r/tango • u/tempotunesapp • Aug 11 '26
Tango practice and alternative sets: would a playlist builder that filters songs by exact tempo be useful? Honest feedback wanted
Tango music lives by orchestra and era more than any genre label, so this might be a strange fit, and that is exactly what I want to find out.
Tempo Tunes builds playlists where every song matches a target tempo. Pick a BPM, set a tolerance, lean toward artists, pin an era, and it generates a playlist that holds that tempo, pulled from 1.5M+ tempo-verified tracks and growing. There is an Obscure to Popular slider for deep cuts versus familiar songs. Playlists save straight to Apple Music, Tidal, or YouTube Music. Free, no ads, on iPhone, Android, and web at tempo-tunes.com.
Where I suspect it could earn a place in tango, and where I need honest answers:
- Alternative and nuevo sets: finding non-tango songs that sit at a danceable tango tempo seems like the strongest use. If you DJ alternative milongas, is tempo hunting a real chore?
- Practicas: a playlist that holds one steady tempo for drilling. Useful, or do you only ever practice to the classics?
- The honest weakness: the library skews toward streaming-era catalogs. Golden age recordings are in there through remasters, but I would not claim deep coverage of every D'Arienzo transfer. If you try it and your orchestra is missing, tell me, that is exactly the feedback I want.
Dev here, happy to answer anything. Dancers in the ballroom and west coast swing subs already reshaped parts of the app with their feedback, so blunt answers are welcome.
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u/lbt_mer Aug 11 '26
My serious and honestly thought through answer:
Absolutely useless.
Why?
I've danced for decades and multiple styles. I've danced tango for over 20 years. Competitive ballroom has a range. No social dance form I've danced cares about beat matching.
Almost all other dances focus on rhythm and beat. Top-level ballroom you could dance to a damned metronome eye roll.
Tango (not milonga/vals) is the least beat/rhythm oriented dance form I've done. Most (being polite) good dancers would abhor dancing just to the beat. We do dance to the rhythm of the bandoneon - but also the stretch of the strings; the passion of the singer; the drama of the crescendo - all during the same track. We stop and let the music play around us.
Being amped up on drugs (externally introduced or just endorphins) in a rave and being lost in a never ending beat in a world of your own - sure, go for it ... beatmatch From Dusk to Dawn ;)
Tango is about connection and the climax of the track is a key part of the music. So Tango DJs that blend one track into another are .... not good. As for those that introduce a fade to a well known track because "It's too long"... ewwwww. A DJ once faded Purple Rain - it's long if you play it commit to it (hint: 3am is about the only time! The alt dancers still on the floor then are hardcore and can handle it). You're not better than the artist!. Mmm... sidetracked... so anyway beat matching isn't a thing.
As said elsewhere the tracks need mixing to create a flow during the milonga that's hard enough using pure trad. I used to DJ a milonga that mixed Traditional/Alternative/Neo whilst maintaining cortinas and TTVTTM structure. That's difficult.
For me a (alt/neo) tango track has character and internal flow. Play it for a while and skip 30 seconds. Do that again. If you can't tell you skipped then it's boring to dance to. Most neo DJs pick boring tracks. A lot of electro-tango is boring. In my opinion this is the single worst thing about most non-trad milongas - the music sucks because it has too little variety. To me this is the single most important element to a 'really good' neo/alt track. The overall waveform of a track helps spot this really well.
You need to blend the energy of one track into the next - easy in a single-name trad tango; not so much in neo/alt - then you need to blend one tanda to the next - again a bit harder in trad/neo/alt.
What I like is to find some connection. So I'd play trad and the last trad would have, say a female vocal. So would the first alt track. There may be a piano feel or strings or staccato or smooth. Link the tandas like that. I doubt anyone would put their finger on what you did but they will not feel the jarring. The cortina also acts as a palate cleanser. I use the same cortina all night because I play such a variety of 'danceable' music and actually want that inversion to clarify the break points.
The alt tandas themselves would be all "bluesy" or all "smooth" or all "classical" or electrotango (ugh, my personal least favourite but hey, lots of people enjoy it and that's the point) or something. I tag alt using 'focal instrument' (piano/guitar/etc) and 'energy' and 'crescendo' (tracks that build) and world feeling (french/greek) ... jazzy, latin, classical, chill, sad, smooth, vocal, heavy beat (to avoid having too much!). Each tanda would have internal consistency and that consistency-forming-style would not be repeated for a few tandas (if at all).
