What makes music danceable?

I‘ve been meaning to write about danceability all along, when today, a friend of mine sent me a message.

Francesco Bruno ist studying Bandoneon at the Rotterdam conservatory and is about to write his thesis. He‘s examining „danceability“ on 8 versions of a Tango, played by different orchestras and therefore developed a questionnaire. You‘ll find it here:

http://www.fbandoneon.com/entrerriano/Site/Entrerriano.html

If you are interested in taking part in the review, please do not go on reading now. I do not want you to develop a bias. If you‘ve already taken part or are not interested, you may now proceed.

...

Well. I was already about to go to sleep, when I started thinking about his question: What makes a Tango danceable?

As a Tango-DJ, this is the most relevant issue, when choosing music for a Milonga. Of course, the matter of danceability depends on the general proficiency level of the dancers at this specific event. A beginner will need a „simpler“ music, than a fully trained, professional stage dancer and artist. 

But let‘s evoke a normal local Milonga in a bigger town. It‘s a social event, so you‘ll find none or only very few stage dancers, a few (mostly semi-professional) teachers, some fairly advanced dancers, a majority of intermediate people and a bunch of beginners. That‘s what you have to deal with.

Your choice of music thus has to be „simple“ enough to be danced by the beginners and intermediates, but needs to appeal to the more advanced dancers as well. So changing the level of „simplicity“ within the course of the Milonga or alternating between different levels is the sensible thing to do.

But lets look at the defining factors. In my opinion, a danceable Tango (Vals, Milonga) is characterised by:

A perceivable beat:

An instrument (often the bass or piano) plays the beats within the measure (1234 or 123 or 12) and you would be able to count them to go along. Some Tangos by Biagi (e.g. Belgica) may be quite hard to dance to, as he makes pauses and lets drop notes and beats completely within the measure.

A constant speed:

The speed does not change dramatically during the course of the Tango (Milonga or Vals). A typically slower „introduction“ or finale to e.g. a romantic Vals is no problem, but most of the time, the speed should be constant. Lots of Tangos by Pugliese change speed quite often, and are thus not easy to dance to.

An acceptable speed:

The speed should be in a danceable range. If a song is too slow (e.g. modern music by Los Cosos de a Lao) or too fast (some d‘Arienzo Valses or Milongas) it just gets too challenging. People are either lacking the balance or the the stamina to keep up with such a speed.

An acceptable sound quality:

Let‘s face it, some of the very old Tangos might be very sweet and even easy to dance to, but the sound quality is just not acceptable. When all you hear are scratches or noise a Tango is not danceable any more. 

An acceptable complexity:

There are simple Tangos and complex ones. I measure this factor according to the layers within the music. A Tango is like a cake: A simple one may consist of a layer of basic rhythm, the beats counting the measure (the bottom) and a „hummable“ melody (the cream filling). This melody will most likely alternate with a second melody. If there is a third melody or two of them are overlaid, it can get already quite complex. Think of a lovely piece of "Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte". Tastes super, but try to bake it! ;-)
Check out "Nueve Puntos" by Di Sarli: It is played in hundreds of beginners classes, but if you examine it closely, you'll discover that it is an immensely complex piece of music. I don't say that it is not danceable, but it is certainly no "simple" Tango.
A singer as a part of the orchestra can take over the melody during a shorter period of the Tango. This does in my opinion not interfere with the danceability.

A predictable course:

The predictability depends on the overall composition of the Tango‘s scheme. If there are distinguishable parts within the music, and not more than 3 different melodies are repeated according to a constant rule (e.g. ABABA), a dancer can guess easily, which part of the melody will be played when and can adapt his movements to the flow of the music. If the melody is totally free, forget about it. 
Also check out the Tango's phrasing. A rather "predictable" Tango will surely have regular phrases within one part like 4/4/4/4. An "unpredictable" Tango may be using irregular phrasing patterns - e.g. §/3/4/3/3 in Humillacion by Biagi.

An emotional appeal:

Music speaks to you. It will evoke emotions, inspire you. This makes the difference  in between just moving to the beat and dancing, especially if you are a more advanced dancer. This factor is of course very subjective, because here we touch the question of how much we „like“ a Tango or not. But nevertheless, it is crucial. I will not dance to a Tango, if I don‘t like it and - here it gets even more subjective - in my opinion this depends on the „humanity“ of the music. A perfectly composed Tango by De Caro may be „complex, challenging and interesting“, but it may not be as emotional as a Tango by Rodriguez with the singer Armando Moreno. So very often, it is the human voice and even the content of the lyrics, that creates the „humane appeal“. Sometimes, it may be also an humane attribution of a specific instrument - the wailing violin of Elvino Vardaro for example. In Buenos Aires Milongas, you‘ll hear the old Milongueros sing along to their favourite Tangos and many DJ's will cater to that taste.

(Just think about movies or advertising: it‘s always the humanisation, that makes us cry. A fawn in the forest is just nature, but we cry with Bambi, because we give him human feelings of loneliness, loss...)

So a good DJ will have a feeling for which Tangos make the dancers sad, happy or emotional and will even know favourites of special dancers. This last factor is it what distinguishes a danceable Milonga from a great one.

Oh dear. It‘s 7.15 in the morning and I have written far too much. Parts of it are based on a DJ-seminar, I just recently held in France, a few thoughts are new. May it help some of you out there... Gonna try and sleep a bit.