Music - The Typical Tango Band (Orquesta Tipica)
- John Lowry
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
Our first experience of a live Tango Orchestra was at a CITA milonga in 2000. At around 2am, the old guys from "Gente de Tango", a Di Sarli cover band, mounted the stage and lit up the room for an hour.
Leter in the week we danced to Color Tango, a Pugliese cover band. What an experience! The band leader had black curls back then.
By the peak of Tango in Argentina, during the 1940’s, the typical dance band, known since then as the “Orquesta Tipica” comprises a piano, a double-bass, at least 3 bandoneons and 3 violins. To this is occasionally added a cello, guitar (Nuevo Quinteto Real), and other “pick-up”, often, wind instruments (Color Tango; Orq. Victoria)
The, signature instrument for Tango is the bandoneon, a button concertina, originally invented in Germany as a portable church organ. It is a notoriously difficult instrument to play with around 72 buttons on each hand, each with a different note on the in/out strokes. Brought to Argentina in the mid 1800’s by sailors and migrant workers, it worked it’s way into Tango by the late 1800’s. The bandoneon has a unique sound that suited the Tango mood perfectly - Migrants far from home, a little melancholy, remembering home & family, and loves lost. Piazzolla describes the bandoneon as a sad sound, as opposed to an accordian, a jolly instrument.
The early Tango groups were likely to be small, with a guitar, a singer and other pick-up portable instruments. Singers mostly had a guitar accompaniment.
Lost his love, and his money at the track :)
The bandoneon made its way into these groups and changed everything.
Around 1910, Vincente Greco, bandonist and composer of the beautiful tango “Ojos Negros” and the very danceable “Racing Club” among many other hits, which even today (100 years later!) continue to be played, named his quartet “Orquesta Tipica Criolla”.
Over time the “orquesta típica criolla” became the “orquesta típica” and, through
the 1920’s, sextets like those led by Julio De Caro, Luís Petrucelli or Francisco Pracánico defined the format of the tango orchestra with two bandoneons, two violins, piano and double bass.
Building on this structure (rather slowly, starting in the 1930’s) bandoneons and
string instruments started to be added until the “definitive” formation of the large
orchestras of the 1940’s was reached.
Ever since then, whenever we say “orquesta típica” we’re talking about a piano, a bass, at least 3 bandoneons, at least 3 violins and sometimes a viola and/or cello. Occasionally you will hear a guitar, clarinet or bass-clarinet.
And it’s exactly this texture (a particular sound pattern created by the combination of the tone of various instruments, bandoneons, piano and strings) which constitutes one
of tango’s greatest contributions to music in general. This combination does not
exist in any other musical genre, and that’s why, among other merits, the orquesta típica
holds a distinguished place among all of tango’s instrumental formations.
Tango is a type of dance music that lacks drums or percussion instruments, with
very few exceptions. This is why all of the instruments in the orquesta típica at one time
or another share the rhythm. The absence of drums has to be replaced, or no one will dance!
Time-keeping in the Orquesta Típica is mainly handled by the piano, which works together
with the bass, switching between various “rhythms”. However, you will hear the rhythm being passed around the bandoneon and violins as others the melody.
A friend once described it as more like a dinner-table conversation, as opposed to jazz, where each instrument takes a longer solo, more like an address.
Today, we are more likely to see a quartet or trio, People can no longer afford the fabulous big bands of the Golden Era.
Next: Music - Why is each Orquesta Tipica Unique?
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