Tango Notes

Compact Tango Notation

It’s difficult to describe tango moves in text, but it can be useful.   I started using this notation many years ago as an aid to remember moves.  It generally is good enough for me to remember a move, but sometimes needs additional text to give a better description.

Notation basics

  • Who is making the move, leader (M) or follower (W).
    • M, W, MW, Both – Leader, follower, both leader and follower.  See Issues section below.
  • Which foot/leg is involved.
    • L, R – Left or Right.  Eg, ML is the leader’s left foot. This is a reference to the “active” foot or leg of interest.  The active leg is: making a step,  gancho, wrap, parada, barrida, boleo, or planeo. There are a few instances where the free foot is not the active foot, eg pivot.
    • O, C – Open side or closed side.  The side where the arms are extended (ML, WR) is referred to as the “open” side and the other is the closed side. See Issues section below.
  • Where is it going.
    • fwd/f, back/b, side/s, together/tog/t.  This identifies the direction of the foot travel relative to the person. Together means put the active foot together with the other foot.
    • fc, bc – These stand for front cross and back cross.   They don’t have anything to do with The Cross (Cruzada), but refer to a forward or back step that crosses over the line between the bodies of the two dancers. See Issues below for why this may change.   Another way to think about it is that is a forward or backward step around the partner, not directly away or toward them.  
  • Showing rotation/pivoting.
    • cw, +, ccw, –.  These specify rotation or pivoting direction, eg in moves such as pivot, giro, calecita, ….  The  cw and + notation specifies clockwise and ccw and – specify counterclockwise (anti-clockwise).  This may apply to a movement, eg Giro ccw, or to an individual pivot.   The + and – are appended to the end of foot designation, eg WL- means the follower pivots counterclockwise on their left foot.  Additionally the amount of rotation may be specified in degrees.  The follower’s pivot may also come at the beginning or end of move.   Examples
              WL-180 means follower left pivots 180 degrees counterclockwise.
              WR f+180 means follower’s right steps forward and then pivots 180 clockwise.
  • Relative body offsets
    • (rr), (ll) – This is appended to a move when walking offset right-to-right or left-to-left as in the Basic 8. For example, “Walk(rr)” means right side to right side.   Eg “WalkX(ll)” means the leader walks in the cross system left side to left side.
  • Using the cross system
    • -X – “These suffixes means the”X” is appended to move or position indicating it is in the cross system.
  • Part of the foot or leg, eg for paradas and sacadas.
    • (in), (out), (front), (toe), (heel), (in), ,,, – These suffixes indicate the side of the foot or leg in paradas, barridas, and sacadas.  
      MR(in) parada WL(out) – The inside of the leader’s right foot paradas the outside of the follower’s left.
    • (high) or (low) – where on the leg a sacada aims at.
  • Prefix to indicate the variety of a move that can be done either forward or backward.
    • F-, B- prefixes prefixed move identify which one of moves that can either be done either forward or back.   Eg, FBoleo is a forward (front) boleo, BOcho is a back ocho, etc.
  • > – Go to the next move.
  • Change weight without taking a step.
    • Foot without direction – This is used to indicate a change of weight.  For example, ML alone means the leader shifts their weight to their left.
  • Comma – Separates the leader’s moves from the follower’s moves that are done simultaneously. Often only one person’s move is shown where the other person does what is obvious to the experienced dancer. But if the moves for both dancers is indicated, they are separated by a comma.
  • {} – Enclose a comment.
  • Refer to positions/moves in the Basic Eight
    • #1, #2, … – A “#” followed by a number indicates a position after making the nth step in the standard Basic Eight pattern. Eg, “#2” is the position after making the side step 2 in the Basic Eight (weight on the open side feet).  

Abbreviations for common moves

  • Am – Americana.
  • Bar – Barrida.
  • BBoleo – Back boleo
  • BC, bc, BCross – Back cross step, ie around, not away from the partner.
  • Cruz – Cruzada.Assumed to be the common weighted WL in front of WR.
  • Eng – Enganche
  • Face – Facing.  Face(O) both weight on open side feet, Face(C) both weight on closed side feet, Face(R) both weight on right feet, Face(L) both weight on left feet.   Face(O) and Face(C) are in the parallel system and the others in the cross system.
  • FBoleo – Front Boleo
  • FC, fc, FCross – Front cross, typically around the partner.
  • FOcho – Front/forward Ocho
  • Gan, Gan(f2b), Gan(b2f)- Gancho. f2b indicates it is from leader’s front to back, and b2f indicates back to front.  If the direction isn’t specified, it should be obvious.
  • OchoC – Ocho Cortado.
  • Par – Parada.
  • Pas, Pas(in), Pas(out) – Pasada.  Pas(in) is a pasada from the outside of the leader to the inside (front).  Similarly, Pas(out) is the less common pasada from in front of the leader to their outside.
  • Sac – Sacada.  Often qualified as “Sacada(high)” or “Sacada(low)”.
  • Sail – Sailor crossfoot promenade with Sail(L) or Sail(R) referring to foot making the step.
  • Sand – Sandwich.
  • Vol – Volcada
  • Walk – M walk forward in parallel system.  If walking on outside use Walk(rr) (walk right hip to right hip) or Walk(ll).
  • WalkX(rr), WalkX(ll) – Walk in cross system. The ll or rr means walking left to left or right to right.

