My Tango Diaries

  Di Sarli, Biagi, D'Arienzo, Troilo, Pugliese and Piazzolla I'm slowly working through tango composers and bandleaders - 6 so far! Di Sarli, Biagi, D'Arienzo, Troilo, Pugliese, and Piazzolla! A few made it into the 2025 Tango Calendar - an Art Only one HERE and an Art/Quotes/Birthdays version HERE , but it will be likely late next year before I finish enough for an entire a calendar. The individual art portraits are available on Redbubble , Society6 , Zazzle , and Fine Art America , with the largest selection of art and products on Redbubble. But all four sites have frequent sales in November and December, so they're all worth checking out to get the best prices. Remember that it can take a 1-3 weeks to get items printed, so order early if you need to get things delivered by Christmas.  Starting November 1st, my art posts will slow down a little bit while I switch to NaNoWriMo writing mode until December. I'll still be doing a few updates here and there, but at...

" . . . tango is what remains when you remove all movement, when the only thing that is left is feeling." - Carlos Gavito, (1) Three steps forward, two steps back. At least I have made some progress. But I am still rushing. Still moving too soon. And too fast. Falling away. Tango, it seems, can't undo a lifetime of constantly moving. Constantly running - always closing the doors behind me. It's exhausting to keep moving - but terrifying to stop. To wait. To listen. Sometimes stopping feels a lot like suffocating. What am I so afraid of? Feeling? Possibly. Entrega ? Sometimes. El duende ? Frequently. But even those aren't really it. Maybe that there will be nothing. Not the little nothings that inhabit tiny gaps in our day. Those traveling moments of suspension between one thing and the next thing. Falling forward into the next moment. Not those. Big nothing . Thunderous silence in the absence of. . . . of? the absence of what? The absence of me ? Expanded. Disp...

The video below is part of the reason I can't get very excited about soltadas. Moves/patterns/steps should be appropriate to the music - not just the rhythm of the music, but the intention of the music. Unfortunately, deciphering the intention of vocal tangos requires an idea of what the lyrics are saying. (And there's a whole other case made against including vocal tangos at all by Danny Israel here .) I don't know Castellano, but I'm learning. Any time I hear a tango that moves me, or in many cases, moves the leader I'm dancing with, I look up the lyrics. If I can't find a translation, I work out a rough translation for myself. After all, would John Lennon's "Imagine" move people as deeply if they didn't understand the sentiment of the lyrics? It's a beautiful song regardless, but the lyrics tell the story. The lyrics tell a story in this song as well . . . One of the most tragic (and that's saying something) tangos played in milonga...

When I have a music question, I have to go find a sympathetic, and patient , musician to ask. As I've written in previous posts, I don't have the remotest education in music, so just looking something up doesn't really work. The terms don't mean so much to me. Someone has to take the time to break it down and explain it. Thankfully, we're lucky to have tango composer Glover Gill in our community who not only plays several times a month at milongas, but takes time to answer my random tango music questions. So here's the scenario . . . As the music starts, you invite your partner and step onto the dance floor. As you step to the beginning of the next phrase, you noticed that at the next strong beat, where you would normally be stepping down, you're actually in midstep. So, maybe you shift weight a bit, start with the next phrase - and there it is again - where other orquestras have placed the "weak" beat, this one has placed emphasis - a strong beat....

(Warning: my music education is pretty much nada, so please forgive my usage of such technical terms as, well, "bing", for instance.) Enrique Rodriguez King of the Missing Bing Melina and Detlef dancing to "Llorar por una mujer" Scenario - You and your partner are dancing to the lovely "Llorar por una mujer" and you can hear the smooth phrasing build to the traditional end and listen for the end "bing" that signals "this is the end of the song" so you can end your dance smoothly on the beat. Except the bing doesn't come. The song just ends..... No "bing". Sort of like hearing someone sing "Happy Birthday" except at the end, the last line just goes, "Happy birthday to." Welcome to the tangos of Enrique Rodriguez, King of the Missing Bing . Rodriguez gets quite a bit of play at milongas, locally anyway, and his pieces have a nice balance between strong rhythm and silky melody that make dancers pretty hap...

