DJ Self-Assessment Card

Tango Jockeys put the dancer, not themselves, in the limelight.

How a DJ becomes a TJ

Over the years, I have learned what makes a disc jockey good from many examples of ruined milongas. Mostly DJs who ruin a milonga are not evil, they just are inexperienced and do not know the depth of the task they have taken on. The worst DJ possible is one that wants to reinvent the milonga in their own image and likeness, throwing out tradition, form and predictability. La Música's incarnate representative to mortals used to be the limited to composers, directors and their orchestras. In tango, this important role has handed down to include Tango Jockeys (TJ's).

Originally, I wanted to help DJ's, but I think this is the role of an entire community to support the DJ's as advocates of having the best music to dance to; so this post is not just for DJ's. The entire community needs to be educated and advocate for the best dance music at their own milongas without being too passive nor aggressive. I have helped some DJs that were open to help. One woman was an outsider in the city. I took her aside, and told her about tandas and cortinas. I wanted her to be successful because she was trying her best, and she just did not know. She took my advice. Others in town had never taken the time to tell her, and just did not come to her milongas after one try.

I hope that this Self-Assessment will help you if you are a DJ to become a TJ (a tango jockey*). I am inspired to write this post from the knowledge and ideas that Christian Tobler and Monika Díaz bring to the German-speaking world of tango. They are self-taught tango musicologists in Switzerland. They have made it clear to me why TJs are rare. Someone who knows how to make a milonga more than just a tango dance party; the TJ creates a wonderful dance event. Updates to the post now include four appendices with more TJ's who truly have great milongas. The appendices support what is in the self-assessment, and give more depth to things briefly mentioned on the "report card" matrices:

• The TJ's responsibility to buy or influence organizers to have high quality equipment.
• Resources for buying quality music.
• How a TJ deals with listeners' wildly different views of volume.
• How a TJ deals with tempi during a milonga.
• A video documentary by musicians/recording engineers condensed recordings (MP3's).
• Considerations in building tandas:  Change of key (dance band musicians do this) or at least clear changes in mood and tempi.

One day your or I may be forced into the position of being a DJ out of the need in the community. So now is the time to start being educated and know what makes a DJ become a TJ. I do not want this to be a tango-arrogance enhancing tool. It is to help our little, fragile tango world; so use it it in this spirit. Send improvement suggestions to: Mark.word1@gmail.com

DJ/TJ Report card values (1-5):
1 = Describes the “still learning” inexperienced DJ (bless their hearts).
5= Describes an experienced TJ very well.  

Color Code

Signifies “essential” TJ element

Tanda Architecture & Music	1	2	3	4	5
Plays excellent dance tango with a conscious success formula (below)
Understands traditions of tanda structure with cortinas. (see below)
Features a single orchestra in most tandas.
Tandas with longer tunes are still limited to 12-15 minutes.
Plays tango hits, but also knows many lesser-known, high-fidelity, danceable tangos.
Plays milonga tandas that have a warm up phase (slower).  Late-night milonga tandas are also slower.
Plays non-danceable cortinas that clear the floor.
Plays cortinas long enough to clear the floor.
If there's a nuevo tanda, it does not replace the milonga tanda.

Christian Tobler prefers a formula like this:
1928-37 ~15-25%
1938-47 ~65-75% (Epicenter of the Epoca de Oro)
1948-57 ~5-15%

Common structure of a complete set of tandas, recommended by Tobler:
4 tangos = tango tanda (or 3 instrumental tangos)
3 milongas = milonga tanda (a BsAs standard)
3 Valses = vals tanda (I often hear and enjoy 4, but 3 is the standard in BsAs.)
Start-up of evening tanda structure:  Tango/Vals/Tango/Tango/Milonga
The rest of the evening is: T-T-V-T-T-M = about 1 hr. 

Here is a good resource for tango structure too:  Tango DJ (Blog)
And in German:  Christian/Monika

Technical knowledge	1	2	3	4	5
Uses the best recordings, reproductions, avoiding MP3s (see below)
Is attentive to changes in volume between recordings, and changes in room noise.   Never blasts or plays too quietly.
Understands how to operate excellent equipment and actively influences organizers to provide excellent equipment. (Appendix 1)
Understands how to equalize the sound system to the room or has equipment that does this (this can be an add-on to permanent equipment).
Knows how to adjust a microphone so it never squeals (not rocket science).
Insists on speaker placement that is not harmful to hearing on one side of the room (placed below or above two meters) if possible.

Extras for the TJ who is dancer-centric	1	2	3	4	5
Projects or displays the composer/orchestra/name of song/name of vocalist.
Knows and chooses the best versions of tangos for dancing (not just something that they "discovered").**
Announces the last tanda before the penultimate tanda and plays the Cumparcita so that couples who came together can dance the last dance.
If the DJ is also a passionate dancer, he/she has remote equipment.
Understands some traditions about what tangos are not played at milonga.  (If you do not know, ask someone from BsAs.)
Listens to the organizer, who knows the expectations of those at the milonga. The crowd expects mostly Época de Oro tandas?
Is a DJ, avoids being a hobby "musicologist" playing all the music we have never heard but should.
Provides short silence pauses between songs.

