DJ disasters

I once went to a milonga that celebrated Canaro’s 120-year birthday by playing Canaro all evening. Earnestly… what a boring evening! After one enthusiastic tanda, and one more because I can never have enough of something good, my brain slowly degraded into some kind of tango-porridge. It got stiff, so did my dancing.

A few years previous to this I visited a milonga in Sydney - Australia, and the DJ played Piazzolla almost all evening and after feeling sorry for myself for quite a while I gave up and went to the bar to get drunk in good and well chilled australien white wine. 

Luckily those kinds of extreme experiments are few, unfortunately it does not have to be that extreme to have a bad influence on my mood and capability of dancing a nice tango.

Many DJs tend to label their style e.g. modern or classical. This, of course gives an idea about the music to expect from the DJ and guides the DJ in his work, but if the DJ, consciously or unconsciously, also gets stuck in a specific time period or style; rhythmical or lyrical, it glues my feet to the dance floor, and I stop dancing and talk with friends and drink wine or beer instead.

Basics of tango DJ'ing - for beginners

The first song in a tanda is a promise to the dancers – if they like it they go to the dance floor, that’s their commitment. A good DJ keeps his promise and makes sure that the following songs in the tanda are connected to the first song either by rhythm, tempo, melody, nerve and ambience. Thats the commitment from the DJ and thats how trust is build up between dancers and DJ.

Tandas  

Make your tandas with songs, that in one way or another fit together. This is often done with some basic rules. A tanda:

• consists of four songs from the same orchestra 
• is build up with songs from the same time period
• feels more homogeny if the fours songs are from the same recording or at least with the same sound quality
• must consist of fours songs in same tempo

These are the basic rules, now the DJ has to give his own fingerprint and nerve to the tanda by selecting which songs to put together and in what order. This is the artistic part of the DJing where personal taste and preferences makes the difference.

Sometimes new DJ’s, or dancers with the wish to become a DJ, ask me about the rules of DJ’ing and how to make a good DJ set. Often they focus on orchestras and ask something like: “is it good to play Di Sarli after waltz?” or something similar but unfortunately it is not that simple.

There is no set of rules that will ensure a good evening for the dancers – if that was possible the DJ would not be necessary, it would be enough with a playlist made by these rules. What makes a good DJ set really has got to do with:

• the skills and musicality of the DJ
• his or her CD collection, it’s difficult to make good DJ’ing from a poor CD collection even though I will say that a good DJ can make a lot out of little, just like a good cook can do surprisingly good food from the leftovers in the fridge

Anyways, if you are a beginner, here are a few guidelines that will help you to get the basic of tango DJ’ing under your skin.

A good team for DJ beginners - 007 Bond is responsible for cortinas...

Trust

Each good DJ has his or her philosophy about that, so do I and I don’t want to reveal it here. Only I want to say that it is very important to understand that The first song in a tanda is a promise to the dancers – if they like it they go to the dance floor, that’s their commitment. A good DJ keeps his promise and makes sure that the following songs in the tanda are connected to the first song either by rhythm, tempo, melody, nerve and ambience. Thats the commitment from the DJ and thats how trust is build up between dancers and DJ.

Presentation of my DJ'ing

In short

I play traditional music. Only on request from the organizer I will play one or two tandas of nuevo or alternative tango.

My philosophy

The DJ works for the dancers and must at any time be prepared to adjust the music according to the mood of the dancers, while still respecting his own style and taste. The dancers are in the center of the event, not the DJ.

For me, a good DJ is always looking at the dancers, seeing what they like, communicating with them, smiling at them and asking himself: "is it working what I'm doing?" and if not - change the gameplan, also if it means that I have to forget most of the stuff I prepared at home. 

My music

A DJ can make or break a milonga and I strongly believe that if I only play my music as in the music I personally prefer to dance to, I will miss the point and lose the confidence of the dancers. I therefore adjust the music so it matches the level and the mood of the dancers but nevertheless still with a strong touch of my personal taste, which means with surprises and inspiration for the dancers.

You will therefore hear instrumental as well as vocal, rhythmical and lyrical, slow and fast, energetic and melancholic, simple and complex and of course old and modern tango.

Looking back at my playlists for the last couple of years I find d’Arienzo, Di Sarli, Troilo, Biagi, Tanturi, Fresedo, Rodriguez, Calo, Canaro, Lomuto, Puliese, Victor and ofcourse a bunch of others such as Laurenz, de Caro, Malerba, Vargas, Castillo and so on. Lately I have successfully played Quinteto Real and Tipica Fervor at some occasions.

But the point is not in which orchestra I play, the point is which songs from the orchestra – it makes the whole difference. This is a topic I soon will develop further on this blog.