Dancing Tango is not only about you and you-and-your-partner. It is also a social event and a culture.
It involves more than two: those present at the milonga (tango dance party) in which you assist, and also all those who are intimately related to Tango, at your present time, in the past and in the future (other dancers, the composers of the songs that you dance to, the musicians who recorded the songs, all the people who were passionate about Tango throughout the history of this manifestation of our very unique nature as humans, and those, in the future, who will inherit it after us).
The dance party where you came to dance is a society, with its own culture and its own sets of codes which make possible, and structure, its existence, nurturing and favoring creativity, the behaviors that support the coexistence of all the artists on the dance floor, the milongueros, respect for all manifestations of this Art, not in words, but in actions, in dance. Continue reading at Medium.com.
Tango is a social and partner dance that originated in the city of Buenos Aires, where, together with its music, poetry and culture, the population consider it their identity.
To learn it, you will embrace not only your partner, but Tango itself, its music, culture, and home city.
In my classes, I will guide you into the beauty of Tango music, how to interpret this music with your body, how to enter the dance floor and stay there while you dance. I am going to guide you into the embrace of your partner, into the society of the milonga (Tango dance party), into the culture of Tango, and into the city of Buenos Aires.
In the second half of the eighteenth century, when Tango appeared for the first time, the main social dance was the waltz. Tango continues and intensifies many of the elements already present in the waltz, for example, taking the proximity between partners to the limit and making them dance in close embrace. Another element already in the waltz is the line of dance, in which all the couples on the dance floor circulate in a counterclockwise direction. Tango also incorporated this, but now the couples do not have to be continuously moving. Now, dancing Tango, they have more freedom and more creative use of the space.
In order to make you understand “with your body” these characteristics of Tango, and educate your sensitivity in regard to these and many other elements that shape Tango to be what it is: “A unique manifestation of the human potential”, I will train you with exercises and concepts.
If you have the desire, the passion, the stamina, the perseverance, and the necessary patience, I will help you be a part of Tango, to be Tango yourself, to be a “milonguero” or “milonguera”.
In response to those who get disappointed because I insist on improving our walk and ask me with a disappointed tone: Is then Tango “JUST” walking?
Yes! If you got nothing inside you: no emotions, no passion, no feelings, if you are an empty shell, if you are a robot that only works and tries to take advantage of everybody… yes… it’s “JUST” walking, as you expressed.
But, if you are a HUMAN BEING, with capital letters, is not.
Your walk is yourself. The way you walk expresses who you are.
If your walk is only utilitarian, your whole life probably is the life of a tool.
During the 1870s arrives to Buenos Aires a very particular immigrant: the bandoneon.
Tango was in its infancy, as well as this new instrument, which was recently invented in 1846 in Germany by Heinrich Band, according to some versions, or Carl F. Zimmerman, according to others. None had patented it. The bandoneon is a musical instrument that resulted from the evolution on the concertina, invented in 1839, inspired in the accordion, and conceived as a portable version of the harmonium. It is of the hand-held bellows-driven free-reed category, sometimes called squeezeboxes. The sound is produced as air flows past the vibrating reeds mounted in a frame.
The oldest known musical instrument that uses this method is the Cheng, a “mouth organ”, already used in China on 700 AC, made of several bamboo canes (13 to 36) which had inside the vibrating membranes and a gourd as resonance box. The air flow was produced by blowing on it, like a flute.
During the 1800s this principle of production of sound was known in Europe, from which derived many diverse instruments, some in use still today, like the harmonica, the harmonium, the accordions, and the concertinas, which is considered the immediate ancestor of the bandoneon.
Carl Friedrich Uhlig (1789-1874) created the concertina in 1839, inspired in the accordion of the Viennese Cyrill Demian (1772-1847), as an improvement of it.
The first concertina of Uhlig had 5 buttons on each side, for higher pitch notes destined to the melody on the right, and for lower pitch or basses on the left. This concertina produced 2 different notes per button, one opening, and a different one closing the instrument, obtaining in this way 20 different tones. This instrument already had the seeds of what would become one day the bandoneon of Tango. The goal of Uhlig was to attain an instrument that, eliminating the difficulties of transportation of the harmonium, had a similar sonority that perfectly amalgamates with the string instruments, allowing its integration into the chamber music ensembles and not constraining it to the interpretation of popular music. That is why he continues improving it.
