How to get familiar
with Tango Music?

Musicality is a key element in dance.

Not only is dancing a form of translating music into movement. Also in couple dances, like tango, music is a common ground that guides what we do together.

From the speed we dance at, the movements that make more sense than others at a certain moment, clues for expressivity… And even more: If you observe the couples dancing at a milonga, you’ll see that they aren’t doing all the same. As an improvised dance, tango music is a fertile ground to develop your creativity, when playing with the different ways music can be interpreted by dancers.

Tango music is a vast field, so with no aims to exhaust the topic, here are some recommendations to start with, and ideas to practice if you like:

It helps to get used to the tango music structures by listening to it as often as you can.

A good traditional orchestra to start with is the Orquesta Carlos Di Sarli (can you recognize it from our classes?). You might find the rhythm and patterns in their songs easier to recognize since they follow a more regular structure than other orchestras that play complex variations of rhythm and melodies. 

Some examples of famous Di Sarli songs are: A la gran muñeca, Bahía Blanca, Al compás del corazón, Don Juan, Indio Manso.

For dancing it’s usually easier to start getting familiar with instrumental songs (those above are), since the singer’s voice comes into play as another instrument that can add one more layer of complexity to interpret the music.

Nevertheless, give it a listen to their famous songs with Alberto Podestá in the voice (e.g. Tú… El cielo y tú, Nada, La capilla blanca, Nido Gaucho) and with Roberto Rufino (e.g. Mañana zarpa un barco, Todo, En un beso la vida, Cosas olvidadas, Cascabelito, Griseta, Tristeza Marina).

I’m pretty sure you can easily find them on the platform of your preference. If you don’t use any, here are some on YouTube.

The orchestras of Francisco Canaro and Francisco Lomuto can offer an easy to follow rhythm too.

Other tango classics are Orquesta Juan D’Arienzo, Aníbal Troilo, Osvaldo Fresedo. And the unmissable (and more complex to interpret) Osvaldo Pugliese.

When checking out these orchestras you might already find out how varied tango argentino can be and how we keep dancing to some very old recordings.

Tango argentino preserves the tradition of dancing to the orchestras from the so-called golden era of tango (this is the 40s). But it doesn’t mean that there’s no new tango.

In the tango world, and especially in Europe, you’ll find that people commonly use terms like new tango, neotango or tango nuevo to refer to electronic tango or crossovers of tango and electronic music (sometimes even losing the tango sounds).

Some examples are Otros Aires, Narcotango, Carlos Libedinsky, Bajofondo Tango Club, Gotan Project, Tanghetto, Electrocutango.

In my classes and milongas I give visibility to the fact that new tango goes beyond this conception. 

There are plenty of orchestras playing (non electronic) tango nowadays. Either playing classics with their own arrangements that give a new air and different energy to the same songs we’ve been dancing for decades, or with completely new compositions of their own.

Some examples of these contemporary tango artists are Adriana Varela, Orquesta Típica Misteriosa Buenos Aires, La Auténtica Milonguera, Pablo Valle Sexteto, Tango Bardo, Cuarteto Soltango, Orquesta Típica Andariega, Hyperion Ensemble, La Chicana, Cucuza Castiello, El Cachivache Quinteto (this last one has some electrotango style songs and others that are renewed versions of the classics, still close to the tango sounds). You find them all on YouTube as well as in most music platforms like Spotify, iTunes, etc.

The other fact that I give visibility to in my classes and events is that there are plenty of female tango singers (when listening to the famous classics it’s easy to get the impression that there are only male voices in tango). In the examples above you have some.

Getting your ears familiar to the music is a first step. Now some ideas if you’d like to practice on your own how to link it with movement:

When listening to the music, you can try to identify the stronger beats. Just focusing on recognizing them and feeling them in your body is a great training already.

Simple ways to bring it to your body are e.g. with small movements of a foot, a hand or your head marking those beats. Or marking the stronger beats with clapping or snapping fingers.

Also try to walk following that rhythm as a starting point to apply the musicality in your dance. You can start by just switching your weight from one leg to the other following the beats, and then walking.

When you start feeling familiar with it, use the different directions we learned for the walk in combination with the rhythm of the music.

While you continue your tango learning path, adding movement patterns to your dance vocabulary, make sure to keep present the importance of matching your moves to the music. And of course to give priority to the connection to your dance partner, the use of the space and the musicality above any obsession for the amount of steps you can include in a song. 

Hope you find these tips useful and that your path in tango continues expanding!

Feel free to ask me if you’re curious about something else or have any questions about these recommendations.

All the best and see you at our next class!