ashort and sudden break in the music, The music of DiArienzo and Biagi is full of cores. glisssando This a decoration in which a musician utilizes his in- strument so as to fill in the difference (which can of- ten be quite large) between notes. In tango this term usually refers to the violin, where the violinist slides the bow over the strings from one note to another. Intermezzo passage of music (' sually some wnat more lightly) that divides and con ie ct lager par s or main divisions of a large, m sical work. maes'os0 The plaving of rausic cr @ musical ragment in a stately, o,;nifiad and n ajestic fast on. pizzicato Refers to the plucking of asin i istrafent. In tango music this ig réc ulafly done 3y-vialinists. They pluck the strings fathe ‘tha using the bow, which gives a totally differen’ sound, polyphony Literally having more t van one voi:e. In tango polyph- ony refers to the at the same time olaying of different melodies by different i struments. syncope gel ge ‘A syncope is an accer t whieh is-pl 366d On an’unex- pected place. The Oxt ard Dictiona y defines synco- pate as “displace beat sor accents in (passage) so that what was strong t ecomes weak and vice versa’. Blues music is known for its strong syneopa- tion, where as tango is characterized by a weak syncopation. Virtuoso Skilled and excelling. refers either to very skilled mu- sicians or to a manner of paying instrument in a virtuoso way; usually fast tempo with relatively many notes in a periad of time, 24HOW TO ORGA NIZE YOIIR MUSIC IN ITUNES While you may cliange your DJ software with time, you won't necessarily bulk up a new music library again and again, therefore it seems natural to stick with one product. "Tunes is for sure one of tt 2 most popular media li- brary products ~ unning o 1 mcs ana PCs - and since most DJ so tware prcducts pull their informa- tion including playlists from iTunes it makes sense to choose it as the rain libra y. So, let's talk abot t how to urganize your music in iTunes, 1. TAG YOUR ‘“AUSIC Create a sys'em to tag you music and write the tags e “Genre” or the wrouping’ tield (that’s what most DJs I know are doing), WHAT IS A TAGGING SYSTEM Most music sources just know “Tango” as a genre or {ag, but that doesn't help you at all to organize your music. ‘You need a system to distinguish the tunes by * using different music styles: Tango, Vals, Milonga, Candombe, tango electronico, neo milonga, chacarera, fox trot etc. * using recording date (at least the year) *tsing mods ard feelin ys: slow, fart, energetic, Cull, warm, strccato, .. +t sing: singer, instrumet tal, duets, f male singer | think you get the idea, Just choose something that makes's nse to you and he ps you to find your mt sic better. 2. SOUNT BPM. Wien you are just getting started with tango DJing, yo! might not know a Jot about the or hestras and \Wicir styles. Moreover, thre might be changes in the sty € of a tango orchestre during EDC’ and later. Di Sailiis a good example c! this switch he shifted his sty @ from rhythmic to lyrzal around 1342. Therefore Yor will need to know how fast a sony {s, acreiue You have to count the beats per minute (BPM). You can do it manually or you can use tools. Automatic BPM counters are not recommended because they mostly count only half of the beats with Tango music, Some DJ software though are able to count BPM and let you manually double the result. djay is one of these, the feature works great and you quickly get accurate BPM, Bo aware of the fact that some songs feel slower or faster than they really are. Here | suggest to use your tag system or the comment section to make notes, unless you have a good memory of your songs. 