In 1854 Uhlig presented his creation at the Industrial Exposition of Munich, receiving a medal of Honor.
These instruments were highly popular, although they did not have the destiny desired by its creator, as they were mostly adopted by farmers and workers who began to execute it by ear or with a notation system using the small numbers written on each button. Later, other luthiers continued adding buttons, until it reached 62. In 1844, scientist and luthier Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875), patented the English concertina.
This instrument has hexagonal resonance boxes, while in the Uhlig invention, called also German concertina, they are squared. The bandoneon derives from the German concertina. According to some versions, Carl F. Zimmerman modified Uhlig’s concertina, adding buttons and rearranging its disposition, creating what became known as “Carlsfelder concertina” (derived from the German city Carlsfeld, where Zimmerman lived and created his concertina), in opposition to “Chemnitzer concertina” (derived from the German city Chemnitz, where Uhlig lived and created his concertina).
Zimmerman later emigrated to the USA, selling his factory to Ernst Louis Arnold, another instrument maker that will be connected to the origins of the bandoneon. In 1840, Heinrich Band, a musician from Carlsfeld, gets to know Uhlig’s concertina in a visit to Chemnitz.
He really likes the instrument but fell compelled to improve it. In 1843 he opens a musical instrument shop in Carlsfeld, and in 1846 starts selling his improved version of Uhlig’s concertina with 28 buttons that play two different tones each, and a different arrangement in the disposition of the buttons. This is the instrument that began to be referred to as bandoneon, although Heinrich Band considered it a concertina, and never patented it. He later yet improved it up to produce models of 65 buttons with two different sounds each.
He also contributed to the diffusion of the instrument with several transcriptions of piano works into bandoneon and composed waltzes and polkas to be played with bandoneon, although this information contradicts another version, which states that Heinrich Band conceived his instrument to play sacred music.
Heinrich Band dies 39. His widow, Johana Sieburg, partnered with Jaques Dupon in 1860 to continue the production of bandoneons.
Heinrich Band did not make the bandoneon himself. He designed it and ordered its production from Carl F. Zimmerman.
Alfred Band, the first son of Heinrich and Johana, wrote one of the first books related to the bandoneon, with all the major and minor scales. Ernst Louis Arnold, who bought Zimmerman’s factory, will become the most prominent bandoneon producer.
His son, Alfred Arnold, who worked in the factory from his childhood, will eventually devise a bandoneon of 71 buttons of two notes each. His version, called “AA”, will become the preferred one by the Argentine Tango musicians.
There are many different versions of the concertina and the bandoneon.
There are different button arrangements, as we saw with the Carlsfelder and Chemnitzer concertinas, and in some models each buttons plays only one note.
These could become confusing, so in 1921, Emil Schimild of Leipzig proposed the unification of all the buttons’ arrangements of concertinas and bandoneons in one instrument.
This proposition did not prosper, but in 1924, it was agreed to the unification for the button’s arrangement for the bandoneon, with a model of 72 buttons producing 2 notes each (144 tones), although the model adopted by Argentine Tango musicians is one of 71 buttons (142 notes), and Alfred Arnold continued its production exclusively for them. Alfred Arnold would take orders from Argentine Tango players that asked for the inclusion of more tones, and customize them.
After the Second World War, Alfred Arnold’s factory, which was located in what became Eastern Germany, was expropriated and ended the production of bandoneons to become a diesel engine’s parts factory. Arno Arnold, Alfred’s nephew, was able to escape from Eastern Germany and opened a bandoneon production factory in Western Germany in 1950, with the aid of Alfred’s former technician, Mr. Muller.
This factory closed after Arno’s death, in 1971. Klaus Gutjahr, a bandoneon player who graduated from the Bandoneon School of Berlin University, started to build handcraft bandoneons in 1970. At the end of the 1990s, he partnered with Paul Fischer in the Paul Fischer KG Company, a musical instrument manufacturer, set about reviving the manufacture of bandoneons in conjunction with the Eibenstock municipal authorities.
The Paul Fischer KG Company, together with the Institute for the Manufacture of Musical Instruments of Zwota, developed a 142 tone bandoneon in 2001. The Bandonion and Concertina Factory Klingenthal is continuing the tradition of the legendary “AA” instruments and thereby the construction of bandoneons at Carlfeld.
