TTVTTM and the flow of the final tandas

We the tango DJs don't have any doubts about beginning a milonga with back-to-back tango tandas, the initial two T's of the obligatory TTVTTM tanda sequence of the genres. And why doubt, why overthink the thing, if there are usually too few dancers on the floor at the beginning of a night anyway. The early birds of tango are a special minority in any case, and a DJ is supposed to build the energy flow which works for the majority.

But what about the ending of a milonga, the crescendo of the Cumparsita, the dimmed lights and the overpowering emotions of love and sadness? If you keep repeating TTVTTMs, wouldn't the randomness of added track times mean that sometimes, the scheduled end-time comes with a boisterous laughter of a milonga instead of some poignant tango? Nah, of course we wouldn't do THAT to our beloved dancers :) A DJ may do something, perhaps scrapping the out-of-place milonga tanda, or adding more tangos after it, that's more or less clear. The question is, what is it exactly that you do?

The reason why I started musing about it was very mathematical. I spotted an arithmetic error of sorts in my statistical/fun analysis of the BsAs set-lists. Back then, I calculated that an average milonga had 13 tango tandas and 2.6 milonga tandas, and I was like, hmm, the number of the milonga tandas is less that 13/4, so their flow is probably not a perfect TTVTTM ... they must be skipping or replacing a milonga tanda here and there.

Sheesh. Now I saw the numbers in a different light. 2.6 milonga tandas (or 2.7 vals tandas), on average, would mean that approximately 10.5 tango tandas took place in the regular TTVTTM groupings. To add up to 13 average tango tandas, one would need to add, on average, 2.5 more tandas of tango. And it occurred to me that it's exactly what's happening ... at the end of a night!

Melina Sedo, the Encuentro warrior and DJ

Is it "in the books" or just a commonsense thing? My first thought was, I couldn't have invented it, I must have read about the "best ways to end a tango night" somewhere. But the only "DJing manual" detailing proper selection of the last tandas I found was a super-micromanaging article by Melina Sedo (and I definitely haven't read it before!)

Melina writes: "The 2 or 3 last tandas are those especially determining the emotional state people leave the milonga in. The final tanda should be tango, not vals and never milonga." (Big-name DJs occasionally - rarely - do play valses at the end, and perhaps a slow and dreamy milonga campera may fit occasionally, when the mood is right).

Since I have a good collection of published playlists, I couldn't resist quantifying what *I* do.

It turned that my pre-Cumparsita tanda is always a tango. And in the majority of my playlists, at least 3 final tandas are tango (but I often play danceable music after the Cumparsita ... often energetic and upbeat music, since I picked the habit from Momo Smitt who explained that it was the  "furniture-moving music"). The numbers average at 2.5 final tango sets, perfectly paralleling the prediction from the BsAs statistics.

How many tango tandas before the Cumparsita?

I also tallied the orchestras I select for the final two tandas. I knew that Pugliese would be a winner, since his orchestra is so perfect for the crescendo build-up. And surely it was:

Pugliese 64 tandas (!) (and most of the lists without Pugliese in the final tandas had a Pugliese tanda right before them)

De Angelis 22 (mostly late instrumentals)

D'Arienzo 9 (mostly late instrumentals)

Racciatti 9 (mostly female vocals)

Donato 8 (mostly lyrical)

Laurenz 6

Demare, Canaro 5 tandas ea

Di Sarli 4

Calo, Rodriguez, Salamanca 2

Troilo, D'Agostino, Malerba, OTV, Biagi, Tanturi, Fresedo, Varela 1 tanda ea

Mixed ultimate and penultimate tandas - 11 incl Sassone, Firpo, late-era bands including Color Tango, Ojos de Tango, Fervor de BsAs,  Krebsian Orchestra, Nuevo Quinteto Real, as well as some of the above orchestras (this clearly defies Melina's advice to play only true-and-tried classic sets in the end...)

I can clearly see that I am biased against Di Sarli for the crescendo-building sets, and it's probably explained by my overexposure to late, dramatic Di Sarli's in my beginner classes. It's just hard to overcome the kryptonite "I'm a beginner all over again" vibe of this uncommonly elegant music. But as a cancer professional, I also find it hard not to see the specter of cancer in Di Sarli's perfect, late-period pieces. The Senior of Tango must have known that his pancreatic tumor doesn't leave him much time, and he was in a race against time to bring the rough, crude hits of his youth to an elegant perfection - an almost morbid perfection. Have you read Pushkin's "Exegi Monumentum"? "The monument I’ve built is not in chiseled stone"? For someone on the oncology field, it may be painful to sense. Forgive me.