22— i — a i | a as oo P= = | 3, RATE YOUR SONGS Rating your songs is another helpful way of organiz~ ing your music. There are also different ways how to rate. Here are a fow ideas ~ The most obvious one is to rate the quality of the music for dancing, 5 stars for a great danceable ‘song and 1 star for songs that don't work for dancing atall. = You can use the stars to build groups. E.g. 1 star would mean it's an easy song to dance to also for beginners and 5 stars get songs suitable only to ad- vanced dancers, - Another idea is to use the stars to differentiate your music by sound quality It could an awesome mi- longa but very poor quality version, s0 you look for better version to replace eventual Its the sa.ne with the tegging system, you have to find your own system that meets your needs. 4. GROUP YCUR SON3S You can also t se tags i the iTunes ‘grouping’ field for this purpos 2; it migh: be less confusing than puting that miich coder! detail into the genté of rat ing field HG 5, USE SMART PLAYLis1s rut 1ANDAS recommend ising this option for building tandas from the same orchestr 3. Using smart mini-playlists is the most po werful wey to organize your library in iTunes (and o'her medi: libraries). This can be very handy.if you g om your, ibrary fast SMART PL#YLIST VS PLAYLIST FOR TANDAS. ‘Smart mini playlists poy ulate themselves automati- cally basd on selectioi: criteria you've set in ad- vane, That means, if you acd a new song to your library and it matches all the criteria, it will be auto- matically added to that list. Regular playlists are maintained manually by drag-and-dropping songs into them. For most of the Ds who has been DJing over decade is stil not easy to adapt due to irregularities in our tango music sources when there wore only CDs ‘SMART Du LISTS 'nother words, as @ Tango DJ you can create smart Playlists by setting rules based on your tagging System, bpm and rating system for the same Orchestra, ‘Some tango orchestras are hard to distinguish from each other, where some others are clearly very differ- ent. And since in tango Duing you just dont want too many tanda transfer which are too abrupt, itis worth to look at what orchestras “cluster” together. What are the ideal settings for my Tunes? ‘To have the saved information ideally displayed in iTunes, set the following column headlines to visible: eAlbum-Artist: The orchestra is isted as album artist ‘Artist: The singer is listed as the artis. I there is no singer on a tune, the orchestra is listed again (e.g. Album-Arist: Rodolfo Biagi, Artist: Rodolfo Biag)) We avoid the word "Instrumental" in the metatags, as it would make your search for a tune on your iPod of mp3 player more difficult. Comment: The complete recording date is listed in ‘he comment field, br ause ‘Tune only includes the year in the field "ye: Set column by the exe mple "Albur1-Antist (in iTunes 10 unter Mac O'5 X): oRight -nouse lick or column he: dlines, place checkma’k fer ,Alburr Artist’. Arrange columns as needed. O°, eMenu >Display >Dis slay options (Apples), set checkmark for ,Alburr Arist BUILDING YOUR FIF ST TANDA | don't need to explair here why we have tanda + cortina system at the nilongas. However, briefly want to tell you about this system, During EDO, all the milongas were wit live orchestras, and most of the time each night ycu would hee r 2-3 orchestras at the big milongas. Eac orchestra vould play their music as sets and tak breaks du ing the break the curtain would go down: as intermic sion, {In my opinion, every t ngo Dj sho 1ld know the stan- dard milonga etiquette or “codigos de milonga”. The framework itself is sentimental and nostalgic yet it keeps the tango cilture alive and evolving, CORTINA In a traditional Milonga, itis expected for the couples to leave the dance floor and to prepare for a new ‘Tanda in terms of being ready for the good old cabe- ceo game. Because in old Buenos Aires Milongas, ‘cabeceos were typically given across the dance floor, all remaining persons on the dance floor were actually in the way of this wireless visual communica- tion system. Of course, nowadays with festivals, 23.marathons, encuentros in Europe, cabeceo concept is evolving as well. So a music, which is not for tango dancing is played to indicate this. Cortinas in BsAs can be quite long to allow for that cleaning of the dance floor, typically up to 1.5 minutes. Interest- ingly, there is a movement in Europe now to return to this strict system, however in US and Canada, it's around 45sec. A modem DJ has to stick to the rules at the venue, but he/she has to play at least a short Cortina (80sec) to get the dance floor cleared, which depends on the size of the danes floor. | have corti- has between 30 and 60 seconds ready to adjust to this situation. In terms of milonga etiquette, itis a real bad habit to dance a cortina, however as a DJ you can use the cortinas to energize or calm the crowd. You know what | mean if you know me and my cortinas. In technical terms, Ihave my cortinas cut at home to the desired lenath and ready to an on my compu’sr. Some DJs ike to use only one Cortina for the whol. Milonga, cla ming that the crowd needs Some time to & just to ar ew cortina, | personally Use 4-6 different cortinas or the 6h long milonga, Hearing the sam? cortina avery 15min for 6h wouldn't be a good idea, «r the opposite having 20 different cortinas for the 1 ilonga wouldn't be good idea either. SPACER There are several tango songs have either too close Cut at the end or at the beginning. This could be an annoying experience for the dancers if i's happening {00 often during the milonga, One of the easy ways to fix this problem is to have 45sec long silonce pieces you can add before or after the song in need. We called these silence Pieces “spacers”. You can record silence while mute ‘mode selected in any recorder and you can use this spacer any tanda you want. | prefer this method be- Cause it doesn’t modify the original song at ail. How- ever, since it’s manually done, it requires good tagging practices. You can tag the song as “needs spacer’. If you fee! inclined to make the modification to the song and add couple seconds more, make Sure that tag the song as “edited”, TANDA A Tai da is a homoge nec us set of 3-3 songs. As a genera’ rule, pleasr use 4 songs for Tango and Vals 11d 3 songs for Milonga | only chan 3e this for very st ort Milot.as ("ass thai 3h), to allew for more diversity in tie musical s yles. in this case | play 3 ‘Tengos and Valses and :! Milongas. n some situa- ticns | play less than tha , fe. some nodem Neotan-Ss Ss = = as = f f f f gos can be longer than 6 minutes and in this case, 2 songs may be sufficient for a 10-16 min, Tanda. Apart from the homogeneity condition, there are no other rules and they may be broken for any reason. For a DJ it is always good to remember, the reason of his existence is to get people onto the dance floor. The usual strategy is to play a strong and powerful song first, to lure people to dance no matter how i tired they may be. Another stronger song should be the end of the Tanda to release dancers with a good | and satisfied feeling. This means that songs number | 2and 3 can be weaker songs (with number 3 the | weakest). This is common wisdom but it can be changed. I personally like to adjust my Tandas ac- cording to my milonga strategy and the eneray on. the dance floor. For example if | want to reduce the craigy, ' might start with a siwny sung anu yale ally chang 2 to slower/le ss energetic songs (always provided the' the overal flavor of the Tanda stays ho- mogeneous). For the constn ction of andas, keep homogeneous in terms of flav ar. The b 2st way to do that is to use ‘one orchestra with the same singer and recordings from the same ‘similar y sar. Some Ds even want to stay in the san e recérd ng session, which seems to me pretty muc 1 difficult Letus look at isn exam le. Early Di Sari recordings from Sexteto Ci Sari (1'128-1932) have beautiful simple rhythm: and ver nice contrecanti. | want to (teate a Tande with Emnasto Fama as a singer and | have picked thse songs; Dayuala and p La Estancia _ | Notice, that Flora and Chau Piflela have a very __thythmical start so these are my strongest songs {glven, that they are played in a rhythm focused part fof my Milonga) and that means, they will fame my anda, The other two are also rhythmical songs, but they begin with a slightly romantic flavor. Looking at the speed of the songs, | also notice