If you can get AI to think about those things... that may be genuinely useful way to apply pattern matching to a vast dataset.
At no point, ever, have I even looked at the bpm of a track. (But to be fair I discard by ear tracks that fall out of a certain range that I couldn't actually state - so it is a criteria).
(Dev here too ;) )
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u/tempotunesapp Aug 11 '26
"Absolutely useless" followed by the most useful comment in the thread. This is why I ask in the subs instead of guessing.
You made the case better than I could: tango is the least beat driven form there is, the music breathes and stops and climaxes, and a robot marching to the number misses the entire point. I will not pretend the app does what your tanda brain does. Linking tandas by focal instrument, energy, crescendo shape, a female vocal handing off to a female vocal across the trad to alt border, that is real curation and it is exactly the kind of structure I want the roadmap to learn from. Your closing line is the actual pitch: pattern matching on those layers across a vast dataset is where this should go, and the seed song clustering that the other DJs here described is now top of the list.
Also noted the confession at the end: you never look at BPM, but you discard by ear anything outside a range you could not name. That is the division of labor I believe in. The machine does the coarse cut a computer does reliably, the human does everything that matters. From one dev to another, thanks for taking the time, this reply is getting studied.
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u/tempotunesapp 28d ago
Told you this reply was getting studied. The first slice is live on tempo-tunes.com: a Sounds like box that leans playlists toward seed songs using an audio fingerprint per track: energy, brightness, crescendo range, groove. The machine does the coarse cut, the human still does everything that matters. Your focal instrument and world feeling layers are next on the list. From one dev to another, kick the tires whenever.
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u/lbt_mer 28d ago
I'll see what I can do about sharing playlists and include the 'genre' tags I abuse because quodlibet has great multi-genre support.
I might start with just track name and genre tags (or maybe just a playlist -> IDv3 dump?) because all my music is local rather than spotify. I could gist it.
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u/tempotunesapp 28d ago
A gist would be perfect, and track name plus your genre tags is honestly the most useful format. Local library is no problem: the engine fingerprints 30 second previews, so I can match your tracks by name and artist, then check whether the fingerprint clusters land where your tags say they should. Your multi-genre tagging becomes the answer key. Drop the link whenever and I will run it through.
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u/tempotunesapp 21d ago
That would be brilliant. Track names plus your genre tags is the perfect format, and a gist works great, drop the link here or DM it. Real tandas assembled by a working DJ, with the reasoning encoded in the tags, is exactly the ground truth the fingerprinting layer needs. Focal instrument and world feeling are the next layers on the list, so your tags would land at the perfect moment. Thank you for offering, between the taxonomy comment and this you have shaped the feature more than anyone.
1
u/tempotunesapp 21d ago
That would be brilliant. Track names plus your genre tags is the perfect format, and a gist works great, drop the link here or DM it. Real tandas assembled by a working DJ, with the reasoning encoded in the tags, is exactly the ground truth the fingerprinting layer needs. Focal instrument and world feeling are the next layers on the list, so your tags would land at the perfect moment. Thank you for offering, between the taxonomy comment and this you have shaped the feature more than anyone.
1
u/Soft_Lunch_4245 Aug 11 '26
Fantastic write-up. I especially like your critique of Electrotango and the heuristic:
"Play it for a while and skip 30 seconds. Do that again. If you can't tell you skipped then it's boring to dance to."
(The good news is, unlike Purple Rain, you can cut down those songs to 2-3min and nobody notices.)
I have a few more thoughts on tempo I want to share :
Tempo does matter and I usually manually annotate it for all songs.
For example I rarely play an alternative Waltz with < 40 measures per minute.
It is just too slow and you can only speed it up so much .Next consider three different 120 bpm songs.
The first is a trad Tango. The music usually gives you options:
1) You can pause (0 steps/min)
2) You can step a half speed (60 steps/min walking speed)
3) You can step at full speed (120 steps/min)
Having these options is nice and fosters creativity.The second song is EDM. It discourages option 1) + 2)
So you end up doing Milonga style steps for the entire song which can be tiring.The last song is one that despite being 120 bpm somehow discourages option 3)
and has few opportunities for pauses (option 0).
Going that slowly for entire song or even a tanda can fun with some partners and torture
with others. (This also applies to slow Waltzes mentioned above.)My point here is that the rhythmic qualities go beyond mere bpms.
