DJ 101
With the recent increase in milonga venues locally, I foresee a demand for more DJ’s who can arrange decent and danceable music. Now, drawing on my personal experiences and from reading sources online, here’s a basic list of skills I consider necessary for anyone starting out*:
- Understand the role of a DJ.
- Awareness of pros and cons of softwares available for the job.
- Basic approaches on how to a) “pace” for a milonga, b) plan the flow of tandas.
- Start to build up a collection: where, how of acquiring music.
- See/hear some sample tandas to understand the reasons for their construction.
- Develop a ear for danceable music**.
Finally, I think a part of DJ’s responsibility is to get to know your dancers so that you can cater to the right audience!
* Naturally this is not meant to be exhaustive or it won’t be 101 anymore!
** Given that some of the budding DJs may be inexperienced dancers themselves (e.g. as in the case for our community), this may be tough to begin with. One suggestion is to simply watch dance floor to see whether it is chaotic or not, i.e. lots of confused faces that is different to the “not-dancing-to-music” phenomena… 😉
Passing of milongueros
Last week saw the passing of two icons in the tango world, “Tete” Pedro Rusconi (74) and Osvaldo Zotto (46). Since I don’t know either personally, I won’t try to add to the great number of tributes that are already out there.
However, the following as reported by Jantango are excerpts from a letter distributed in the milongas by Tete on his birthday four years ago, and they pretty much sum up the man.
I believe that many are disguising tango as something that it isn’t. Tango is music, and it doesn’t begin with steps. We shouldn’t commit the mistake of not teaching how to walk different musical rhythms to recognize each orchestra. Many who are teaching have to learn how to dance tango first, then give everything in order not to cheat their students or damage their reputation as teachers.
Tango isn’t a business, although many see it as such. Tango is part of our lives, part of our grandparents, fathers, mothers, brothers, and friends. It is our life. We shouldn’t fool ourselves, and we have to return to regain it. We are losing tango when we don’t respect it.
And to the tango community in Europe and the rest of the world, I give my counsel: I would like you to open your eyes to learn to dance; and to the organizers of workshops and the teachers, with all my affection, I want you to know that when you organize something, try to bring the best dancers and teachers to teach as tango ought to be taught. Without the music, the cadence, posture, and balance, the steps are nothing and for that we need authentic masters and teachers.
Finnish tango
Not really in the frame of mind to put down any deep thoughts these days. 🙂
Here is a somewhat amusing clip about Finnish tango, when placed in the context of Finnish social behaviours as described in the clip. However, I think the real “moral of the story” is to just keep an open mind different cultures and social customs, and not be arragant in thinking “my way is the best”… The world can be so much more enjoyable if we don’t take ourselves so seriously from time to time, no!?
Shoe stretching
Happened to catch this after the Dog and Mother-in-law clip. In theory this should work, and solve those nagging problems from buying ready-made shoes? Perhaps any ladies out there can let me know how it goes? 🙂