What we dance to, and how to practise at every speed
Lindy Hop is danced to swing jazz — the big band and small group music of roughly the late 1920s through the 1940s. That means Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, Fats Waller, Ella Fitzgerald, Lester Young and Sidney Bechet, alongside the bands still recording in that tradition today.
The thing that shapes the dance most is tempo, measured in beats per minute. The same swing-out feels like a different move at 120 BPM and at 200 BPM, so I keep my listening sorted into ten-BPM bands and practise deliberately across the range rather than always dancing to whatever comes on next. All the playlists below are public — do borrow them.
Most swing standards are built from a 32-bar chorus, commonly four eight-bar sections in an AABA shape. In 4/4 that is 128 beats, or sixteen of the eight-counts we count in class. Once you can hear those eight-bar sections going past, the music stops being a wall of sound and starts telling you where you are: you feel a section coming to an end, and you can land something on the change instead of dancing over it.
This is the playlist I use for exactly that in the Monday class at Angel — songs with a clear, easy-to-count structure:
Pick a band and stay in it for a few songs. If a tempo feels frantic, drop ten BPM and build back up — that is far more useful than surviving one fast song.
| Tempo | How it feels, and what it's good for | Playlist |
|---|---|---|
| 80–90 | Very slow and stretchy. Almost blues territory — all about connection, shaping and taking your time inside a beat. | 80–90 BPM |
| 90–100 | Slow Lindy. Enough room to feel every part of the swing-out, which makes sloppy timing very obvious — in a useful way. | 90–100 BPM |
| 100–110 | Relaxed and groovy. A good place to work on musicality and playing with the music rather than chasing it. | 100–110 BPM |
| 110–120 | Still unhurried, but with a real swing pulse underneath. A lot of good recordings sit here, so it's a fine place to spend time early on. | 110–120 BPM |
| 120–130 | The comfortable middle, and my biggest playlist. Nothing is rushed, so it's where I'd learn new material. | 120–130 BPM |
| 130–140 | Classic mid-tempo swing. Most beginners are happiest here, and plenty of the best recordings live in this band. | 130–140 BPM |
| 140–150 | Bread and butter of a social dance. Fast enough to feel like swing, slow enough to be playful. | 140–150 BPM |
| 150–160 | Bright and energetic. Where a good band on a good night tends to sit. | 150–160 BPM |
| 160–170 | Now there's less time to think. Great for tightening basics and finding out which habits don't survive speed. | 160–170 BPM |
| 170–180 | Genuinely quick. Move less, not more — let the momentum you already have do the work. | 170–180 BPM |
| 180–190 | Fast. Swivels, footwork and staying relaxed under pressure; a small vocabulary danced well beats a big one rushed. | 180–190 BPM |
| 190–200 | Competition and jam energy. Charleston variations start to feel better here than big turning figures. | 190–200 BPM |
| 200–210 | Very fast. Breathe, stay small, and trust the pulse rather than trying to place every step. | 200–210 BPM |
| 210–220 | The top of what most social floors will throw at you, usually as the last song of the night. | 210–220 BPM |
Above 220 the recordings get rare, so these playlists are short — a handful of songs each, and sometimes only one. This is Hellzapoppin' territory: showcase tempos danced in short bursts rather than for a whole song.
We work on all of this every week in class — and if you want to dig into musicality or one particular tempo, it's a great thing to spend a private lesson on.
← Lindy Hop & swing classes in LondonMondays · Swing Patrol Angel
Absolute beginners start at 7pm at Swing Patrol Angel, Exmouth Market. No partner, no experience and no booking needed — just turn up and we'll start from the basics.
£15 on the door · £10 for full-time students · Levels 1–3 every Monday