Compact Notation Issues

Any system that attempts to use text to describe tango dancing will miss many elements of tango moves, yet it can be useful.   My text notation grew out of attempts to record moves from workshops.   Many of my early notes were later incomprehensible because there was no uniform notation.   This frustration was the motivation for the development of a notation.  Altho videos are much, much better for recording a move, they are not always possible to make, nor are they easy to browse over to find moves.   My notes often have a link to an illustrative video.  At the time I started developing this notation, I was unaware of other notations, which I have subsequently examined.

?? Notation to identify leader or follower

I started using M for leader and W for follower.  The source of this notation is obvious and altho I think it should be replaced, it’s not so easy.   Some natural alternatives interfere with other natural notation, eg L (for leader) and F (for follower) are already naturally left and forward.  Could always use S (for seguidor) for the follower and M (marcador) or C (conductor)  for the leader.

Some text notation systems have chosen other systems to identify the dancer.

  • Use upper case for the leader and lowercase for the follower, eg the right foot would be either “R” (eg, “MR”) or “r”(eg “Wr”).   I tried this and it’s not too bad but there are still times when it’s necessary to refer to the leader or follower in compact notation..  
  • Other notations write the leader’s moves above the follower’s.  I like it, but find multiline notation is awkward.  See Rasche Notation below.

?? Open and Closed side notation

Because dancers are almost always facing each other, the leader’s left is the same side as the follower’s right.   A simple way to prevent the L/R confusion is to identify the sides as Open (O) or Closed (C). I’ve used O/C occasionally, but generally use L/R.

?? Rotation notation

The direction of rotation is clockwise (cw or “+”) or counterclockwise (ccw or “-“).  These notes don’t use “anticlockwise”.

In trigonometry rotation counterclockwise is measured as positive.   I naively didn’t follow that convention and use positive numbers to indicate rotation in a clockwise direction, WL-90 (quarter turn counterclockwise).  Earlier notation used fractions to indicate how far to turn.   Eg, WL-1/4 is quarter turn ccw.   If the top of the fraction was a one, this was further abbreviated as WL-/4.   Another option would be to use the fraction symbols directly, eg ¼ for 1/4.  Referring to “left” or “right” turns is confusing because these are opposite for the two partners.

?? Capitalization and spacing?

Capitalization is completely inconsistent, eg sometimes you will see “Parada” and sometimes “parada”.   I’m not sure how it will end up.   Similarly there is inconsistency in spacing, eg in one place I may write “WLs”, in another “WL s”, and in yet another “WL side”.

?? Forward and back cross?

This “cross” notation has nothing to do with “The Cross”, but there is constant confusion.  These moves that cross over the line between the dancers could probably be identified as just forward and back, because almost all such moves are made around the partner.  In cases where there is a need to distinguish, a “r” or “l” could be added.  For example, after a sandwich, it is common for the leader to step around behind to make a clear path for the follower’s pasada.   Now I might write “ML sandwich WL > MR back cross (bc) > WR pasada ML” where it’s important to be clear that the M step is not straight back.   In this case one could write “back left (or bl)”.

?? Function notation

Most notations are “subject-verb-object” style, eg MR barrida WL.  An alternative I’ve used in the past is function notation, eg barrida(MR, WL), also a good notation especially familiar to programmers.

Other Notations

Rasche Notation (RascheNotation.com)

Moves in Rasche Notation are written on four lines: top line is for enumerating the musical beat.  Line two is for a description where required.  Line 3 has the leader’s moves and line 4 has the follower’s moves.   I find the use of four lines to be too cumbersome.

Bodirsky Notation (https://www.scribd.com/document/305709799/Bodirsky-Tango-Notation)

This is a very compact notation written on two lines.  It was devised by an algebra professor which shows in its brevity.   I don’t think it’s useful in its current form.