About · Tandabase

About 01

What is this?

a listening tool for tango i built for fun

it started as: build a set of tandas, listen to them, send someone a link. that part still works.

then it grew arms and legs. now you can also dig through orchestra discographies, look up singers and composers, hear the same tango across orchestras side by side, and poke at a little tango-music encyclopedia. or just play a guessing game.

it pulls the videos from youtube so you hear the actual recordings. the whole point is that you get to listen.

Build a set Scroll Discover

How it works 02

Six verbs, roughly

browse public sets others have shared, or create your own.
create sets by searching for songs and organizing them into tandas.
import an apple music playlist (export as xml); it auto-detects tandas and finds videos.
upload a csv if you prefer to build a set that way.
explore orchestras, singers, composers, and the same tango compared across orchestras.
listen one song at a time. pay attention to the orchestra, the singer, the year.

Heads up 03

It's not for DJing

i built it this way on purpose.

no cortina gaps. i didn't want anyone hooking this up to speakers at a milonga and hitting play.
youtube embeds, not audio files. great for listening and learning, not for a dance floor.

if you want to dj, buy the music and support the labels that preserve these recordings. if you want to learn, to sit with it, to start recognizing orchestras, to build your ear, that's what this is for.

Listen 04

Drop the needle on any recording

Every orchestra's whole discography on one timeline. Click a dot and the record spins, the needle drops and the video plays, all in lockstep.

Open Di Sarli's records

Compare 05

The same tango, every orchestra

One tune, every version, scattered across the decades, a colour per orchestra. Hear them back to back.

Compare a tango

Dig 06

Who wrote their own book?

Most orchestras played the standards. A few leaders composed what they recorded, see who leaned hardest on their own pen.

See the leaders

Build 07

Stack your own tanda

Pull four tracks that belong together into a set, then share the sleeve or hand it to a DJ.

Create a set

Play 08

Train your ear and play with friends

Hear a clip, name the orchestra. A quick game that sneakily teaches you each band's fingerprint.

Play a game

Browse 09

21 orchestras, each its own colour

Every orchestra gets a profile, year-by-year output, singers over time, and the songs behind the numbers.

Browse all orchestras

Lyrics 10

Follow the words as they're sung

Lyrics lit up line by line, in time with the recording. Sing along, or just read what the thing is actually about.

Read the lyrics

Learn 11

Hear what makes tango tick

A little encyclopedia of musicality, each with looping clips cued to the exact moment it happens.

Open the learn section

People 12

The singers, composers and poets

The voices and the pens get their own pages too, a career on a timeline and every recording they touched.

Meet the people

Keep reading 13

Dig deeper

the longer versions, for anyone who wants them.

the story
how a playlist for my students turned into all this, and how it works under the hood.
what's new
everything that's landed, newest first, plus what's still on the workbench.
sources & thanks
almost none of this is mine. the people whose work it's built on.
how to use it
short walkthroughs for the stuff people actually do here.
coverage
what's in the database, what's missing, and which recordings still have no video.

The suggestion box 14

Found a bug? Tell me.

feature requests, feedback, complaints, whatever. it all helps. i read everything, and you don't need an account.