[Tango-L] milonga walking tempo versus tango

[Robert Dodier]

I apologize in advance for any mistakes in musical terminology.
If you see something wrong, feel free to fix it.

It was pointed out that the typical walking tempo for dancing
to tango music corresponds to 1/4 notes (for music written in
2/4 time). That made me wonder about milonga.

I had an unsubstantiated belief that since the milonga walking tempo
is just about twice as fast as tango, it must be that the walk
corresponds to 1/8 notes. Not so! From what I can tell, the typical
walking pace for milonga corresponds to 1/4 notes too, for music
written in 2/4 time, as it was in the good old days.

The habaniera (sorry for 7-bit ascii, I don't have a proper enie at hand)
figure -- bump, ba-dump bump -- which is very common in milonga
music, is typically written as 1/8 dotted, 1/16, 1/8, 1/8 and it takes
up one measure of 2/4. Dancers take 2 steps for each such measure,
so each step corresponds to a 1/4 note, from what I can tell.

So it seems to be that milonga music really is played at a much
faster tempo than tango, instead of taking more steps in music
that is played at the same tempo.

Again I apologize for misunderstandings and errors, and I look
forward to what others have to say about this stuff.

best,

Robert Dodier