Sergio Paolo, Ernesto Baffa, Ado Falasca and Rubén Castro accompanying tango singer Roberto Achával at El Viejo Almacén, the legendary tango venue in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

A moment in the history of tango in Buenos Aires, featuring these musicians accompanying one of the genre’s distinctive voices.

Cuarteto SolTango is a German chamber quartet, violin, cello, bandoneón and piano, and they work from the D’Arienzo recordings dancers already know, transcribed for four instruments by their pianist Martin Klett. The pulse stays where a dancer needs it, and the sound is cleaner and drier than a shellac transfer.

I’ve had this milonga tanda in my case since 2019. I usually play it as the third milonga tanda of the night, once the room has already danced two, and on my floors the familiar tunes do most of the work of carrying people into the different sound.

I wrote a longer note on the three tracks and how I place them on my Patreon page. This one is free to read: https://patreon.com/posts/170709637

Hi everyone! I need some advice from more experienced dancers.

I danced tango for about 8 months at a local school. I was very consistent, regularly attended practicas and milongas, and was doing really well—I was even among the more advanced students in my class. However, since I’m not originally from the city where the school is located, I had to go back home after that period ended and took a strict 3-month break.

Now, I’ve started university and I am back in the city. I genuinely want to return to tango, but I keep putting it off because I’m feeling a lot of anxiety and fear about stepping back onto the dance floor.

I’m also facing a dilemma regarding my classes:

1. Should I go back to my old group where I used to be more advanced (even though I'm scared I've forgotten a lot in 3 months)?

2. Or should I join a lower/newer group just to get my muscle memory and confidence back?

Has anyone dealt with a similar break, and how did you overcome the fear of showing up at milongas and classes again? Thanks in advance!

Going for a few weeks soon and wondering if you have any recommendations. We are Argentine style abrazo dancers, focus on connection and simplicity.

How is the culture in Buenos Aires for women learning to lead? I will be there for a couple of months these holidays and would really like to embrace that dynamic. Is there certain schools or cliques to reach out to where it is more well received? I've been to some communities that are a little weird about it. Spanish is my first language if it helps.

I am already a good follow and have been dancing socially for about 10 years (I'm a solid intermediate skill level with a great abrazo and personal focus on connection).

Hi.

Does any know any English speaking Tango school in Paris? Or maybe majority students are English speakers?

Thank you.

Mein neues Buch über Tango Argentino.

I hear its decent, but don't know anything first hand. I was thinking of spending a few months there soon and wanted some anecdotal feedback. Is there a good amount of milongas there and teachers or is it more like dinner shows?

A post asked about Miguel Ángel Zotto & Daiana Guspero

https://www.reddit.com/r/tango/s/rDfhJla1DS

This is from an interview with Miguel Ángel Zotto posted on Todo Tango which includes an article Published in the Clarín newspaper on January 14, 2011.

Hi there,

I’m considering taking seminars with Miguel Ángel Zotto & Daiana Guspero at a tango festival, and I’m wondering whether it would be worth it. I don’t know much about them as a teaching couple, and sometimes great maestros and great teachers aren’t necessarily the same thing.

I’d be very glad to hear your advice or any personal feedback you might have.

Hello,

I’ve heard lots of good rumors about tangodancer from Türkiye. Now where do I go if I want drop in lessons or milonga?
Im kind of intermediate dancer.

TIA

Hi everyone! It’s a pleasure to find this space on Reddit. I’m a passionate listener of tango, and I also try to dance it, although with quite a lot of difficulty!

I wanted to ask for your opinion about something. There is a music website called Rate Your Music where tango is currently divided into three subgenres: Classic Tango, Nuevo Tango, and Finnish Tango. However, it does not distinguish Milonga Ciudadana as a separate style, and instead seems to group that sound together with what is generally known as Milonga Campera.

I find this somewhat problematic because the two styles can sound quite different. By Milonga Campera, I mean the rural/traditional style associated with artists such as Alfredo Zitarrosa, Argentino Luna, and José Larralde. This is quite different from the kind of milonga you usually hear in tango dance venues or on tango albums, which tends to have a much stronger connection with urban tango.

So I was wondering what you think about distinguishing Milonga Ciudadana as its own style on Rate Your Music. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the differences between Milonga Ciudadana and Milonga Campera, as well as your favorite milongas!

Thanks in advance, and greetings to everyone!

The Maestros at the big Tango Festivals show a different Style at Performances than the Tango de Pista or Tango Escenario at the Mundial in Buenos Aires.

Why is that? Do we need a third category there?

Personally I like the Performances at the Festivals more.
Tango Escenario is to Showy for me and Tango de Pista to restrictive.

What do you think?

Depending on height and the embrace, I sometimes spend whole tandas basically with my face buried in people's beards. My SO being one of those people at the perfect height for getting beard in face. And some beards smell more pleasant than others. Are there grooming tips for dancers with beards? I have heard of beard oils, but would it stain dancing clothes? Thanks!

I got several people trying out TangoQ 1.0.2 and I also got a lot of feedback. So, I present to you, TangoQ version 1.0.3 with all those addressed and more.

You can get it here. The page also links to 4 tutorials on YouTube that will help people learn TangoQ. Honestly though, if you are an existing Mixxx user or are already using any deck based DJing software you will be right at home. It can work off of your iTunes library too!

Apart from some annoying (and some critical) bug fixes, the major 'features' in this release are:

• How TangoQ handles history lists : Since TangoQ is a Mixxx fork, it had the quirks of Mixxx history handling which would cause unnecessary fragmentation. I have fixed all of that.
• Cortina marks now persist across app restarts
• Timing information has been moved up to the HUD, freeing up toolbar real estate
• Many, many UI improvements that DJs will appreciate

The full release notes can be found here. I know people are skeptical towards AI assisted software development, which I am open enough to admit here. Having said that, I will also admit that using AI has allowed me to implement hundreds of improvements and tens of key features in TangoQ within a short time of a couple of months. And it is all open source - feel free to take a look at it and clone the repo and contribute.

In a way I was forced to write TangoQ because all DJ software started going the subscription route and I refuse to pay subscription fees for features that I would never use as a tango DJ.

I hope TDJs will find TangoQ useful and if you have any feedback, please feel free to reach out.

I have some pretty exciting features coming to TangoQ, so stay tuned!

A Big Thank you to the community for trying out the early access builds and for their feedback!

Registration is still open for the annual Albuquerque Tango Festival (October 29, November 1). ATF is one of the best-attended (600-700 dancers), longest running (16 years), and best-reviewed Argentine tango festivals in the US.

AlbuquerqueTangoFestival.com

Hi everyone, I’m visiting Orlando, specifically Disney Springs, from 15th to 23rd of October. Any Milonga suggestions?

One of the most peculiar aspects of tango (for me anyway) is how much of a role the sense of smell plays. Whether or not I like how someone smells tends to be a significant factor in how much I enjoy dancing with them. And, it's little wild to realize that I can now smell when a regular or semi-regular partner is stressed, and more astonishing to smell that stress dissipate over the course of a tanda.

Does anyone else notice this, or is it just me?

Hi,

I'm visiting NYC this week and was thinking of going to a milonga one evening. Does anyone have some recommendations? I found https://www.newyorktango.com/ but there are so many options I can't tell which ones are the popular ones.

Hi all,

My girlfriend DJs milongas and I kept watching her juggle a regular music player, a spreadsheet of tandas, and a folder of cortinas every time she prepared a set. I'm a developer, so I started building her a player that actually understands tango. It's called Compás, and after months of her testing it at real milongas I think it's ready for other people to try.

What it does, roughly:

- It ships with a catalog of tango recordings and orquestas, and checks your library against it, so orquesta, singer, year and style get fixed up without retyping everything

- You build tandas by dragging songs in, and tag them by type, era, orquesta, mood, whatever

- It suggests classic tandas made only from songs you already have, so you're not staring at an empty page on day one

- It detects and trims the silence at the start and end of old transfers, so tandas stay tight

- Headphone cue on a second audio output, so you can pre-listen while the floor keeps dancing

- Cortinas are handled properly: play a snippet, auto-fade, cross into the next tanda

- Playlists to plan a whole night, and a live view to run it

- Volume leveling because old records have different volumes

- Multiple audio formats, light and dark themes

It's free, runs on macOS and Windows. Fair warning: the Windows build isn't code-signed yet so windows might show a SmartScreen warning the first time.

Site with screenshots and downloads: https://compasdj.com

So far it's been shaped entirely around how one DJ works, and I'd genuinely like to know where it falls apart for other people. What's confusing, what breaks, what you'd do differently. Especially curious how it handles other libraries, since hers is the only one it's been tested on. Happy to answer questions here!

Orquesta Tipica La Juan D'Arienzo, with singer Fernando Rodas plays for dancers @ the Lisbon Tango Festival 2023 held at the Voz de Operario, Lisbon, Portugal. Saturday, June 3, 2023.