that La Baguala P'S the slowest song, so I put that at the weakest spot (@s tira). So my constructed Tanda would be: Chau Pela (1930) Di Sari(Sexteto}-Fama 124 BoM La Estancia (1930) Di Sari(Sexteto)-Fama 128 BpM LaBaguala (1931) Di Sarli(Sextsto)-Fama 117 BoM Flora (1930) DiSarl(Sexteto}-Fama 127 BpM This Tanda is quite homogenous in terms of orchestra, time and singer. itis way more difficult to ‘mix songs with a singer and instrumentals. Generally itis very difficult to mix different singers, so if you have for example not enough songs with the same singer itis typically better to mix with instrumentals, ‘As an example. I like the Sexteto Di Sarli Tanda, but | would like to stick more to the flavor of Flora and Chau Pifiela. From the album (Carlos Di Sarli ~ Las primeras grabaciones) | pick two instrumentals which | think appropriate. | have noticed from the last Milonga, that Chau Pifela is a good song to start with, s0 I do not want to change that. The new Tanda 4ooks like ‘Dheu Pifela (1930) D’ Sirl(Sexteto}-Fama 124 BoM ra (1930) iS wti(Soxtoto}-Fama_ 127 BoM No caies Victoria (930) 2i Sarli(Sexte 0) 128 BpM Anoranate (1980 Di $ari(Sexteto) 130 BpM This is an v imple for @.mixed Tat da, which was 4sed to keep the flaya_more stabl ». Other problems ‘Tay be more common which are estrictions of your sollection. As an-exam ale twould ike to'create a Vals Tanda with Biagi:ind Teofilo | anez. Unfortunately, | only hi ve 3 Valses of Biagi/lbanez in ‘ny collection. These ae: -2jos de ti (1938), Viejo Porton (1938) and -0¢a de Amor (1938) 2 ooking for a song whish is close 19 that flavor and ime, | decide to use D chas que v vi from Biagi with ‘Andres Falgas (1939), which | idenury as tne secona strong song, so my Tanda looks lke: Loca de Amor (1938) Lojos de ti (1949) Viejo porton (1938) Dichas que vii (1839) Biagi/Teofio thanez 110 Bolt BiagiTeoflo Ibanez 113 SPM Biagi/Teofilo Ibanez 109 BpM Biagi/Andres Falgas 108 BoM In Vals it is much easier to create mixed Tandas. | will be talking about more practical aspects of form- ing the right tanda and choice of cortinas in the next chapter. 25TANDA EXAMPLES: Osvaldo Fresedo / Ricardo Ruiz: Plegaria (1940) Osvaldo Fresedo / Ricardo Ruiz: Alas (1940) Osvaldo Fresedo / Ricardo Ruiz: Viejo farolito (1939) Osvaldo Fresedo / Ricardo Ruiz: Después de carnaval (1941) Carlos Di Sarii / Roberto Florio: Derrotado (1956) Carlos Di Sarli/ Roberto Florio: ¥ todavia te quiero (1956) Carios Di Sarli / Roberto Florio & Jorge Duran: Quién sino ta (1956) Carios Di Sarli/ Roberto Florio: Buenos Aires (1956) Migue! Calé / Ratl Berén: Azabache (1942) Miguel Calo / Rail Berén: Milonga antigua (1942) Miguel Calo / Raul Beron: Milonga que peina canas (1942) Finvindo Sassone: L -tores de pe-tas (1968) Florin'o Sassone: C rquideas a la luz de la luna (1968) Florindo Sassone: T:ingo de las rosas (1968) Fiorindo Sassone: Cjos negros (1968) Porfirio Diez / Jorge Abri: Tristeza marina Porfirio Diez / Jorge Abril: Dolor inmenso Porfirio Diez / Jorge Abril: Viejo San Diego (1944) Porfirio Diez / Jorge Abril: Sombras nada mas Francisco | auto / Arse: Para ti lidia (1953) Francisco | auro / Ar jentino Oliver: Tu eres mi vida (19:2) Francisco | auro / Al erto Ortiz: Luna de arrabal (1954) Ricardo Mc erba / Al zerlo Sanchez: Qué tarde que has venido (1956) Ricardo Mé lerba / Al erto Sanchez: Oracién peruana (' 956) Ricardo Mé lerba / Al2erto Sérichez: Linda (1956) Ricardo Malerba / Al erto Sanchez: Historia de un amo* (1956) Los Re yes Del Tang x: El lorén Loe Meyes Del Tangs: Ls ospucta Los Reyes Del Tango: Bien portefia Enrique Rodriguez / Armando Moreno: Este es tu tango (1945) Enrique Rodriguez / Armando Moreno: Llorar por una mujer (1941) Enrique Rodriguez / Armando Moreno: Suerte loca (1941) Enrique Rodriguez / Armando Moreno: Tabemero | El tabemero (1941) Orquesta Tipica Victor / Alberto Carol: Bajo el cono azul (1944) Orquesta Tipica Victor / Alberto Carol: Anoche a las cuatro (1944) Orquesta Tipica Victor / Alberto Carol: Lo vi en tus ojos (1944) Orquesta Tipica Victor / Alberto Carol: Mi taza de café (1944) 26= os ss TANDA EXAMPLES (CONTD) Héctor Varela / Fernando Soler: Del salén en el éngulo oscuro (1973) Héctor Varela / Fernando Soler & Jorge Falc6n: Asi bailaban mis abuelos (1973) Héctor Varela / Fernando Soler & Jorge Falcon: Una lagrimit Salamanca / Armando Guertico: Adiés, corazén (1957), Fulvio Salamanca / Armando Guerrico: Yo tengo un pecado nuevo (1958) Fulvio Salamanca / Armando Guerrico: Quereme corazén Fulvio Salamanca / Armando Guerrico: Todo es amor (1957) Antonio Rodio / Alberto Serna: Esta noche en Buenos Aires (1944) Antonio Rodio / Alberto Serna: Rosa celeste (1944) Antonio Rodio / Alberto Serna: Vieja esquina (1943) ‘Antonio Rodio / Alberto Serna: Mufieauita (1944) Orquesto Reliquias P artefias: La naranja nacié verde Los muche-chos de aiites: Milonga del novecientos (197 3) ? Cuarteto Tiempos Viejos: El tlorén 2 Roberto Firy 0: Vea, v 3a (1936) Roberto Fir} 0: En la lrecha (1935) Roberto Firy 0: Home 0 (1936) Roberto Firj 0: La cat sajada (1935) Domingo Fe derico / Carlos Vidal: Para qué te quiero tar to (1945) Domingo Federico / Carlos Vidal: Yuyo verde (1944) Domingo Fe derico / Carlos Vidal: Tu melodia (1944) Domingo Fe derico / (arias Vidal: Al compas del corazor (1947) Los Provine anos / Ciirios Lafuente: Un placer (1993) ~~ Los Provine anos / Al erlo Gémez: Samaritana (1932) Los Provircianos / Lis Diaz: Atu memoria, madrecita ( 934) Hécto’ Varela / Rodo fo Lesica: No me hahien de ella Héctor Varela / Rodolfo Lesica: Y todavia te quiero (1956) Héctor Varela: Melodia oriental Héctor Varela / Rodolfo Lesica: Si supiera que la extrafio Bernardo Alemany: Elegante papirusa (1938) Bemardo Alemany / Jaime Plana: Pobre francesita (1938) Bemardo Alemany: Mala junta (1938) Bemardo Alemany: La tablada (1938) Enrique Rodriguez: Danza hingara n.6 (1947) Enrique Rodriguez / Armando Moreno: Noches de Hungria (1942) Enrique Rodriguez / Armando Moreno: Por las calles de Estambul (1944) 27TANDA EXAMPLES (CONTD) Ricardo Pedevilla: Organito de la tarde (1950) Ricardo Pedevilla: El incendio (1953) Ricardo Pedevilla: El pollo Ricardo (1950) Ricardo Pedevilla: Siete palabras (1951) Luis Petrucelli: Agua florida (1928) Luis Petrucelli: Milagrosa virgencita (1929) Luis Petruceli: Te odio (1930) Luis Petrucelli: Nueve de julio (1930) Miguel Calé / Rail Ber6n: Al compas del corazon (1942) Miguel Calé / Ral Iriarte: La vi llegar (1944) Miquel Calé / Alberto Podesta: Parral (1042) Miguel Gai6 / Allerto P sdesté: Qué falta que me hacés! (853) ? Domingo Rul»: Vals del encuentro Domingo Auli: Mi prov inciana, Domingo Ruliv: Aima y sentimiento (flute vals) Graciano Gén ez / Nine Miranda: Pero yo sé (1950) Graciano Gon ez / Nine Miranda: Arrabalero (1950) Graciano Gén ez / Nine Miranda: Maula (1955) Graciano Gon ez / Nine Miranda: Dimelo al oido (1950) Francisco Car aro / Car os Roldan: Candombe (1943) Roberto Firpo ‘Alberto Diale: El nifio Jacinto Osvaldo Fre sedo / Carls Roldan: Negra Maria (1941) < Laurenz / Juan Carivs Casas: Ue puro guapo (1940) Pedro Laurenz / Juan Carlos Casas: Vieja amiga (1938) Pedro Laurenz / Juan Carlos Casas: No me extrafia (1940) Pedro Laurenz / Juan Carlos Casas: Amurado (1940) Orquesta Tipica Gente de Tango / Héctor Morano: Patotero sentimental (2012) Orquesta Tipica Gente de Tango / Héctor Morano: La capilla blanca (2012) Orquesta Tipica Gente de Tango / Héctor Morano: Déjame (2003) 28Ss SES PFPFeese es SF Se SP SS Ss Ss SF SS =| = = ca EET EEN TT PE ESTRTORSRE ESR EIST Senso SG RRS Sas rSEU ES es ‘TANDA EXAMPLES (CONTD) Donato Racciatti: Don Juan (1968) Donato Racciatti: Derecho viejo (1972) Donato Racciatti: Fuegos artificiales (1971) Donato Racciatti: Nueve de julio (1973) Miguel Calé / Rati Berén: El divorcio (1950) Miguel Calé / Rail Iriarte: El desatio (1944) Miguel Calé / Raul Berén: Milonga que peina canas (1942) Juan D'Arienzo / Alberto Echaglie: Mandria (1939) Juan D'Arienzo / Alberto Echague: Pénsalo bien (1938) Juan D'Arienzo / Alberto Echaatle: Nada més (1938) Juan v"Arienzo / Alberto Echagie: La bruja (1938) Osvaldo