The materials and construction used correspond to the legendary “AA” instruments. Using historic instruments, experiments are being carried out to test the acoustic, material, and mechanical parameters in conjunction with the Institute for the Manufacture of Musical Instruments of Zwota.
The manufacturing process has been set up using these parameters and this can be demonstrated by means of measurements.
Because the bandoneon was not patented, there is no information ever recorded about the material used for its construction, like the precise alloys of the metallic vibrating reeds, different for every note.
In Argentina, bandoneons were hand made by Humberto Bruñini, resident of Bahía Blanca. After he passed away, his daughter Olga continued with the tradition until she passed away in 2005.
The first bandoneon player ever mentioned in Buenos Aires was Tomas Moore, “el inglés” (the English man), although some said he was Irish, who brought this instrument to Argentina in 1870.
A Brazilian man called Bartolo is also mentioned as the first to bring this instrument to Buenos Aires. Ruperto “el Ciego” (the blind man) is mentioned as the first one to play tangos with his bandoneon.
He played in the proximity of the market on Moreno street for alms. Pedro Ávila and Domingo Santa Cruz (author of the famous tango “Unión Cívica”) played the concertina until Tomas Moore presented them his bandoneon.
José Santa Cruz, Domingo’s father, also switched from concertina to bandoneon. He is regarded as playing military calls with a bandoneon during Paraguay’s war, but it is most probable that at that time he played the concertina. Pablo Romero, “el pardo” o “el negro” is regarded as one of the first to play tangos with bandoneon, in the area of Palermo.
Contradictory versions mention him as either playing before or being a student of “el pardo” Sebastián Ramos Mejía.
These bandoneons were a primitive version of 32 tones. After 1880, when Tango began to develop its definitive form, the most recognized bandoneon players were:
Antonio Francisco Chiappe, born in Montevideo in 1867.
His family moved to Buenos Aires in 1870 to the neighborhood of Barracas, where he later had a butcher shop. He also was a professional cart driver, who became the president of the Association of Professional Cart Drivers.
He was a magnificent bandoneon player, who would brag of his talent posting advertisements in the newspaper, challenging to whoever wanted to bet money to who played better Waldteufel’s waltzes, although he never made his living out of playing music.
He never played in other locations than family home parties. He played with “El Pardo” Sebastián Ramos Mejía a primitive tango, or “proto-tango”, “El Queco”, very popular in his time.
He also conducted several musical formations, from which it is important to highlight one that foretells the “orquesta típica criolla” of Vicente Greco. In this orchestra, he counted with bandoneon, violin, flute, clarinet, harmonium, two guitars and bass.
According to Enrique Cadícamo, in his poem “Poema al primer bandoneonista”, the first bandoneon player of Tango is “El Pardo” Sebastián Ramos Mejía, but today is agreed the affirmation of the historian of Tango Roberto Selles that it was Antonio Chiappe.
“Vientos de principios de siglo que hicieron girar las veletas y silbaron en los pararrayos de las residencias señoriales de San Telmo, Flores y Belgrano. Entonces el Pardo Sebastián Ramos Mejía era primer bandoneón ciudadano y cochero de tranvía de la Compañía Buenos Aires y Belgrano. El pardo Sebastián inauguró un siglo con su bandoneón cuando estaba en embrión la ciudad feérica y la calle Pueyrredón era Centro América. Primer fueye que encendió la luz del Tango, en las esquinas. A su influjo don Antonio Chiappe, también bandoneonista, se dió el lujo de desafiar por medio de los diarios al que mejor ejecutara los valses de Waldteufeld, extraordinarios… El Pardo Sebastián contagió su fervor a los hermanos Santa Cruz que actuaban en el cafe Atenas de Canning y Santa Fe donde se aplaudían los tangos de Villoldo -El choclo y Yunta brava- que tanto apasionaban a Aparicio, el caudillo, y al chino Andrés. Sebastián Ramos Mejía, decano de la facultad de bandoneón, inauguraste un siglo cuando estaba en embrión la ciudad feérica y la calle Pueyrredón era Centro América.” “Poema al primer bandoneonista”, Enrique Cadícamo.
“El Pardo” Sebastián Ramos Mejía was descendent of African slaves and was “mayoral” (driver) of the tramways puled by horses, on the line Buenos Aires-Belgrano.
He played in the Cafe Atenas of Ministro inglés (today Scalabrini Ortiz) and Santa Fe. His bandoneon had 53 tones.
