Lindy Hop Music — Swing Playlists by Tempo

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.

Start here: hearing the 32-bar chorus

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:

Swing playlists by tempo

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	Almost blues. Connection and taking your time inside a beat.	Listen
90–100	Slow Lindy. Room to feel every part of the swing-out.	Listen
100–110	Relaxed and groovy. Good for musicality.	Listen
110–120	Unhurried, but with a real swing pulse underneath.	Listen
120–130	The comfortable middle. Where I'd learn new material.	Listen
130–140	Classic mid-tempo swing. Most beginners are happiest here.	Listen
140–150	Bread and butter of a social dance.	Listen
150–160	Bright and energetic. Where a good band tends to sit.	Listen
160–170	Less time to think. Tightens up your basics.	Listen
170–180	Genuinely quick. Move less, not more.	Listen
180–190	Fast. Swivels, footwork, staying relaxed under pressure.	Listen
190–200	Jam energy. Charleston beats big turning figures.	Listen
200–210	Very fast. Stay small and trust the pulse.	Listen
210–220	Usually the last song of the night.	Listen

Beyond 220 BPM

There is plenty of swing up here — I just haven't got round to filling these playlists, so most of them are short. Hellzapoppin' territory: showcase tempos danced in short bursts rather than for a whole song.

More playlists from my classes

How to practise with these

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.

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