Listening Differently

Exploring tango music 

DJing and dance floor dynamics through RODA

All tango DJs borrow from each other.

We listen to each other's tandas, remember tracks from memorable nights, exchange orchestras and discuss rhythm, drama, energy and musical flavour. Today, with music recognition apps running on our phones, it has become easier than ever to capture and reconstruct what is being played at milongas and encuentros.

Part of this project began with a simple curiosity: a desire to better understand how music is combined — both within tandas and in the transitions between tandas throughout an evening.

Not to discover a formula for good DJing, but to investigate whether there might be underlying patterns behind different DJ sets and different types of tango events. 

Like many other DJs, I initially looked at the things we traditionally work with:

• orchestras
• singers
• recording years
• BPM
• personal listening experience
• musical descriptions such as lyrical, rhythmical, dramatic or energetic

Many DJs also maintain some form of catalogue or tanda system, attaching descriptions to complete tandas such as romantic, difficult, rhythmical or melancholic.

My own DJ practice developed somewhat differently. I usually work with selected tracks grouped by orchestra, singer, instrumental recordings and recording periods, and often construct tandas during the milonga itself.

This difference eventually became important.

Starting from traditional tango DJ practice

My thinking initially grew from a fairly traditional tango DJ culture, influenced by years of dancing, DJing and organising, as well as communities and references such as El Corte's DJ Manual, TDJ discussions and Michael Lavocah's work on tango music.

BPM turned out to be an interesting example.

Within tango DJ circles, BPM is often dismissed because old tango recordings fluctuate too much to be considered reliable. During this project, however, I gradually started hearing those fluctuations differently.

What initially looked like measurement uncertainty often turned out to be something else entirely — expressive musical devices used deliberately by orchestras such as Troilo and Pugliese.

Perhaps the interesting part is not the average tempo itself, but how the tempo breathes and changes throughout the music.

That small observation gradually became representative of the larger process itself.

From measuring music to observing relationships

Initially I wondered whether concepts such as rhythm, melody and drama could somehow be translated into reproducible data.

Using Librosa, Python and AI-assisted development through ChatGPT, I began experimenting with extracting characteristics from tango recordings.

The early results looked promising. Different orchestras produced different profiles that intuitively appeared meaningful.

But new questions quickly emerged.

Rhythm could relatively easily be represented numerically. But what exactly would the absence of rhythm mean? Melody? And what would the absence of drama even be?

After many hours of listening and reflection, those questions gradually became more interesting than the original attempt to measure music.

The project slowly shifted.

Rather than trying to describe what music is, I became increasingly curious about how music seems to participate in shaping movement, atmosphere, attention and collective dynamics on the dance floor.

RODA as an observational language

Out of this process, RODA gradually emerged.

RODA does not attempt to define tango music objectively. It functions more as an observational language for describing qualities that may be more or less present in a track, a tanda or a larger musical progression.

RODA currently consists of:

R – Rhythmic propulsion
Pulse, rhythmic drive and musical marking.

O – Orientation
Whether musical energy appears inward and concentrated or outward and expansive.

D – Dynamic transformation
Tension, contrast and emotional movement within the music.

A – Arrastre / kinetic grounding
A tango-specific sensation of pull, anticipation and forward attraction into the next movement or phrase.

The model itself continues to evolve.

Tacit knowledge and listening practice

Many experienced DJs appear to recognise musical qualities and floor dynamics intuitively through years of listening, dancing and observation.

What fascinates me is that this knowledge often seems remarkably precise in practice, while at the same time being difficult to describe explicitly.

Experienced DJs may immediately sense when a floor needs more rhythmic clarity, more simplicity, more breathing space or a different emotional quality — without necessarily being able to explain the decision in a structured way.

Part of this project has therefore also become an exploration of whether some aspects of this largely tacit knowledge can be observed and discussed in new ways.

Not to replace intuition, but perhaps to create additional language around something that many DJs already know with their ears, bodies and experience.

From analysis to DJ practice

Over time, RODA gradually moved from being reflective into becoming part of my practical DJ work.

Today the four components are embedded directly into my tango archive and are visible inside my DJ software.

I do not use RODA to generate DJ sets automatically or replace musical judgement.

Instead, it currently functions as another navigation layer.

When building tandas during a milonga, it sometimes helps me move toward particular musical expressions and relationships that would otherwise be difficult to hold consistently across several thousand tracks.

The role of RODA therefore feels less like decision-making and more like noticing possibilities.

Observing DJ sets and dance floors

One of the more interesting consequences of the project has been the possibility of observing relationships not only within tracks, but also across tandas and entire DJ sets.

Some DJ sets seem to create long, gradual musical arcs.

Others create movement through stronger contrasts and shifts between tandas.

Some dance floors appear highly responsive to rhythmic clarity, musical tension and inward-oriented energy, while others respond far less noticeably to music's invitations toward movement and connection.

At some encuentros with highly experienced dancers, even relatively subtle changes in rhythm, arrastre or musical orientation can sometimes be felt collectively on the floor within a tanda or two.

At some local milongas, the floor may instead organise itself more strongly around social habits, familiarity or general room energy.

This has gradually made me curious whether different tango environments develop different musical ecologies — different ways of listening, moving and regulating collective energy.

An encuentro, a marathon, a practíca and a local milonga may not simply differ because of technical skill level, but because communities gradually develop different relationships to music and movement.

Towards a language for collective experience

Experienced DJs often describe musical balance through concepts such as:

• lyrical versus rhythmical
• simple versus complex
• refreshing
• tiring
• breathing space

I have become curious whether some of these descriptions may sometimes correspond to observable musical tendencies across larger sections of a DJ set.

Not as explanations, but as another language for reflection.

For example:

Moderate to high Orientation combined with lower Arrastre
may sometimes coincide with increased attentional density — situations where attention appears to become more concentrated and inward, movement less expansive, and dancers more absorbed in musical detail.

Extended periods of high Dynamic transformation and inward Orientation
may over time contribute to accumulated complexity and a sense of fatigue on some floors.

Alternation between rhythmic propulsion and softer recovery periods
may create something closer to musical breathing.

These examples are not intended as formulas.

They are simply observations and questions that have emerged during the process.

Historical patterns and validation

As the project evolved, another observation gradually emerged.

Beyond describing individual tracks and DJ sets, some of the extracted patterns also appeared to reflect aspects of the historical development of tango orchestras.

When projected into a simple space describing rhythmic dominance and dramatic intensity, different orchestras seemed to move in recognisable ways over time.

Carlos Di Sarli, for example, appeared to move gradually from stronger rhythmic emphasis towards a more melodic and later more dramatic expression. Juan D'Arienzo, by contrast, seemed comparatively stable after establishing his characteristic rhythmic identity in the mid-1930s.

I did not treat these observations as proof of anything. They simply became another indication during the process.

If known musical developments began appearing naturally in the data, it suggested that RODA might be capturing something more musically meaningful than isolated audio properties.

An ongoing exploration

At the moment, I experience RODA less as a finished theory and more as an evolving way of listening.

The project has already changed how I listen during a milonga.

I now notice tensions, transitions and floor responses differently than before — not because RODA tells me what to play, but because the process has made certain relationships more visible.

The work ahead still consists largely of listening, testing and observing where this process leads next.

Most importantly, it remains a system that currently makes sense to me as part of my own continuing development as a tango DJ.

Check out the process and see how RODA is calculated here: Graphical Presentation of RODA (AI generated)