Tag: Tango

Tango

Tango is a style of music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay (collectively, the “Rioplatenses“). It is traditionally played on a solo guitar, guitar duo, or an ensemble, known as the orquesta típica, which includes at least two violins, flute, piano, double bass, and at least two bandoneóns. Sometimes guitars and a clarinet join the ensemble. Tango may be purely instrumental or may include a vocalist.

In the early 20th century it was the favorite music of thugs and gangsters who visited the brothels, in a city with 100,000 more men than women (in 1914). The complex dances that arose from such rich music reflects how the men would practice the dance in groups, demonstrating male sexuality and causing a blending of emotion and aggressiveness.

All sources stress the influence of the African communities and their rhythms, while the instruments and techniques brought in by European immigrants in the 20th century played a major role in its final definition.

During the golden age from about 1935 to 1952, Carlos Gardel made tango widely popular.

From the 1950ies, Ástor Piazolla dominated the tango, giving rise to tango nuevo.

Milonga and habanera

Milonga is a musical genre that originated in the Río de la Plata areas of Argentina and Uruguay. It was very popular in the 1870s.

It is set in lively 2/4. Milonga has a syncopated beat, consisting of 8 beats with accents on the 1st (sometimes also 2nd), 4th, 5th, and 7th beats:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8.

The former is explained in this video. Francisco Canaro’s Milonga Criolla sounds like this:

The same rhythm is used in the earlier habaneras of Afro-Cuban origin, for example in Carmen by French composer Georges Bizet’s:

This explains why sometimes a milonga is referred to as an “excited habanera”. Another famous example is La Paloma by Spanish Basque composer Sebastián Iradier:

Bandoneón

The bandeoneón is an essential instrument in most tango ensembles from the traditional orquesta típica of the 1910s onwards.

The Bandonion, so named by the German instrument dealer Heinrich Band (1821–1860), was originally intended as an instrument for religious and popular music of the day, in contrast to its predecessor, German concertina (Konzertina), which had predominantly been used in folk music.

By 1910 bandoneons were being produced expressly for the Argentine and Uruguayan markets, with 25,000 shipping to Argentina in 1930 alone. However, declining popularity and the disruption of German manufacturing in World War II led to an end of bandoneon mass-production.

Historically, bandoneons were produced primarily in Germany and never in Argentina itself, despite their popularity in that country. As a result, vintage bandoneons had by the 2000s become rare and expensive (costing around 4000 USD), limiting the opportunities for prospective bandeonists. In 2014, the National University of Lanús announced its plan to develop an affordable Argentine-made bandoneon, which it hoped to market for one-third to one-half of the cost of vintage instruments.

Décima

A décima is a ten-line stanza of poetry, and the song form generally consists of forty-four lines (an introductory four-line stanza followed by four ten-line stanzas). It is also called “espinela” after its founder, Vicente Espinel (1550–1624), a Spanish writer and musician of the Siglo de Oro.

The decima in all Latin America and in Spain is a style of poetry that is octosyllabic and has 10 lines to the stanza. The rhyming scheme is ABBAACCDDC. It is spoken, sung and written throughout Latin America with variations in different countries. It is often improvised.

An example is Volver a los diecisiete de Violeta Parra: