The Tango scene usually gets quieter over the summer holiday period; organisers take a break and halls get shut down for maintenance work. We’ve taken it easy too, especially in the past when the old venue was shut (often for no reason whatsoever, but that’s another story…). But this year we were kept active; a Sueños Milonga, ‘Junction 8’, two Wedneday practice evenings, private lessons, and the build-up to ‘Septonathon’. And all this during the school summer holidays.

Now we are in September things seem quieter; at least we are running fewer events this month. But the build up for ‘Etonathon’ has already started, plus preparations for our first ever New Years Eve milonga. And that all starts with the guest DJs.

Recruiting the DJ team is a painstaking process, mostly because we are so picky about the guest DJs. We’re out & about at milongas a lot checking out the music, amongst other things, and we also get plenty of suggestions for DJs we might use. It’s part control-freakery and part fussiness, but we find that there aren’t actually that many DJs who we think make the grade for our events.

If we’re approached by a DJ who we haven’t heard in action, then we’ll ask for a sample of a recent playlist, which we can check out at leisure. This is never the same as being in the room at a milonga, but it can give a good idea of how the DJ structures tandas, and the style of music that they prefer. Sometimes it’s a revelation. But often it’s not pretty, with poor choice of tracks and an excessive tendency towards a particular mood or artist.

Anyway, despite needing to meet our high criteria this years DJ team is just about recruited, and their travel arrangements and accomodation will need to be sorted out soon.  Then we’ll relax and look forward to another great event.

‘I love it when a plan comes  together!’

It has been a while since the previous post.

Well, there have been posts in the meantime, but they fell victim to hundreds (yes, hundreds) of spam comments, so we’ve given it a rest and in the meantime disabled the comments facility. Sorry if that means that you can’t respond here to my dry witty observations, but I can still be reached by email or Facebook if there’s something you want to say.

What else has been happening in the past few weeks?

There’s been lots of dancing and teaching as ever. We have many students who have regular private lessons, and they are all doing very well and having good fun.

We had a special celebration night for the 10^th anniversary of ‘Junction 8’.

Plus we took couple of weeks off for a family holiday.

Behind the scenes we’ve been developing new decoration for the Hall at Old Windsor; new lighting colours, table decorations, and screening for the side alcoves that’s much more attractive.

And I’ve been actively looking at getting the floor at Old Windsor re-coated to keep it super nice to dance on. With a bit of luck the work can be done in August ready for our next big event – the ‘Septonathon’ weekend.

Lately we’ve been thinking about live music at Milongas, and why it doesn’t happen more often. The thinking has been prompted by a very courteous email recently received from a skilled musician. He was enquiring whether we would like to have him play at one of our milongas, and that got us reflecting on the whole issue again.

The short answer is no, we won’t have live music at our events. But there’s a lot of careful consideration behind that simple choice.

It’s nothing personal; we just prefer dancing to recordings of the great Tango orchestras in their heyday. If you listen to them, it’s not just the songs that inspirational; it’s the way that they are being played, with the dancers in mind. Their music has a ‘compás’ or beat that creates energy on the dance floor. The energy and vitality that filled the dance floors night after night. Wouldn’t it be great to have the immediacy and excitement of  those orchestras playing, just like in the Golden Age in Buenos Ares? It’s certainly a very romantic notion, and I guess many dancers have fantasised about being on the dance floor when D’Arienzo or Tanturi were playing live.

It’s not really fair to compare modern musicians with the masters of Tango, playing at their prime at the peak of Tango’s popularity. It’s a tall order, and who could realistically expect anyone to match up to such virtuosity? And yet inevitably, that’s what the dancers will do whenever live music is being played.  The dancers have heard the same tracks throughout their Tango dancing, in lessons and at Milongas, and the music is a constant companion and friend as their dancing evolves. A modern rendition will be an interloper in that relationship, struggling to match up to the energy and foibles of the familiar recordings. And let’s face it, the live performance is most likely going to sound a bit second rate when you’re used to recordings by brilliant orchestras who honed their art night after night in the most competitive era.

And yet, perhaps there’s something special about dancing to the spontaneity and immediacy of live performances? In our experience the novelty is often outweighed by the poor quality of the performance. And if the performance is top class? Ironically, a dancer recently reported the a live orchestra at a milonga was so good that ‘they sounded just like listening to a CD’. Go figure.

Oh, and there’s the brutal economics to consider. Organisers already have to budget to cover the cost of hall hire, advertising, a DJ, catering, insurance etc. etc., so the extra cost of live musicians fees and travel just isn’t affordable. And because the attendance at a Milonga is never guaranteed then sadly it’s very brave or foolhardy to commit to paying musicians a fair rate.

So, there it is; live music is a nice romantic idea, but in reality, it’s just too expensive, and can’t match up to recordings of the great orchestras from the Golden Age. Shame.