Tango Rhythm Trainer
A free, browser-based tango rhythm trainer: practise marcato, síncopa, contratiempo, tresillo and more of the rhythmic vocabulary behind Golden Age tango. Two compases, counted 1 to 8 with an & between each beat. Dark bars sound; tap any bar to switch it on or off. Tall bars are the strong beats, short bars the offbeats.
Match a Golden Age orchestra:
Sound only starts when you press Start. Nothing plays before that.
Rhythm vocabulary
- Compás
- The four-beat measure tango is built on. This grid is two compases long.
- Marcato Marcato en dos / cuatro / uno
- Playing or stepping on the beat. "Marcato en X" says how many of the four beats you mark each compás: two, four, or just one.
- Síncopa
- A syncopation: anticipating a beat by landing early, on the "&" just before it.
- Aire
- A held, suspended síncopa: no attack on the beat itself, just the early anticipation, sustained through to the landing.
- Contratiempo Opposite
- Stepping on the off-beats (2, 4, 6, 8) instead of the walking pulse.
- Tresillo 3-3-2
- Tango’s signature rhythmic cell: three eighths, three eighths, two eighths, often counted "pa-na-ma, pa-na-ma, cu-ba".
- Doble tiempo Double time
- Stepping on every eighth note instead of every beat, twice the density of marcato en dos.
- 4-1
- A bridging figure that lands on beat 4 of one compás and beat 1 of the next.