Top milonga choices

Milonga! (Painting by Renata Domagalska)

A quick statistical snapshot, inspired by a conversation with a fellow playlist blogger, Felicity. It occurred to me that I may have been habitually recycling the safest, sure-fire milonga tracks despite my deep affection to unusual and quirky milongas. It's possible that I actually love milonga tandas more than tango tandas ... well it's hard to gauge, but I do know that many dancers specifically ask me to spare a milonga tanda for them, and (shhh!) nobody asks specifically for a tango tanda :) But the flip side is the huge disappointment of getting an indigestible milonga tanda to dance ... and there're so many milonga records unsuitable for dancing in the first place, and then quite a few records which may delight a true aficionado but won't work for most of the rest of the dancers. And so few milonga tandas in a night of dancing!

So what are *my* top choices? I asked Google. The stats are a little padded because Google slightly exaggerates the hit tallies, and because the same playlist may be spotted at different blog pages, and because I occasionally discuss specific titles outside of playlist posts. But it's gotta be close. Here's my top 20 temas to date, with asterisks marking titles for which I played 2 different orchestras:

1 Pena mulata 47
2 La Mulateada 41
3 Zorzal 33
4 Yo Soy De San Telmo (*) 29
No surprises so far. Top-rated Di Sarli's milongas are my absolute favorites, with a perfect combination of beat, grounded feeling, and stretchy melodic inclusions. With 59 playlists analyzed, it looks like I played some combination of these tracks almost every time!
5 Milonga del 900 29
"Milonga of the 1900s" is my absolute favorite of Sebastian Piana's earliest, slower-paced and therefore "accessible" milongas. And "Milonga sentimental", Piana's original composition, is a close runner-up, just two lines below. 

Sebastian Piana. Todotango photo
(the site even features his
very interesting interview)

Traditional milonga songs of the countryside payadores may have been one of the musical sources of the earliest tangos, but by the beginning of the XX c. the old folk milonga has already fallen into obsolescence, with its unsophisticated repetitive music and endless lyrics, improvised for any convenient occasion.  An operetta classic even featured two "old ladies" of the bygone days - an ailing old boring milonga and a grandmother cifra. We owe the vibrant milongas of  today's tango nights to one visionary, Sebastian Piana (1903-1994). November 26th marks Sebastian Piana's birthday and gives us a great occasion to celebrate the Father of the Milonga, who was one of the less appreciated leaders of the tango music revolution of the 1930s, setting stage for tango's Golden Age. Piana's first award-winning tango compositions were performed beginning in 1922, but it was the birth of "Milonga sentimental", first recorded in 1932, which turned into a truly seminal moment.
Piana was asked to compose a special, unusual milonga, a milonga with high-quality lyrics, and my guess is that he was inspired by the change brought by Gardel's "Mi noche triste" into the world of tango a decade earlier. "Mi noche triste" didn't just introduce set lyrics into tango - it also introduced sadness and contemplation and sentimental feeling. Can a milonga be made sentimental, too? Alas, Sebastian Piana's first customer totally rejected his work! Luckily, Piana's brother-in-law, Pedro Maffia, another of the unsung leaders of the musical revolution of Julio De Caro, loved Sebastian's new score, and played it often. Eventually it made its way to the radio waves ... and soon, the revived milonga genre has become all the rage, and tangueros started to dance to it!
Still, for a while the "new" milonga kept an unmistakable retro feeling, and many of Piana's best milongas paint historical snapshots of Argentina's past: Milonga del 900 - about the aftermath of the failed 1890 Park Revolution; Pena Mulata (the #1 on my list) - about the nation's bygone Afro-Argentine past; or Milonga de los Fortines, #14 on this list - about the Indian wars of the mid-XIX century.
6 Azabache  27
Azabache wouldn't be a top milonga choice, but it wins by being the best bet in its subcategory of candombe milongas. And another top-rated candombe, Tamboriles, is just a few lines below. Which means that although I don't play milonga candombe too often, I must be selecting these tracks very often when I do it.
The success of Piana's milonga porteña in the 1930s paved way to more fast-beat experimentation in the 1940s, both Uruguayan-influenced candombes, returning tango beats to their Afro roots, and Nothern Highlands beats such as Demare's Carnavalito. Miguel Caló recorded his signature Azabache, "Black Amber", in September 1942.

7 Milonga Sentimental  (*) 27
8 Ella Es Asi 24
"Ella es asi" is a very special song in my tango path, the hymn for the true love which started my work on tango translations.
9 Los Vino 24
"Los Vino", a 2010 recording, also wins by being absolutely the best in its subcategory of contemporary milongas. 

