[Tango-L] how many tangos (used for dancing)?

[Tango Society of Central Illinois]

I did a little thought experiment. It is not about how many tangos
have been recorded, but rather how many tangos (milongas & valses) are
used at milongas in Buenos Aires. A typical milonga in Buenos Aires is
about 6 hours. Let's assume 6 tandas (TTVTTM) can fit into an hour, so
that's 36 tandas in a milonga, with (typically) 4 songs per tanda =
144 songs per milonga. Actually, cortinas are longer in Buenos Aires
and there are often non-tango 'tandas' (tropical music, jazz/rock 'n
roll), but let's go with that number. Let's say you go to a different
milonga every day for a week, with a different DJ at each. In Buenos
Aires you will hear a lot of same music repeated at different
milongas. Let's say that of the 144 tangos you heard on Sunday, only
half, or 72, will be different on Monday On Tuesday you will hear only
half as many new tangos that were not played on Sunday and Monday
(=36), on Wednesday 18 new tangos, Thursday 9, etc. At the end of the
week you will have heard about 285 different tangos. Let's say that
actually 300 tangos (milongas & valses) account for 95% of the tango
music played in the milongas of Buenos Aires. Maybe that's a low
estimate, But it doesn't sound too low. That's enough for 75 tandas. I
have about 100 tandas on my computer ready for use as a DJ, but some
of these tandas I hardly ever use. Maybe I use 75 of them 95% of the
time.

Anyway, just a thought experiment, based on experience and intuition.

Ron


On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Oleh Kovalchuke <tangospring at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have been talking to someone at recent milonga, and someone has
>  asked me, if I get tired of dancing to the same old tangos. My answer
>  was no: the mood, the partner change the emotional meaning of the
>  dance all the time. Besides that, there are a lot of classic tangos I
>  have never had a chance to dance to yet. I have couple thousands
>  recordings by various tango dance orchestras from the golden age of
>  tango myself -- most of them I had never heard played at milongas.
>
>  Thinking about his question has piqued my curiosity though. Does
>  anyone know how many arrangements have been recorded by all tango
>  dance orchestras in the period from the late twenties to the fifties?
>  ~20,000; 50,000; 100,000...?
>
>  --
>  Oleh Kovalchuke
>  Argentine Tango : Connection, Balance, Rhythm
>  http://tangospring.com
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