Tango Music

"Tango is the electrifying dance in which you lose yourself and transform into another like a Phoenix"

Anybody who has seen a good tango performance or has tried tango music would have to agree with me. Without your conscious effort, the music carries you to a world of enigma and stimulates you to indulge in a dancing…dancing away to glory as they say. Any interesting thing arouses our curiosity to know about its origin and development. Tango is a genre that exemplifies the mix of African and European music. Tango was the music of blacks whenever they assembled for a social gathering but it has a tinge of the European music since the blacks were influenced by the European music and incorporated a few things in their kind of music and so did the Europeans and tat is how was created Tango music.

Development of Tango Music

Tango was inspired by the music of Cuba, the Habanera which itself is a mix of African and French music. It gradually became popular in Spain and was known as Tango Americano. The music and the dance were both more popular in the African American population. Tango music in the present times is very different from the tango that was sung and played in the earlier times, as the instruments used were flute, guitar and violin. It started when Italians started entering Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina and brought with them a new and rhythmic method of playing the violin. It released a stream a melody for tango from which emerged the improved form of Tango.

The next milestone in the development of Tango was the inclusion of Bandoneon which is now considered to be the key musical instrument in Tango music and without which Tango would not have its characteristic "tang". It is believed that the Bandoneon was a combined discovery of France and Germany. It is an accordion kind of instrument and is very difficult to learn the way to play it but then once the instrument is mastered the instrument produces music that turns out to be heavenly. Then the tango dance came into for front and that completed tango music.

There are sudden rise and fall in the music and a rustic touch in tango. It is the music for the mass and seems like the country music. It reaches a climax and tones down which makes your spirits rise and fall with music several times. The climax extracts the other self in you and transports you to the world of rejoice, fun and frolic and to those corners of the street and those shacks where people tried to be happy in spite if several hardships. It is the music of the mass and this was evident in the songs of Villoldo who wrote the lyrics of El Choco. Tango has come a long way though from the streets of Argentina to now a serious genre of music. It was initially not associated with well-bred taste since the brothels of Argentina served as the womb of Tango but then gradually the young men from noble families who did frequent these brothels and had mastered the Tango came to Paris and made both the Tango dance and music appealing and popular.

The decade between 1935 and 1945 and the next few years were considered to be the golden phase for Tango music because it was now being acknowledged as a serious form of music beyond the prejudices of class, race and social status. At this time both tango and music reached a climax of popularity but then gradually musicians felt that they were being pressurized by the need to create such music on which a dance could also be composed. Hence they alienated themselves form the dance form and thus was created the "neo tango". In "neo-tango" a marked influenced of neo musical instruments can also be observed. Piazolla lead the movement and initially there was a huge hue and cry in Argentina as to this not being the real tango but with the rise in popularity every mouth silenced itself. Though Tango is still a favorite among youngsters; they have still not been able to cut a niche for themselves. They still look towards the musicians of Golden Age for inspiration and motivation.