He is regarded as giving some bandoneon lessons to Vicente Greco.
The bandoneon was not immediately accepted by Argentine Tango musicians and dancers.
The original formations of flute, violin, and guitar played a staccato, bright and fast rhythm. The bandoneon, with its “legato”, with its low keynotes, which were favorited by its players, who would constantly insist to its German producers to add more low keynotes, seemed not belonging to Tango. But in fact, it gave Tango what Tango was missing until the integration of bandoneon, and the bandoneon found the music it seemed to be created for.
The bandoneon, contrary to other instruments of Tango, like the violin, the flute, the guitar, the harp, or later, the piano, had no traditions to refer to.
It was a blank piece of paper in which anything could be written yet. Neither it was maestros nor methods for it. Everything had to be created from scratch. Perhaps the similarities between its sound and the sound of the organitos that disseminated Tango all over helped to its acceptance (see more at Part 2).
Juan Maglio “Pacho” was essential to the acceptance of the bandoneon as a musical instrument of Tango.
Born in 1881, he started to learn to play bandoneon by watching his father play it every day after work.
He would pay attention to the finger positions and then practice them secretly on his home’s roof.
He went to school until the age of 12, when he started to work, first in a mechanic workshop, then as a laborer in different activities, and then in a brickyard.
At the age of 18, he decided to fully head into his vocation: music.
During the years of hard work, he kept practicing, in order to stay in shape for when the opportunity knocks.
But still, he had technical issues to resolve, like developing greater independence between right and left hands, and he went in search of instruction to the more experienced Domingo Santa Cruz.
He improved notoriously, and from his bandoneon of 35 buttons, moved successively to instruments of 45, 52, 65, 71 and at last, a customized bandoneon of 75 buttons.
His father called him “pazzo” (the Italian word for crazy) in his childhood, due to his restless character.
His friends could not pronounce this word, and called him “Pacho”.
He loved to make jokes.
If you were in the area of Maldonado creek in 1918 and saw a ghost, it was Pacho, who wandered around every night with a white bed sheet to have fun scaring the people that passed by.
He dressed with sobriety and distinction, and he insisted to his musicians to do the same.
He started playing as a professional at the beginning of the 1900s, first in brothels and then in Cafés, until, due to his rising prestige, he was convened to play at the very famous Café La Paloma, in Palermo, in 1910.
It is important to clarify that the Palermo of that time was not the same upper-class neighborhood we know today.
In those years it was an area of “compadritos”. Lots of people came to listen to Pacho there. The special rhythm of Pacho’s interpretations of tangos brought many of the best dancers of the time, like El Cachafáz, to listen, because it was not place to dance.
One night, a group of the audience from the neighborhood of Once, more upper class than Palermo, took him in litters and carry him to Café Garibotto, in San Luis and Pueyrredón.
There he later presented a quartet of the bandoneon, flute, violin, and a 7 stringed guitar. Around those years Pacho started to present his compositions: “Armenonville”, “Un copetín” and “Quasi nada”.
He attracted so many people to his concerts, that the police began to suspect that it was not only music that the Café offered to its clientele, and one night they entered abruptly and arrested everybody, clients, waiters, musicians, the owner and the cat… But they found nothing.
In response, Pacho wrote his tango”Qué papelón!”.
In 1912 he started to record for Columbia. His success was so great that the word “Pacho” became a synonym of “recordings”.
Let’s say you’re in Buenos Aires and you’re looking for a class or milonga.
Typically, you might do some research using the internet or follow the advice of someone you don’t know that well, which could lead you to missing out on what only Buenos Aires has to offer in relation to Tango.
This is because Tango is not a commodity.
Tango is an apprenticeship. You do not get Tango the way you get gasoline. It’s not like you can go to any place, or the cheapest place, pay, fill up, and leave having acquired Tango.
You learn Tango from a “Maestro”.
The responsibility of your Tango teacher is to be the bridge between your life before Tango and your transformation into a milonguera or milonguero.
You also have a responsibility on your journey, which will require passion, courage, commitment, discipline, stamina, focus and patience. You must be willing to jump wholeheartedly into Tango.
You want to learn to dance Tango.
Why? Because you are meant to do it.
The rest is either preparation or avoidance of it.
If you were in a place affected by war, you would either drop out by hiding away, or escaping; or you would choose a side and fight.
