Tango Music and Its Danceability

One

Tango music is written in 4/4 time. There are four quarter notes in each measure, and each quarter note represents one beat, counted as 1, 2, 3, 4. The first and third beats are strong beats, on which we step. The second and forth beats are weak beats, on which we do ancillary actions such as cross, weight change, hip rotation, pivot, and embellishment.

Each quarter note can be subdivided evenly into two eighth notes, counted as 1-and, 2-and, 3-and, 4-and, resulting in a total of eight eighth notes per measure. Similarly, a quarter note can be divided into four sixteenth notes, counted as 1-e-and-a, 2-e-and-a, 3-e-and-a, 4-e-and-a, producing 16 sixteenth notes in a measure.

The ability to divide the notes and predict where the subdivisions fall is important, as it allows dancers to expand their footwork possibilities. Feeling rhythm is an internal process. The rhythm must exist in mind before it can manifest in movements. Rhythm, the most fundamental element of music, can exist even without melody, as seen in the drumbeats of primitive music. Dance, at its core, is the body's response to rhythm. Naturally, we step to the music's beat because these accents guide and enhance our movements. Without rhythm, there can be no dance.

However, feeling rhythm becomes more challenging when syncopation is introduced. Syncopation adds complexity to music by shifting, splitting, adding, or omitting beats. Examples include emphasizing even-numbered beats (1, 2, 3, 4), extending a beat (1 - - -), starting a note on an unaccented beat and continuing it through the next accented beat (1, 2 -, 4), splitting a note into subdivisions (1-and, 2-and, 3-and, 4-and), accenting subdivisions (1-and, 2-and, 3-and, 4-and), adding unexpected accents (1, 2, 3, 4), or omitting notes and replacing them with rests. While syncopation makes the rhythm more engaging and dynamic, it also makes it harder to follow.

Nevertheless, dancers embrace this challenge. As long as the beats adhere to the time signature—meaning the entire song can be consistently counted as 1, 2, 3, 4 from start to finish—the music remains danceable. In fact, the most enjoyable songs to dance to are neither arrhythmic nor monotonous but feature complex rhythms with regular, recognizable, and predictable beats. This is a defining characteristic of classic tango (see The Characteristics of Classic Tango.)


Two

This began to change when musicians started experimenting with new ideas such as improvisation, counterpoint, cross-rhythms, polyrhythms, compound rhythms, asymmetrical rhythms, complex harmonies, and odd-numbered meters in which notes are unevenly grouped (e.g., 5/4 and 7/8 time). They also blended duple, triple, and quadruple time; layered different rhythms across instruments; or combined instrumental and vocal parts with divergent rhythms. While these techniques are undoubtedly creative, they often make rhythms too intricate for dancing—a hallmark of modern music.

Classic music is still produced today, meaning not all music made in contemporary times qualifies as modern music. Only music incorporating unconventional elements is considered modern. Of course, there are gray areas, but modern music consistently includes at least some nontraditional elements that render its rhythm—or portions of it—irregular, unrecognizable, unpredictable, and, therefore, undanceable.

Some argue that all music is danceable, but this is untrue. Perhaps all music that can be followed with two legs is danceable, but fingers can move far faster than legs. An orchestra comprised of dozens—or even hundreds—of fingers can create music of extreme complexity, especially when intended solely for listening.br />
For music to be danceable, it must feature recognizable, predictable, and followable beats. Dance is the body’s natural response to rhythm. We are drawn to rhythm because it facilitates movement, echoing regular occurrences such as our biological clock, heartbeat, or muscle memory of rhythmic actions like walking. Millions of years of human evolution have ingrained rhythm as an aesthetic and musical pleasure, making our bodies instinctively responsive to rhythmic sounds. While it is possible for highly trained professionals to memorize and dance to irregular or unpredictable beats, ordinary dancers cannot do this. DJs must understand that the music they play at milongas is meant for social tango dancing by ordinary dancers, not for a few highly skilled individuals to showcase their abilities. A DJ must prioritize the majority of dancers and resist the pressure imposed by a select few. (As a DJ myself, I am all too familiar with such pressures.)