I've always asked people why they started tango - what they wanted from it. It's an important question and it's related to the question I ponder a lot these days, "What kind of dancer do I want to be?" Which really translates, for me, to what kind of follower do I want to be? I spend a lot of time watching other dancers, teachers - both local and visiting, in person and online. I try different things, different techniques, different ways of expressing the music. I try a few things on and see how they fit. When something doesn't fit or feels off, I try to figure out why. Keep what works. Let go of the things that don't work. Here are the things that make up the kind of dancer I want to be - in no particular order. I want to be soft. Many of these descriptors are going to be troublesome to explain. All can do is kind of dance around the idea and hope I get it clear by the end of my explaining. "Soft" is one of the tough ones. Some dances feel ...

Dear tanguero, I feel I should explain my reaction to your comments about Tim Ferriss. It touched a nerve and I didn't really explain my apparent hostility. It was certainly not meant for you. Several people have brought Tim Ferriss to my attention over this past year. I can usually make it a month before his name pops up again. For readers who are unfamiliar with him, he's the author of "The 4 Hour Work Week". He set a Guinness record for the most consecutive tango turns and has competed with his partner, Alicia Monti, at the Tango World Championship . As a social dancer the idea of a tango competition seems absurd. I don't think I will ever understand how something like tango could be judged - or why anyone would want it to be. But I digress. I think the most crucial detail of Ferriss's history, as I relate it to tango, is his winning Wired magazine's "Greatest Self-Promoter of All Time" . If there is any concept more out of synch with social ...

Full disclosure: I can't name the orchestra when a tango comes on. I can, however, hear the differences between versions of a song - particularly one that I like a great deal. If I had a better music vocabulary, I think I might have an easier time remembering the names because I could attribute certain characteristics between version and orchestras. As it is, I have my own little internal dialogue that goes something like, "oh this is the version that's slower in the beginning then speeds up." Or, "this is the one that stays slow and melodic, but ends really abruptly." While I was trying to explain the importance of listening to several versions of songs to get an idea of the range of the music, I thought of an example that seemed to almost make my point for me. So to the tanguero who asked, this is why I think the orchestra is important. . . Here is Eric Clapton (Cream) song Layla (1983) with Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page: And, here is Clapton and Mark...

Tango has brought many puzzles to my life but the one I'm pondering now is one I don't think I can actively do anything about. Tango makes me sentimental, sometimes melancholy, sometimes just contemplative. Dancing, nearly any kind of dancing, makes me buoyant, usually requiring me to stifle giggles to be able to do it all. In dancing tango, my brain gets confused. Take for example, dancing to Malena (or Volver, or Sur), whose lyrics I've posted before. Very melancholy song. The music makes me sad, almost overwhelmingly so. Being able to dance to it with milonguero-style dancer - makes me irrepressibly happy. Having the lyrics sung to me in Spanish - also brings a ridiculously silly grin to my face. But it's a terribly sad song! Which leaves my brain wondering, 'is this happy or sad?' I end up teary-eyed and giggling at the same time. What kind of tango dancer laughs during Malena, I ask you?

"Yes, no doubt, to talk about tango is to say Gardel, el zorzal criollo, and we have to repeat until boredom, he sings better each day ..." Alfonso Laso Bermeo I knew that Gardel's voice only very rarely graced milongas I had been to. I didn't realize that, generally speaking, his voice shouldn't be danced to at all. When I've asked before, I always got a sort of shrug and sigh, and "he's too hard to dance to." "I can't find the rhythm through his voice." So I thought it was an issue of dancibililty. I can certainly understand that. I have a tendency, when Gardel makes his way around my mp3 player, to stop what I'm doing. I still feel like moving to it - but it's not precisely that I want to dance . It's hard to think about anything else. I multitask all the time, but I can't do it when Gardel sings. It's a good thing I don't drive or I'd be pulling over every 20 songs or so. It's powerful stuff - ...

