Tap tempo: beats and bars per minute
Tap along to a song to measure its beats per minute and its bars (measures) per minute for the dance you choose, and see whether it fits the competition tempo the WDSF rules and the NDCA rule book publish for that dance. Nothing is recorded: the tool measures your taps, not the sound.
Tap on every beat, at least eight times, with a finger, the mouse, the space bar or Enter. Stop for a few seconds and the next tap starts a new measurement.
Or type beats per minute Or type bars per minuteBars per minute in the Waltz
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Tap along to the music to measure it.
Published tempos for the Waltz
| Who publishes it | Bars per minute | Beats per minute | Your tempo |
|---|---|---|---|
| WDSF rulesInternational Standard | 28 to 30 | 84 to 90 | · |
| NDCA rule bookInternational Standard | 29 | 87 | · |
| NDCA rule bookAmerican Smooth | 30 | 90 | · |
Rulebook tempos are whole bars per minute, so your tempo is rounded to the nearest bar before it is compared. Under the NDCA rule book a music director may vary a tempo by one bar a minute (two in Nightclub).
Dances at this tempo
Tap along to the music to measure it.
Counted in each dance's own beats to a bar: 90 beats a minute is 30 bars of a Waltz but 22.5 bars of a Foxtrot. Your tempo column in the table above does the same for each style.
How to use it
Choose the dance, play the song and tap on every beat for ten or more beats. The tool shows the beats per minute, the bars per minute in that dance's meter, and how it compares with each published range. A few steady taps are worth more than many hurried ones.
If you already know a number, type it in either box: the other unit and the comparison follow. The ranges are the ones on each dance's page, read from the WDSF Competition Rules and the NDCA Rule Book.
Beats or bars per minute?
**Beats per minute (BPM)** is what a metronome, a DJ app or most song lists show. **Bars per minute**, also called measures per minute (MPM), is what ballroom rulebooks state: how many bars of music pass in a minute. A bar has three beats in a Waltz, four in a Foxtrot or Cha Cha and two in a Samba or Paso Doble.
Many song lists print bars per minute and call it BPM, so a Waltz shows up as "29 BPM". If a number is a third or a quarter of what you tap, it is bars, not beats.
Songs for each dance
Each competition dance's page lists songs danced to it again and again on Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing with the Stars, counted from Wikipedia's season tables. They carry no tempo: recordings differ, and we could not check one for a named recording. Measure the one you have here.
- Waltz10 songs
- Tango10 songs
- Viennese Waltz10 songs
- Foxtrot10 songs
- Quickstep10 songs
- Samba10 songs
- Cha Cha10 songs
- Rumba10 songs
- Paso Doble10 songs
- Jive10 songs
Questions
What is MPM in ballroom?
Measures per minute, the same as bars per minute: how many bars of music pass in a minute. Ballroom rulebooks state tempos this way. Multiply by the beats in a bar for beats per minute: three in a Waltz, four in a Foxtrot, two in a Samba.How do I find a song's tempo?
Play it, choose the dance and tap on each beat for ten or more beats. The tool shows the beats and bars per minute and the published range for that dance.When is a song too fast or too slow for competition?
When it falls outside every range the rulebooks publish for the dance. It can still be fine for practice or a social dance, but practise at the rulebook tempo before a competition.Why do song lists disagree about tempo?
Many lists call bars per minute BPM, and some give one tempo for every version of a song. Versions differ, so measure the recording you will dance to.Sources
- WDSF Competition Rules 2026, Rule E.3 Music (tempo table)
- NDCA Rule Book, July 2026, Section IX.B Approved Tempi
- WDSF Competition Rules 2026, Rule E.3 Music (tempo table)
What this page was written from. DanceFlow is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sanctioned by any of these organizations.
The ranges are read from the WDSF and NDCA rules. DanceFlow is not NDCA-sanctioned and is not affiliated with the WDSF.
Read next
- Reference 22 dances Dance styles explained Choosing a style, or seeing how two dances differ.
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- Checklist 17 items Your first showcase Getting ready for your first time dancing for an audience.
- Checklist 32 items Your first competition Knowing what to do, and when, before your first competition.
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