Three

The shift in modern music is not coincidental. We live in a society where rampant liberalism and individualism drive many to pursue uniqueness at any cost, while profit-driven commercialism relentlessly pushes for innovation, repackaging, novelty, exoticism, and boldness to boost sales. While innovation enhances life, it also brings unintended consequences. Every time I buy a smartphone, a newer, smarter version is released the following week. Economists call this "creating demand," encouraging consumers to discard perfectly functional devices for the latest models, resulting in tremendous waste, as highlighted in this documentary. People raised in this culture often lack depth and lasting quality. They confuse novelty with beauty, prioritize flashy appearances over substance, and constantly seek change. The following reader's comment reflects this mindset:

"Most of us did not start doing the tango in order to get the ocho just right. Most of us saw elegant, dramatic, and erotic moves in a performance that took our breath away. Then we take tango lessons and dance among older people who look down their noses at beginners for not doing the details as well as they can, who are quite conservative in their tastes, who are uptight about the eroticism, who are offended when attractive young people look better at the erotic movements than they do, and who are too weak, inflexible, heavy, and cowardly to do the more dramatic moves... The idea of dividing tango into social dance and 'show' dance trivializes efforts to be more creative and to actually do the dance that we were attracted to in the first place. Performance is not just for tourists. It includes ballet, modern dance, jazz, and other rich, culturally important forms. It can be brilliant and revolutionary, changing the way we think. It can give tango dance its Isadora Duncans, Sergei Diaghilevs, Merce Cunninghams, and Astor Piazzollas. Tango and dance have always included a conversation between performance and social dance. Both should be respected as spaces where creativity can thrive. That's how art and culture evolve in living ways."

While I won’t delve into why the milonga is not the place for performance (see Social Tango and Performance Tango), I will focus on creativity here. Undoubtedly, creativity has transformed our lives. However, despite its many contributions, we must not overlook its drawbacks. Human creativity is a double-edged sword. It has given us automobiles, computers, GPS, and beautiful, danceable music like classic tango. Yet, it has also produced weapons of mass destruction, narcotics, high-tech crimes, and undanceable noise. Creativity can improve life when used wisely, but it can also destroy life when pursued recklessly for novelty’s sake, ignoring the forces beyond human control—whether you call them the Cosmos, Nature, Law, Tao, or God. Indeed, human creativity has already caused significant harm to our existence: irreversible damage to our planet, pollution, climate change, environmental catastrophes, resource depletion, ecosystem collapse, chemical, biological, and nuclear threats, and countless deaths caused by inventions such as guns, drugs, automobiles, man-made viruses, modern warfare, and the polarization and dysfunction of governments, fueled by our "creative" politicians.

This obsession with creativity also drives many DJs to make their music selections unconventional. They curate collections of abnormal, rare, exotic, and difficult-to-follow songs, prioritizing their brand over danceability. They embrace modernism and dismiss the classics, despite the fact that classics are time-tested masterpieces, embodying what generations of dancers have deemed beautiful and danceable. They fail to recognize that, 60 years after the Golden Age, tango dancers still cherish classic tango music, while the "revolutionary" music of the same era has long been forgotten. They overlook the reality that every generation produces both enduring classics and fleeting rubbish. They fail to understand that creativity must serve humanity’s best interests, needs, and aesthetics to have lasting value. In dance, this means prioritizing danceability over outlandishness. Although they may love music and have extensive collections, they often lack an understanding of what makes music danceable. Worst of all, they tend to play unfamiliar, erratic, and undanceable songs at milongas simply because the danceable ones are traditional.

Dancers do not reject innovation or creativity—these are integral to what we do on the dance floor. We welcome challenges that make our dancing more engaging. However, we also desire music that is danceable. We expect our DJs to prioritize danceability when selecting music, carefully listening to each song from start to finish to ensure it is entirely danceable before playing it at a milonga. We want them to cater to the average social dancer, not just a few elites or eccentric individuals. (See My Two Cents on Music Selection.)