Pugliese /A berto Moran: Una vez (1946) Osvaido Puyliese / A berto Moran: El abrojito (1945) Osvaldo Pu yliese / A berto Moréin: Mentira (1945) Osvaldo Pu liese / A berto Mordin: Sin palabras (1947) Orquesta Tisica Vict / Alberto Gémez: Amor cobarde 1933) Orquesta Tisica Viet rs Alberto Gémez: Novia mia (19: 7) Orquesta Tisica Victor / Alberto Gémez: La serenata de ayer (1931) Atredo De »,ngelis /. uan Carlos Godoy: Entre tu amor y mi amor (1959) Aitredo De s.ngelis /, uan Carlos Godoy: No culpes al a nor (1958) Alfredo Dr Angelis /, uan Carlos Godoy: Quién tiene tu amor (1958) Allredo Je Angelis /, uan Carlos Godoy: La ultima cope (1958) Rodolfo Biagi / Hugo Duval: Alguien (1956) Rodolfo Biagi / Carlos Heredia: Caricias (1951) Rodolfo Biagl / Hugo Duval: Triste comedia (1958) Rodolfo Biagi / Alberto Lago: Arrebato (1942) Francisco Canaro / Carlos Roldan: Sin compasién (1944) Francisco Canaro / Carlos Roldan: Queja indiana (1943) Francisco Canaro / Carlos Roldan: Garras (1945) Francisco Canaro / Carlos Roldan: Mariposa nocturna (1942) 29Pia FM _Tango DJ Handbook Jens inc 0 and other did a great job inmakir 9 us aware ‘hat the speeds of many tangos we I sten and dance to are nit correct. The problems stems ffm the 78 11>" : ute (RPM) disks, which actually are we-don'-know-somewhere-around- 78 RPM disks. The result is that exactly the same original recording from one record la- bel is faster than another record ia- bel. if you compare a song from three different sources you may find three different speed levels. And not only the speed is different, but also the height (pitch) of thetones, because if you play a disk faster the pitch goes up (the Mickey Mouse effect fast). Only in the recent years, it became possible to speed and pitch independently (time stretching or pitch shifting) with software programs. | think we can safely assume this has not been done to the recordings on the CDs, some tangos played too Finding the right preampitication is another problem in digitizing 78 RPM cisk, but as far as | see, this is about equalization and affects the volumes (dB) but not the heights of the tones. Detecting the frequencies to find the original speed? ‘fm not a tango purist and | admit to sometimes changing the speed on purpose, to make them better dance- able. But if | have 3 different copies of one song, all three different in speed (and thus length and pitch\tone), which one is right? Or none of them? And is maybe my whole tango collection ‘out of tune"? The world-wide best audio quality for tango music is provided from transfers of shellac (78 p.m.) made by collectors in Tokyo (S82), Japan (E28). The collection of DJ Matias features three excellent (and nearly complete) series of the most famous Japanese collectors: TA Club Tango Aroentin2 | Ahito Baba 5 BAD 227 / 261 original BE7% albums AW.P, Asociacién de ja Yoshihiro Oiwa ( AS#3) 209 / 211 original 99% albums AP Audio Park Yasuhiko Fukuke wa (#3/IL7F 2) Epo:a de Or) 11/11 original 100% albums & Blu 78 / 78 original 100% L albums Theso unfiltered shellac transfers stand out due to: * Conservation of correct speed and pitch; natural sounding instruments; clear and warm voices of the singers. Deteriorating sound manipulation techniques like: * strong frequency fitering; heavy noise reduction; ‘massive signal compression; addition of artificial reverb or pseudo stereo are completely avoided. f 31 =Good audio quality is provided by the well-known Argentine releases of commercial record labels: Reliquias EMI Odeén, S.ALC. albums 164 / 164 original | 100% Euro Records ‘Sony BMG Music Entertainment albums 132 / 132 original | 100% Tango Argentino MG Ariola Argentina 64 / 64 original alhnime ‘Taago Collec ion GS Music 36 / 36 original albums 109% ‘High-quality rele ases fror 1 record companies based in other couinttias like: Harlejjuin Interstate Music | Ltd. 34 / 34 original | 100% albums Sonder Fonografico SAL ‘Sondor 55/55 original | 100% albums Viamas Danza y GmbH Movimiento 11/12 original | = 92% albums Harmonia nt. SARL. Mundi Monde aes) ss)