After spending 10 months in Argentina in 2023, I became quite enthralled with tango and tango music. Of course, in order to understand where the influence of the music came from, one must travel across the ocean over to the province of Auvergne, France. From this region, derived a song and dance called la bouree. This music was accompanied by a bagpipe variation called the cornemuse or cabrette. The term musette came from the name of the instrument. The musette dances evolved into the tango, the walz, and the paso doble. Eventually, the music evolved to include other genres like jazz and blues.
Bal Musette History
The French attended a bal musette as a form of social entertainment, much the way that the Argentines attend a milonga today. This entertainment was popular among the artistic and literary avant-garde socia…