In peace we are able to be good and beautiful, and we should choose to be as such.
Tango is a language that allows you to speak with your whole being.
Your entire body is talking, in verses, or in a poetic prose, with an everyday colloquial conversational style that can speak in very deep and charming phrases.
Why should we choose to be charming?
As well as we are always learning, we are always educating others.
It is inherent to our human nature.
We must charm to bring others into the task of making this world the way we can be proud of it.
Why are we so insecure when we start dancing for the first time?
Because we are exposing ourselves.
We realize how transparent we become when dancing.
We could hide who we are to others by not dancing, even by learning and rehearsing a choreography, perhaps.
We can hide ourselves to others by acting as a character instead of being who we are.
But Tango is improvised. It requires spontaneity.
Tango is a way to educate you on how to be more like yourself, being proud of it, building on the pieces which are often ignored at work, at the gym, at the bar…
By exposing your weaknesses, you can begin to work on them objectively and improve.
Learning to be a milonguera or milonguero requires a sensitivity to its inherent value.
This is another area where a Maestro can be valuable.
Right now, Buenos Aires is the only city in the world in which there are certain milongas where this system of ethics and aesthetics is the norm accepted by all the participants. It starts with the hosts, the DJs, the wait staff, the regulars and all others who attend.
The Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires is an enterprise entirely dedicated to Tango. It is through Tango that we understand culture. It is a way of life. It is a way to see our own lives in the context of realities such as society, individuality, beauty, responsibility.
These words seem abstract, but they manifest as real problems in our everyday life.
Tango lends the experience of past generations, gives us the perspective of how people in the past lived and danced, of the mistakes they made in the process. It offers us the opportunity to make better choices in the present, and through our sense of responsibility, personal strength and awareness, to make life more beautiful.
Tango shows us that our individual lives are meaningless without a connection to past generations and traditions that link us to others in the present and throughout history. Passion for life, which we can only achieve and sustain through our subjectivity, is necessary to give meaning to our lives and make valuable contributions to society.
What I am describing can be found in the lyrics of many tango songs.
For example, below is a verse from “Canción de rango”:
“Que bailen los que vienen pa’ bailar, que escuchen los que quieran escuchar. Pa’ todos hay un tango acompasado, pretencioso y retobado reinando en mi ciudad.”
This first verse talks about society, made up of uncountable individuals driven by their own passions: dancing, enjoying the music… there is something in tango for everyone. Tango is for all.
Another verse:
“Yo canto porque vivo la emoción del tango cadencioso y compadrón.”
In these lyrics the individual presents his motives: passion, emotions. Still, these passions are related to something that transcends him as an isolated individual: Tango.
And finally:
“Yo canto cuando alguno pega el grito que hay un tango compadrito buscando un corazón.”
This verse demonstrates how he is moved by responsibility of responding to a call from Tango and others.
If you listen to any rendition of this song, you will be moved by the total commitment of the orchestra/singer into the composition. The authors, Suñé and Kaplún, really left the ball ready for a goal in this match. I enjoy all of them: Demare/Arrieta, Biagi/Acuna, Tanturi/Castillo, Caló/Rufino, Pugliese/Córdoba, Troilo/Goyeneche. I just discovered the last one:https://youtu.be/Lo51tqpkLSk
I am not going to talk about the dance. You must do it, if you want to know anything about it. It is pure beauty.
The Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires is based in Buenos Aires, where it has a staff of regular and guest maestros such as Blas Catrenau, Myriam Pincen and Néstor Pellicciaro, who is also one of the co-directors.
The other co-director (and author of this article) is me, Marcelo Solis, working in San Francisco Bay Area.
Since tango is a globalized phenomenon that is rooted in Buenos Aires, we promote a strong connection to the roots of tango at each branch abroad. Teachers at every location organize classes and events keeping in mind that their goal is to see their students dancing in Buenos Aires’ milongas, helping them to integrate to the milonguero culture.
I recently came back from Buenos Aires where I was guiding my tour.
This experience is always very positive, and all of the participants became better dancers. That makes me feel deeply happy and proud.
And now the question is… what makes you a good dancer?
My answer in the framework of Tango:
1. To be madly in love with the music. Tango originates as a dance first, and then a specific music was associated to it. The first milongueros would dance using the particular technique of dancing based on the embrace, to the rhythms in vogue at the second half of the 1800’s: waltz, polka, habanera, that came to the port of Buenos Aires from abroad, and a local rhythm called milonga.
