[Tango-L] Tangos with vocals

[ramiro garcia]

I'd like to comment on a few relevant factors here.
First, it might be good to differentiate between tracks where the singer is a highlighted soloist, like an opera singer (Ex: DiSarli+Casares, Canaro+Juan Carlos Rolón, Castillo in his own orchestra) vs. more ensemble singing, where the singer is "just" another instrument, (D'Arienzo+Echagüe 1938-39, Troilo+Fiorentino). I find a lot more dancers have difficulty following the music, and finding a predictable beat they and their partner can can step on, with the more operatic singers.

Then, some dancers seem to be more "comfortable" with instrumentals, and the less intrusive the singer is, the better they like it. I know at least one dancer who strongly prefers instrumentals, but when I played a set with some very laid-back singing, he enjoyed it quite a bit, and didn't even notice the singer.

Another thing that I have found, here in the US, is that my dancers seem to enjoy the song more as they understand the lyrics more. Not always of course, every person is different. And some songs (DiSarli / A la luz del candil ) become less appealing once you understand the lyrics. Obviously this is not entirely relevant to your case, with native Spanish speakers.

And there's some singers that I almost automatically get up to dance for, like Juan Carlos Rolon, Roberto Ray, Echague--and some singers that do the opposite. That's not a matter of disliking singing, that's disliking the particular singer.
Finally, the poetry in some of the tango lyrics is breathtaking. To place a blanket prohibition on all them seems kind of tragic to me, you would be cutting yourself off from some amazing, moving, inspiring works of art.

ramiro

      From: Laura V <laura at lavatop.com>
 To: tango-l at mit.edu 
 Sent: Saturday, October 10, 2015 3:53 PM
 Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Tangos with vocals
   
I have not been to Buenos Aires, but I think this might be a 
misunderstanding. As a general rule of thumb, if the vocals start at the 
beginning of the song or after a short introduction, then the piece is 
probably intended to showcase the singer and is not intended for 
dancing. If the vocal part starts well after the piece is going and only 
lasts a verse or two, then this is probably a tango for dancing. The 
vocals in such a tango should not make the dancing any more difficult 
than say, a violin solo.

Of course, people are welcome to dance to whatever they like.

Best Regards,
Laura



On 10/10/15 10:11 PM, Lois Donnay wrote:
>  I wrote this on a DJ forum recently: "In Buenos Aires, I often ran into
> leaders who would not dance to music with singers. They didn't like to say
> why, but it was a point of principal. Of course, the DJ's there never play
> songs with women singers. I've heard the reason is the singer deserves
> respect, so you shouldn't dance to them (kind of like not dancing to
> Gardel), and also that the way the singer influences the tempo makes the
> dance difficult."
>
> I got this reply: "I've been spending a lot of my spare time lately
> retagging my tango music, adding singers, dates, etc. along with spelling
> corrections.
>
> One of those is a set of 20 CDs sold by the DJ at El Beso, that I bought
> there back in '02.  This is the same set of music Susana Miller takes with
> her on her travels. And what set could possibly be described "traditional"
> anymore than the music played at El Beso?
>
> Out of 480 songs (120 tandas), 273 have vocals, and 207 are instrumentals,
> and yes, that is including the 40 Pugliese instrumentals. That's almost 60%
> vocals. From music selected by the DJ at El Beso for dancing.So when some
> Argentine tells you he doesn't dance to vocals, he is either pulling your
> leg or is a poser/dilettante."
>
> And later:
> "Yes I’m sure there are dancers who refuse to dance to vocals. My thesis
> they are outliers, and are not representative of dancers in BsAs or
> elsewhere. And I stand by my hypothesis that they are either joking or
> posers and dilettantes. It is inane for a DJ to cater their ignorant whims
> by limiting what he/she plays at a milonga."
>
> And from someone else:
> "posers and dilettante" sounds about right to me as well. What does such a
> person do when the DJ plays an instrumental as the first song of a tanda
> and then plays a vocal?
>
> Am I way off base here? Any other DJ's out there who have heard of those
> who prefer instrumentals? If so, should we respect that or try to change
> them?
> ᐧ
>
> Lois Donnay
> www.mndance.com
> 612.822.8436
>
>

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