Appendix One for curious DJ's:
Regarding owning equipment:  A TJ does not necessarily have to own their own equipment and move it around to each milonga.  Ultimately it is up to the DJ's influence organizers on equipment that allows them to serve the dancers better. If I am a pianist playing at a piano bar on an out of tune upright piano, maybe I need to have a talk with the owner/organizer and suggest getting an 88-key Steinway or a 97-key Bösendorfer.  A "DJ" with  keeps coming back to the same milonga with poor equipment; a "TJ" refuses to come back to a place which makes him/her create a disservice to the dancers.  Ditto for musicians that rely on a place that provides a piano.

Appendix Two for curious DJ's:
Resources for high quality music:  www.tangotunes.com, Japanese CDs imported by Bernhard Gehberger (http://tango-dj.at/shop), and Buenos Aires Tango Club at http://buenosairestangoclub.com/.  (Thanks, Teresa Faus, Munich, Germany.)

Appendix Three for curious DJ's:
All about volume from Andy Ungureanu, Wiesbaden, Germany:
Musicians and DJ's have the same problem with dancers who widely disagree if the volume correct: Andy's tips:  "Loudness is a very difficult topic. If I get complains, it is about loudness, but in all directions; one guy complains it is not loud enough and 10 seconds later, before changing anything, another one complains it is too loud. My solution is to have a good loudness compensation in the software to keep all songs equally loud and the other one to keep the overall level at 85-88 dB (A). For this you need a measuring device, or a calibrated app. In a recent paper several apps were tested and the result is that you can forget them all, except one for iphones.  The sensitivity of the public is also very different. Argentines and Italians want it extremely loud, Germans a little bit less loud. It depends also on the quality of the recordings. Almost all are mastered in such way that the range 1 - 6 KHz is pushed up. It is the range where the voice clarity is (2,5 to 3 KHz) and the overtones of the bando (3-8 KHz) but also where the distortions become very annoying. When you hear it at home you think this is a good recording, because it is brighter. But if such a record is played too loud and you are unfortunately near or below the speaker, the violins go straight through your brain. The solution is a band compressor and limiter. But this is a very dangerous tool if don't know what you do. Since most DJs have problems with a simple equalizer, it is better if they don't use such thing."

Appendix Four for curious DJ's:
The issue of tempo from Harry Wohlfart:
"There is another issue: changing speed within a tanda. Many of the available tanda sets (especially those from well known Argentinian DJs) don't change speed (measured in Steps per minute or Spm for me) at all. Or they go, say 60/62/64/60 Spm, thus, ending with the same sped they started. Many even get slower. Do so, if you want to finish the usual weekly milonga earlier. If you want it lively, get people excited, speed them up. Not every tanda, of course, but the idea is, don't make people sleepy. Be aware of the speed of what you play, measure it. Simply count! I never encountered a software that does this in acceptable quality, so I had/have to do it manually.
Who said DJing is just going ahead and play? There is work to be done before you really start. Some forget this.   To make a long story short: Know your music!"

Appendix Five for curious DJ's:  Learn from musician's frustrations with compressed sound (MP3's).  The research that indicates that people cannot tell the difference between MP3's and the original recording are very flawed.  The question is if people can "intellectualize" the difference.  Do brain scans while listening to the original vs the compressed version,  watch dancers, notice the difference in a crowd, notice what happens with MP3's on an already poor sound system.  And who is doing the research that so many want to quote?  Is there secondary gain?



Appendix Six for curious DJ's:
My belief is that most people will not intellectually know if the TJ is changing keys between songs, but I did this as a musician in order that dancers would have a sense (not knowledge) that something had changed with the mood even if the tempo were about the same.  For those who want to know more about key changes, go to this wonderful blog: Tango DJ Duo by Age Aakkerman from of the Netherlands.  Also, go to his home page.  Mr. Aakkerman's page is a great resource.  But let me add here that there is more to making a good tanda than having key changes between songs:  There are 4 songs in a tanda, 4 movements (usually) in a symphony.  The most important thing is the clarity of change for dance music.   A scherzo is in three.  TJ's cannot through in a vals cruzado for the second song of the tanda!  I recommend choosing songs that will give a good sense that says:  "This is definitely a different song!"  Key is a possibility, but you can best rely on how it feels because changing key is only one of many factors.  If you do decide to change keys, beware that it is the end of one tango that is linked to the beginning of another.  Many tangos start in one key and end in another.

* For Europeans only:  “Jockey” is not a gender-specific term.  Europeans like to say “Disc Jane,” for women.  The term “disc jockey” started in the US.  The term “jockey” is not gender specific in English.   There are no Disc Jacks, therefore there are no Disc Janes.

**Example:

"Yo no sé que me han hecho tus ojos" by Alberto Moran, rather than Miguel Calo's version.   Thank you for playing another version, but I prefer hearing a great band rather an honorable mention version or even worse a garage band play the same song.

Photo Credit:  I cannot find the source of the "look-at-me-everyone" DJ photo.  If you know, please inform me.

Print-out DJ Self-Assessment matrices from above, are at this link.  Or for the version in the MS Word format:  Go to this link.   I will be updating this from time to time.  You can edit for yourself and your community norms.  For now, I suggest just giving this page link to DJ's if they need or really want help.   Note:  This information is for the good of milongas worldwide.  Of course permission is granted for copying.