Vals: Yo no se que me han hecho tus ojos (I don't know what your eyes have done to me.) By Dolores Espeja (English lyrics translated by Alberto Paz) Lyrics: (English translation below) Yo no se si es cariño el que siento, yo no se si sera una pasion, solo se que al no verte, una pena va rondando por mi corazón... Yo no se que me han hecho tus ojos que al mirarme me matan de amor, yo no se que me han hecho tus labios que al besar mis labios, se olvida el dolor. Tus ojos para mi son luces de ilusion, que alumbra la pasion que albergo para ti. Tus ojos son destellos que van reflejando ternura y amor. Tus ojos son divinos y me tienen preso en su alrededor. Tus ojos para mi son el reflejo fiel de un alma que al querer querra con frenesi. Tus ojos para mi seran la luz de mi camino que con fe me guiaran por un sendero de esperanzas y esplendor porque tus ojos son, mi amor! Yo no se cuantas noches de insomnio en tus ojos pensando pase; pero se que al dormirme una noche con tus ojos pensand...

Lyrics courtesy of MilongaCat Y los años van sin poder soltar And the years go by without releasing los recuerdos del ayer yesterday's memories así mirándolos pasar y volver seeing them going and coming back los recuerdos del ayer yesterday's memories A través de la esencia Through the essence de mil jazmines se filtra todo tu calor of thousands jasmines all your warmth slips through Los pétalos de tus labios The petals of your lips buscando sobre los míos looking in mine apagar su sed extinguish its thirst Noches de verano Summer nights en la esquina de Begrano at Begrano's corner navegando a la deriva sailing to the drift hasta el amanecer till dawn Sembrando melodías Seeding melodies en la noche infinita on the endless night lo llevo bien guardado I'm keeping it well ya lo sé I know it Y los años van... And the years go by... Las vidrieras han cambiado The windows have changed y sin embargo ya aun te pienso and nevertheless I still think of you Casi sin querer almost...

Confianzas, Gotan Project translation by Jose I wasn't going to post anymore music today - and I certainly meant to ease off of Gotan Project. But I love this, and it's been sitting in my favorites for ages (with so many others, unfortunately) waiting for a blog post. Sit down at the table and write "With this poem you won't take the power", it says "With these verses you won't do any revolution", it says "Nor with thousands of verses you won't do any revolution", it says And furthermore These verses won't be worth for workers Teachers and lumberjacks to live better Eat it or he himself will eat it, live better Nor to date a woman it won't be worth You won't earn money with them You won't go to the movies for free with them They won't give you clothes for them You won't get tobacco or wine for them Nor parrots, nor scarves, nor boats Nor bulls, nor umbrellas you won't get for them If it were for them, rain wo...

Just seems to fit today, I think.

was wonderful - though I spent most of the time trying to find a comfortable position for my injured toe and listening to music. It was of course the music the got me there in the first place. I did have someone come tell me that I must be "hard core" to come to a milonga mostly for the music. My journey started with one piece of tango music - what can I say but that? In my first milonga I watched gentlemen ask women to dance with merely their eyebrows. Fantastic. The language of eyebrows is fascinating. I must practice answering in my mirror ;-) The music of the evening was accompanied by something I didn't expect - the somewhat hypnotic sound of the dancers' feet sweeping the floor like soft whispering in time with the music. Next time my feet will be contributing to the whispering. I also learned to never, ever stop by your office on the way to a milonga. It's courting disaster - if not just distraction. For god's sake don't look at anything in your off...

I left the milonga too early, it seems. After I left, they played "Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets" which would have been wonderful to hear in that setting. I learned one of my first belly dancing routines to Natacha Atlas's version, below: Gotan Project's version is used in the video below: Next time I have to find a way to stay 'til the end of the milonga!

Simply too beautiful not to share. Murat and Michelle dancing in the show, Tango Amor in Maui, August 2007. Its their favorite tango: Remolino by Francini Pontier and Raul Beron.

I had heard about this being played for tango and just had to listen for myself. It really does work - and not just because I always liked the song. I can imagine this being beautiful for tango actually.

Every once in a while . . . oh, who am I kidding, frequently I catch myself listening to non-tango music and thinking, I could dance tango to that. The emotion, the rhythm - something in the music works in my head for that. Here's an example: I can totally see myself doing beautiful boleos during this song - if I could do beautiful boleos, I mean. Which I can't. Except in my head.

16mm PROJECT TANGO film by Daniel Peters starring TRIO GARUFA performing and dancing to "Gamulan" with dancer Andrea Fuchilieri. I love the man dancing with his foot in a box. Well, who wouldn't?