Why you don't treat the local milonga as a "testing ground"

Frank Seifart, one of those behind the Berlin renaissance, shared a post today by Ivica Anteski about DJing which made me feel pleased and relieved.

I joined Antti Suniala's new Tango DJ Forum last year keen to hear the views of DJs beyond the Scottish locale.  I was disappointed to find on that international forum views about playing either the kind of 50s vocal drama that makes me want to walk out of a milonga or, worse, the kind of poor music from the late 1920s and early thirties.  The music from that era sounds so samey to me it can be hard to tell which orchestra it is.  The views I heard on that forum were congruent with some of those with which I was already familiar from hearing similar music in Scotland.  My views on the forum were similar to those mentioned in the Pocas Palabras post - about not being a “me-jay” (a marvellous term and not mine), about less air time for the “hidden gems” of tango and other things.  Unfortunately I found so much opposition to these ideas that my time there was brief. 

I was then delighted to see this post - but I think it contains a serious mistake: “This is why international DJs should have their local experience, where they test their tandas." It is true that when dancers travel a long way at great expense it is a terrible thing to give them a bad experience. It is miserable enough to go to a local milonga for bad music, but - here I think I am in accord with Ivica - it is ten times worse to travel abroad for it. 

I dislike the cheap and easy shot, the appeal to "the ordinary person".  But I'm going to do it because I think it is wrong to say a DJ should "test music out" locally.  Local dancers are most dancers. Local dancers are also the people for whom a DJ should be their best.  They come out for you regularly, they danced to your music until you were invited abroad. Most people do not have lives with the time, resources and freedom from commitments to disappear to an international dance event every month. The basest of my critics will say “Oh, they just didn’t want it enough”, Or you’ll hear the “work” response: “They just didn’t work hard enough (at work/dance/life) to be there”. These don’t deserve a response. You try out tandas at home, not in your home milonga.  I don’t think a DJ should do anything but their best for dancers whoever or wherever they are. 

If you say that you play “the best” music for “the best” dancers at international events how does that make your local dancers feel? To be a mere testing ground for the DJ who might be feted internationally?  Can the spoils of that glory be shared back home? Does it really reflect back on the provincial town or city from where the DJ came? Would the “ordinary” dancer feel beatified if it did or grateful they are lucky to have an international superDJ who isn't actually home very much but who might play for them occasionally, at say local special events at double the usual price?

Clearly, I am not necessarily saying play the same music for different groups.  And certainly, there is no need to patronise newer dancers with "easy" (I say "deadening") Guardia Vieja and a leaden compás.   But why not play the best for them from the beginning of their lives in the milonga?  Do not treat the local milonga shabbily nor as subservient to the elite events.  If it is good enough to play in, why not play your best in it?  Perhaps then new dancers will stay and experienced dancers will come back instead of travelling away.

Why not be honest with dancers, fair with them?  Why not allow them to see what you play and who for?  This is why I believe that DJs, especially DJs who claim they are not trying to be different or special have no reason not to publish their sets.  Example.  This is after all, music so well known that secrecy about it merely feeds absurd posturing of the me-jay variety and an inflated sense of one’s own special importance - as special as those “rare gems” such DJs play.  At the very least I think DJs who claim to be against all this might have a sample set, even a sample set available upon request so that dancers who care understand the sort of music they are going to.  E.g.  they might think "yes" to this but not this - depending on their taste.  

Perhaps the latter is the sort of thing Ivika had in mind when he referred to "slow and passionless music" as a “mood killer”.  I know - though fail to understand - there are people who like it.   Make a sample set!  Let each type of dancer understand where they can find the Guardia Vieja, the mainstream set, the sets laden with "hidden gems", the funky alternative stuff.  Then they can congregate together.  Most of all it lets those who still feel they have to travel to find what they like be sure they are going to find it.  If a DJ is confident and unafraid, why keep the music a secret?