Musicians were itinerant at the time. They played improvisations based on popular melodies, and received payment directly from the dancers. The musicians who paid attention to the dancers learned to play to their cadence, the natural inertia of a couple dancing embraced. That was greatly appreciated by the dancers and rewarded with a greater pay. That is how tango evolved as a musical genre.
This process went on, with a period where tango was partially disassociated from the dance; the tendency that today, in retrospect, we relate to Carlos Gardel, a singer, and Julio De Caro, a violin player, composer and director. It lasted until 1935, when Juan D’Arienzo initiated the Golden Era of Tango by reconnecting tango to its roots as a dance.
The music from that period (that continued strong for a decade, and faded out gradually after –although never completely disappearing) is played nowadays in the milongas in Buenos Aires.
That is why it is not possible to understand Tango without passionate love for its music. The music tells you how to dance, tells you what tango is. To read more about the history of Tango.
2. To have the patience to achieve a great control of your movement, up to the “subtleties” level. Be never satisfied with what you are already able to do. However, do not allow the quest for improvement deprive you and your partner of the joy of dancing.
3. To have the passion and the commitment to practice, to put aside other things and make time to practice. Nothing will change or improve in your dance without physically doing and repeating your exercises in order to build up the necessary good habits. I heard people saying that this is neurotic obsessive behavior, an addiction, and other similar things. My response to them is: when an activity makes you stronger, wiser, more aware and alert, healthier in general, it cannot be classified so negatively. Although, for some, it may be an escapism… But that is not Tango.
4. To be generous, pay more attention to your possibilities and opportunities to give, rather than calculating how much you would receive. I tell you right away: it may be a long time before you can truly enjoy it. It is always going to be a work in progress that is never finished. It will ask you to be always in alert mode, to consider more what you can do and how much you can give, not how much good it is given to you. From the moment you go to your first class or your first milonga, the right attitude will be “I come to participate”, rather than “I come to receive”.
5. To have the desire to share, pay attention to your partner’s joy, to dance “with” your partner. That is the same principle stated in 4, but on the partnership level. At the couple level, tango is made by two people. They have to act as accomplices, give support to each other, encourage their respective strengths, provide support and a friendly challenge in relation to their respective weaknesses.
6. To respect the other people’s space. Tango is intimate, but should not be invasive. That is why, to give one example, “cabeceo” is so essential to tango: you ought to ask a partner from a distance if she or he would allow you to get so intimately closed. A milonguera or milonguero has to be aware of the following: a good dancer is clean, well mannered, respectful, strong, considerate and gentle.
7. To be humble, even when you have a lot to be proud about. The greatest of the greatest dancers keep learning.
8. To be aware that Tango is not only “your” Tango, to acknowledge that it has belonged to others before you, to respect what Tango is, so your love for Tango grows on the soil of what has already been done. That implies your acting in order to know tango better, its history, the people who made Tango their lives.
9. To assume responsibility that others who come after you will get to know Tango from you.
I would like you to tell me what other elements, in your opinion, make a good dancer. Please write to me at marcelo@escuelatangoba.com
If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and want to learn to dance Tango, you can:
Dancing Tango is not only about you and you-and-your-partner. It is also a social event and a culture.
Tango was in its infancy, as well as this new instrument, which was recently invented in 1846 in Germany by Heinrich Band, according to some versions, or Carl F. Zimmerman, according to others. None had patented it. The bandoneon is a musical instrument that resulted from the evolution on the concertina, invented in 1839, inspired in the accordion, and conceived as a portable version of the harmonium. It is of the hand-held bellows-driven free-reed category, sometimes called squeezeboxes. The sound is produced as air flows past the vibrating reeds mounted in a frame. 
The goal of Uhlig was to attain an instrument that, eliminating the difficulties of transportation of the harmonium, had a similar sonority that perfectly amalgamates with the string instruments, allowing its integration into the chamber music ensembles and not constraining it to the interpretation of popular music. That is why he continues improving it.
by its creator, as they were mostly adopted by farmers and workers who began to execute it by ear or with a notation system using the small numbers written on each button. Later, other luthiers continued adding buttons, until it reached 62. In 1844, scientist and luthier Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875), patented the 
Juan Maglio “Pacho” was essential to the acceptance of the bandoneon as a musical instrument of Tango.