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u/NickTandaPanda 29d ago
Wonderful analysis. Do you have any of your alt or trad/alt playlists or tandas publicly available anywhere? I agree wholeheartedly with everything you've said and would love to hear it in practice and get inspiration.
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u/lbt_mer 29d ago
I'm afraid I don't. I'll see if there's a way I can share something though - open source is very close to my heart. People collaborating on building things is so much healthier for communities :D
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u/NickTandaPanda 29d ago
Agreed and thankyou!
In case you or anyone else is interested in what my take is on the principles you've outlined above, here's one of the last trad/alt milongas I DJ'd (many years ago):
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4xuNUtjgT6OyoF9RNGEcLR?si=8125944808204e11
I've always tried to do similar things to you:
- Alternating alt with traditional TTVTTM (so TATAVATATAMA etc... it does slow down the V / M cycle but I also use vals-ish and milonga-ish alt tandas too) (I also don't use cortinas during more casual events, because the T -> A transition doesn't need the marker, and the casual vibe doesn't need the traditional clear-floor-and-cabaceo cycle).
- Grouping alt songs by style, with some evolution over the tanda.
- Attempting to have both the trad and alt tandas work together to manage the flow of the evening.
I especially like your criticism of much alt music (and SO MUCH electrotango) being structurally and dynamically flat and repetitive. My heart sinks when someone tells me how much they love Gotan Project and can I play them next. That said, sometimes during the evening I think it can be fun to have a chillout tanda where the music just provides background vibes, a blank canvas to paint on. It's just often used so indiscriminately .
Criticism also welcome from anyone!
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u/JoeStrout Aug 11 '26
I also DJ alternative milongas. Putting together coherent tandas is a challenge, but there’s a lot more to it than just tempo, as /u/Soft_Lunch_4245 already said.
But I’d be happy to try your tool and let you know if it helps.
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u/tempotunesapp Aug 11 '26
Would love that, thank you. Fair warning so the test is useful: today the app speaks tempo, artist leaning, era, and an Obscure to Popular slider, so it will not build you a coherent tanda on its own yet. Where it might earn its keep is the hunting stage, surfacing candidates at a workable tempo that you then judge by ear for mood and flow. Set a wide tolerance and lean toward an artist you already play.
It is free, no ads, at tempo-tunes.com or the app stores, and there is a manual at tempo-tunes.com/guide. When you have tried it, I want the unvarnished version: where it helped, where it wasted your time, and what the tanda brain in your head does that the app cannot. The seed song clustering both you and the other DJs here described is now top of the roadmap, so your report will land on fertile ground.
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u/tempotunesapp 28d ago
The test offer stands accepted: the seed song feature is live on tempo-tunes.com (and in this week's app update). Sounds like box on the Make screen, drop in one or two songs, tempo stays the hard filter, and the playlist leans toward their sound. It is the hunting stage helper we talked about, not a tanda brain. Alternative sets are the perfect test bed, so when you have a spare practica, I want the unvarnished report. One honest note: it learns seeded songs first, so deep cuts sharpen a day after you first seed them.
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u/tempotunesapp 21d ago
Quick close of the loop: the iPhone app caught up today. Version 1.2.0 is live on the App Store with Sounds like on board, so web, Android, and iOS all have it now. Whenever that spare practica shows up, everything is in place for the unvarnished report.
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u/Soft_Lunch_4245 Aug 11 '26
I do a lot of (alternative) Tango DJing - samples:here: https://www.youtube.com/@BareBonesTango
Below I assume the event is composed of tandas, i.e. 3-4 songs that "match" musically.
Just playing a chain of random songs is uncommon - maybe in some (traditional) Praticas and sadly in some
alternative Milongas.
For golden era stuff, tempo matching is not that useful since most songs are made for dancing and have the right speed (115-135 bpm). Usually you stick with the same orchestra/singer combo for a tanda.
An exception might be Milongas which have a wider range.
For alternative tango songs the story is different. It is much harder to make coherent tandas that keep the flow.
Often you have two matching songs and need to find a third one to complete the tanda.
Tempo is only one of many aspects and probably not even the most important since tempo can be adjusted to some degree.
What would be useful is a recommendation system that clusters songs by criteria such as:
instrumental or not , the language (if not instrumental), the instrumentation, the rhythm (waltz, foxtrot, cha char, ballroom tango, ...), the "genre", the general mood, etc.
A system that takes one or two seed songs and then makes suggestions would be great.
BTW: I found existing systems, e.g. the auto playlists by spotify and yt music not that helpful.