10 Milonga Triste  (*) 22
And Milonga Triste, another of Sebastian Piana's trend-setting compositions, gets on the list by being the best in the difficult subcategory of slow, dreamy milonga sureña  It marks the return of the countryside milongas into the urban tango salon. Different people use different terms for the regional milonga style of the Argentine hinterland - milonga campera, milona pampera, milonga surera... It was great Atahualpa Yupanqui, who once performed Los ejes de mi carreta with Canaro's orchestra, who insisted on the term "Southern" for the slowest and saddest milongas from the pampas...

11 Mi Vieja Linda 22
12 Tamboriles 21
Tamboriles isn't just an Uruguayan-influenced tune - this candombe comes straight from Uruguay, the top hit of the short-lived orchestra of Romeo Gavioli, from the days after he was expelled from Edgardo Donato's imploding orchestra and returned to his native country, and before he took his own life.

13 Cacareando 21
14 Milonga De Los Fortines 21
15 El Esquinazo  (*) 20
16 Milonga criolla 20
17 Sácale punta 19
18 Largas las penas (*) 19
19 Entre Pitada Y Pitada 19
20 Rotos en el Raval 17

The Big 5 Orchestras: a global view

A survey matures...
Tango Tecnia worldwide annual survey of the attitudes and preferences of the tangueros had substantially widened its reach in its second year. In 2014, the survey was only available in Spanish, and its audience in North American continent was pretty much limited to ... Mexico, while in Europe, it largely probed the opinions in Spain (with a smaller number of responses from France and Italy). In comparison, in 2015, an English language version of the survey brought many more countries into play, despite a poor quality of English translation.
In 2014 nearly half of the 1282 survey-takers were Argentinian, but only 25 people from the English-speaking countries responded. But in 2015, less than a third of the 2229 participants were from Argentina; this time, 283 Americans and Canadians, 116 Britons, and 29 from Australia and New Zealand responded. Germany has become strongly represented, along with many more Northern, Central and Eastern European nations.

Tango Tecnia 2015 Survey respondents. In my representation, "other Anglo countries" are Ireland, Canada,
Australia, NZ, and South Africa. I included Russia and Israel in "Other European" category.

The age group appeal of the survey widened too. In 2014, tangueros in their 20s and 30s predominated, and the average age of the survery-takers was only 40. In 2015, the share of people in their 20s and 30s dropped to 40%, and the average age increased to 45.

Of course like any Internet survey, it's subject to biases of self-selection ... basically only people who care about its questions would chime in. But when we discuss the tango orchestras and their significance, it's kind of OK to draw some conclusions from the opinions of those who care.

This isn't a full list of the ingredients of a "balanced meal of a milonga" like we saw in Weigel's survey. Here we see the orchestras which make the tangueros eager to dance, the ones which they gratefully remember dancing to.

One pet peeve: in 2015, the survey-designers simply forgot to include Edgardo Donato on the list! (It ranked #12 in 2014).

World's 5 orchestra favorites, and the runners-up

D'Arienzo ~ Di Sarli > Pugliese > Canaro ~ Troilo led the pack (statistically speaking, D'Arienzo and Di Sarli with their 75% and 73% favorability rating weren't significantly different, as were Canaro and Troilo with their 61% and 60% favorability). This actually marks the first time in my research when the elusive Big 5 have been defined with statistical significance (all 5 were significantly ahead of the next  runner-up, Calo). An increased study size makes all the difference!

D'Arienzo and Di Sarli were the winners across the spectrum of ages, gender roles, and geographical locations, while Pugliese was somewhat less favored in the US (where it was rated the 5th).

Troilo was more favored in Argentina, but not significantly so (64% vs. 58%, p-value = 0.02, too high in this multiple-testing scenario).

But Francisco Canaro offered a stark example of regional and cultural differences. It topped the popularity chart in the UK, but wasn't even in the top 5 in Argentina! (the first one of a long list of orchestras which ranked far lower in Argentina than in the rest of the world).
Overall, favorability of Canaro outside Argentina was 68%, compared with only 51% in Argentina. The difference was extremely significant (p-value 0.000000).

#6 Calo was significantly ahead of #7 Biagi. Calo was universally popular (but most of all in Colombia and Venezuela)

#7 Biagi was in statistical dead heat with #8 Fresedo, but significantly ahead of #9 De Angelis. Biagi was universally popular (but least of all in Argentina, albeit with only marginal significance)

Fresedo, De Angelis, and #10 Tanturi were roughly statistically equivalent, but significantly ahead of the #11, D'Agostino. Fresedo came in the top 5 in France, Italy, Germany, but was less popular in Argentina. De Angelis was in the top 5 in Colombia and Uruguay. Tanturi was more popular with older people, and made the top 5 in Brazil.

