The tango and the milonga, while different genres within Argentine music, are closely related. But how so? And, if they are different genres, what is the tango milonga? A misleading use of these terms has only contributed to generate more confusion. This article, although not a comprehensive musicological or historical study of these genres, aims to answer these questions and to clarify the terms.
The milonga, which precedes the tango in history, was a solo song cultivated during the 19th Century by the gaucho (a sort of Argentine cowboy) in the vast rural area known as the Pampa. It derives from the payada de contrapunto, in which two singers (payadores), accompanying themselves on the guitar, improvised on different topics in a competition-like practice. The verses were octosyllabic quartets structured in a musical period of eight measures in 2/4. The term milonga is an African-Brazilian term that means words, that is, the words of the payadores. It may be named rural milonga in order to distinguish it from later developments of the genre.
Around 1880, through the Conquista del Desierto (the conquest of the desert), the Argentine government made possible the fencing of the Pampa and the subsequent distribution of the land into large properties for aristocratic owners and small plots of land for European immigrants, who were arriving in Argentina in large numbers. This forced the almost nomadic gauchos to settle down in the poorest suburban areas of the capital, Buenos Aires. Their adaptation to city life was difficult, and frequently they lived marginal lives of crime. Eventually they were called compadritos, a word used to denote a person with an aggressive character.
The relationship between the compadritos and the African-Argentine population in the Buenos Aires suburbs gave birth to the tango dance, which started as a result of the compadritos’ mockery of the black people’s dances with an important difference: the blacks danced separated and the compadritos danced embraced. Diverse historians affirm that the word tango derives from the name (in the slang of the black people) of their dancing places, known as tambos and, later, tangos . It is widely accepted that the mocking new choreography was taken to the brothels by the compadritos before tango music really existed as such. Eventually, music was created to fit this dance, and it is not strange that the rural milonga and the habanera, in fashion at the time, influenced it. Trial-and-error adaptations to the new dance, bringing together the rural milonga of the gauchos, the habanera of the European immigrants, and the African-Argentine dances in the melting pot that was Buenos Aires, created a mixture called tango.
The tango and the milonga, while different genres within Argentine music, are closely related. But how so? And, if they are different genres, what is the tango milonga? A misleading use of these terms has only contributed to generate more confusion. This article, although not a comprehensive musicological or historical study of these genres, aims to answer these questions and to clarify the terms.
The milonga, which precedes the tango in history, was a solo song cultivated during the 19th Century by the gaucho (a sort of Argentine cowboy) in the vast rural area known as the Pampa. It derives from the payada de contrapunto, in which two singers (payadores), accompanying themselves on the guitar, improvised on different topics in a competition-like practice. The verses were octosyllabic quartets structured in a musical period of eight measures in 2/4. The term milonga is an African-Brazilian term that means words, that is, the words of the payadores. It may be named rural milonga in order to distinguish it from later developments of the genre.
Around 1880, through the Conquista del Desierto (the conquest of the desert), the Argentine government made possible the fencing of the Pampa and the subsequent distribution of the land into large properties for aristocratic owners and small plots of land for European immigrants, who were arriving in Argentina in large numbers. This forced the almost nomadic gauchos to settle down in the poorest suburban areas of the capital, Buenos Aires. Their adaptation to city life was difficult, and frequently they lived marginal lives of crime. Eventually they were called compadritos, a word used to denote a person with an aggressive character.
The relationship between the compadritos and the African-Argentine population in the Buenos Aires suburbs gave birth to the tango dance, which started as a result of the compadritos’ mockery of the black people’s dances with an important difference: the blacks danced separated and the compadritos danced embraced. Diverse historians affirm that the word tango derives from the name (in the slang of the black people) of their dancing places, known as tambos and, later, tangos . It is widely accepted that the mocking new choreography was taken to the brothels by the compadritos before tango music really existed as such. Eventually, music was created to fit this dance, and it is not strange that the rural milonga and the habanera, in fashion at the time, influenced it. Trial-and-error adaptations to the new dance, bringing together the rural milonga of the gauchos, the habanera of the European immigrants, and the African-Argentine dances in the melting pot that was Buenos Aires, created a mixture called tango.
References :
http://www.lafi.org/magazine/articles/tango.html
If you’re asking, you’ve probably already noticed the similarities in hold and step pattern. If you know ballroom, the simplest way to think of it is that milonga is to tango as quickstep is to foxtrot. Feel, character, and tempo are larger differences than actual movements.
References :