Tonight I discovered that the bandoneon has no set rules that one follows in order to learn to play the instrument--each individual brings to it his/her own personality and, through experimentation, imitation and a lot of listening, the musician "breathes" life into a signature style--and I learned this while listening to a bandoneon player I was interviewing: a woman my age.

We talked at a cafe around the corner from La Casa de Tango where they hold special free tango concerts for those who are interested and "in the know." Trying to zone out the orquestra of a televised soccer game, other's conversations, and the clanking of ceramic coffee cups and saucers, I asked her questions about how she came to find herself in this profession. Bandoneon players are rare to begin with, and to be a woman in the profession is even more novel. I was fascinated to speak with someone who represented such a unique minority, as well as someone whose life revolves around playing an instrument that has become close to obsolete in Argentina.

Originally brought over from Germany, bandoneons quickly became the signature instrument in tango, along with the piano, and since their arrival at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, they have been used and reused for years, handed down from player to player. The fact that they have never been manufactured in Argentina is kind of a testament to their authenticity and ability to survive, like tango itself. While new bandoneons are made Europe, importing them is not a reality for Argentine musicians, so instead they are forced to look inwards and 'make do.' But even that has its limitations. Foreigners who have bought bandoneons here have caused the limited supply to dwindle and the prices of the few remaining to rise.

The girl I spoke with tonight had always been surrounded by music, moving from one instrument to another, but when she discovered the bandoneon the restlessness stopped and she began her career. Luckily for her, bandoneon players were (and still continue to be) in demand. She talked to me without many pauses, spilling out her story to me. Not having seen her play, I listened and tried to imagine how her personality coincided with her own signature playing style. She was explained the physical stature one must have in order to be able to work the instrument.

"Not for someone with a small back," she commented, insinuating that many women's frames were simply too small to support the living, breathing, sighing, expanding and contracting thing that is the bandoneon. She propped her elbows on the table, her fitted long-sleeved turquoise shirt revealed toned arms and broad shoulders. It also matched her blue-green eyes which stared back at me without diversions.

She was a quintessential realist, from her ideas to the way she spoke, to the way she parted her hair-right down the middle. She told me she didn't believe that tango was being preserved the way it necessarily should be. Influenced by money, the tango business caters to what people will pay to see, not what is the best tango has to offer. "It's not like it was in the 40s for musicians. People are separating more and more from music. They buy a music CD or download songs from the internet. It's an isolating experience. Tango musicians have much less opportunity to play than they used to, and I don't see that changing." She commented on the explosion of interest in tango that has created jobs in the last 15 years where there were none in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Listening to her talk about the rise of interest in tango that resulted from the shows that travelled around the world in the 1980s made me think about the shift around 1913 when suddenly tango was all the rage in Europe and how this phenomenon similarly recharged tango's batteries in its birthplace, creating a renewed interest in the dance.

"But unfortunately that means that today some musicians are playing tango for the money more than for love of the music." She tells me.

I had considered that before. Where does the balance between passion and necessity lie? Opportunities to make a good living are hard to come by, so can you really blame them? Does that affect the soul of tango? Well, just as there are no established guidelines for playing the bandoneon, there are also no rules for the existence of tango, and it's survival in Buenos Aires.