Worldwide favorability rating of the top 10 tango orchestras

A few more assorted observations which probably don't reach statistical significance, but still sound intriguing.

#11 D'Agostino made the top 5 in the UK
#12 Laurenz was more popular with the older people, in Germany, in France.
#13 Sexteto Milonguero was in the top 5 in Chile and Brazil, unknown in the US
#15 Demare was less popular in Argentina, with marginal statistical significance
#16 Orquesta Tipica Victor - older people's orchestra; top 5 in Sweden; significantly less favored in Argentina. Ditto Lomuto.
#17 Enrique Rodriguez ranked poorly in Argentina and Mexico
#18 De Caro ranked worse in Europe and the US; Varela also fared poorly in the US, as did more modern bands such as Los Reyes del Tango, Orquesta Sans Souci, Esteban Morgado, and Herederos del Compas
#19 Color Tango ranked high in Latin America; so did Bajofondo, Hugo Diaz, Otros Aires, and Sexteto Mayor ... but with a marked exception for Argentina.
#32 Donato Racciatti unsurprisingly fared the best in Uruguay, but is also significantly more appreciated in Argentina than in the rest of the world.
#56 Juan Maglio Pacho was popular in France and Italy, they must have gained access to his better quality records unavailable to us?

Argentina is a world apart

Time and time again, an orchestra would show dramatically lower ranking in Argentina than abroad. Many of these cases involved contemporary bands which may be less known outside Argentina, so their ratings were available only from a handful of foreign locales. At first it was bewildering to see how a band gets most of its votes from Argentinians, only to rank the lowest in Argentine in comparison to other countries. Especially considering that Argentine vs foreign survey-takers "liked", on average, about the same number of orchestras (approx. 13), and that the rank-frequency plots inside and outside Argentina were pretty much indistinguishable. As it happens, the issue with the smaller contemporary bands turned out to be an artifact of Tango Tecnia's analysis methodology (where they excluded countries and regions with zero votes, and used the highest ranks for all orchestras which had the same number of votes in a country, thus dramatically inflating rankings of lesser orchestras in smaller countries).

But there are also major classic orchestras which the foreigners appreciate much more than Argentines. Note that all of them are associated with the early Golden Age / pre-Golden Age culture.

First and foremost, it's Francisco Canaro, already discussed above (51% in Argentina vs. 68% outside, p-value 0.000000)
Not surprisingly, Canaro's close associate Lomuto is in a similar situation (16% in Argentina vs. 27% outside, p-value 0.000000) (Incidentally we've just discused how neither Canaro nor Lomuto are ever played for the Tango Mundial in BsAs)
The difference in favorability is even stronger for OTV (15% in Argentina vs. 34% outside, p-value 0.000000)

Less prominent early-age orchestras show a similar pattern:

Firpo (10% in Argentina vs. 17% outside, p-value 0.000066)
Carabelli (5% in Argentina vs. 13% outside, p-value 0.000001)
Rafael Canaro (8% in Argentina vs. 14% outside, p-value 0.001340)

On the contrary, several later-period and contemporary bands were significantly better appreciated in Argentina:

Los Reyes del Tango (23% in Argentina vs. 10% outside, p-value 0.000000)
Orquesta Sans Souci (18% in Argentina vs. 9% outside, p-value 0.000000)
Gobbi (22% in Argentina vs. 12% outside, p-value 0.000000)
Salgan (14% in Argentina vs. 9% outside, p-value 0.002)
Racciatti (18% in Argentina vs. 11% outside, p-value 0.0002)

My guess is that even within the orchestras which foreigners and Argentinians love equally well, the latter may be biased in favor of late Golden Age and post-Golden Age records...

Followers' heaven, leaders' hell??

A number of contemporary bands had much higher favorability rating with the females. Amores Tangos, Bajofondo, Otros Aires, Gotan Project, Almagro, El Afronte, El Cachivache, Ojos de Tango. So did Piazzolla. Are these orchestras united by the pain they cause to the leaders? Please cue me in!

Poema dethroned?

Tango Tecnia survey also offered an opportunity to rate about 40 music titles (not specific records but just titles, often played by different orchestras, sometimes multiple times even by the same orchestra like Hotel Victoria or La Cumparsita). It was probably an unsophisticated  survey-writer's personal list of favorites. Whatever, I can still enjoy the fact that last year's winner, Poema, has been dethroned this year (and lost 1/3rd of its past popularity??). So did Recuerdo. On the contrary, Los Vino and Pollo Ricardo doubled their popularity. But I don't remember the survey's methodology, and can't quite figure out what to make out of its results.