Once installed, SalsaBeat opens from your home screen like an app and works offline.
SalsaBeat is a rhythm trainer, metronome and beat machine for salsa. It plays a rhythm section to practise steps, combinations and musicality with: clave 2-3 or 3-2, campana, congas, bongos, timbales, güiro, piano montuno and bass tumbao. Each instrument is switched on separately and has its own volume, and most have several patterns to choose from. You can start with the clave alone and add parts as you learn to hear them in the music.
The instructor counts to eight in English, Russian, Spanish, French, Italian or German. The tempo goes from 60 to 260 beats per minute: slow enough to take a step apart and fast as at a party. The full-screen count can be seen from any corner of the studio.
Everything runs right in the browser and is free. The site can be installed on a phone, and then it plays offline. “Share link” passes the same tempo, key and set of instruments to your students or partner.
This is how the parts of the rhythm section fall on the dancer's count: eight beats over two bars, steps on 1-2-3 and 5-6-7. Clave 2-3: two strokes in the first bar, three in the second; in 3-2 the pattern starts from the second bar, and both bells and the cáscara shift with it. The timbalero plays the mambo bell instead of the cáscara in the loud sections, together with the bongo bell.
| Count | 1 | & | 2 | & | 3 | & | 4 | & | 5 | & | 6 | & | 7 | & | 8 | & |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clave clave | ||||||||||||||||
| Bongo bell campana | ||||||||||||||||
| Mambo bell campana | ||||||||||||||||
| Congas tumbadoras | ||||||||||||||||
| Bongos martillo | ||||||||||||||||
| Güiro güiro | ||||||||||||||||
| Cáscara cáscara | ||||||||||||||||
| Piano montuno | ||||||||||||||||
| Bass tumbao |
Practise with a rhythm trainer: first only the clave and the instructor's count, then add the campana, the congas and the bass one at a time. This teaches you to hear the “one” and hold the tempo when the music has many parts. Open the full-screen count and dance the basic step until it lands on every beat.
Then switch the count off and check yourself: do you still find the “one” from the instruments alone? Start at 150–170 beats per minute and add 10 when the step feels secure.
Switch on the clave and the campana, set a slow tempo of 140–160 beats per minute and dance the basic step to the instructor's count. When the step comes out without mistakes, raise the tempo with “+” and add instruments: congas, bass, piano.
Usually from 160 to 220 beats per minute; at parties it is most often 180–200. In SalsaBeat the tempo goes from 60 to 260, so you can start very slowly.
Salsa is counted in eight beats, two bars of four. The steps are on 1, 2, 3 and 5, 6, 7, with a pause on 4 and 8. The instructor in SalsaBeat counts exactly this way, and the count strip lights up the current beat.
The clave is a rhythmic pattern of five strokes over two bars that all of salsa rests on. In the 2-3 direction the first bar has two strokes and the second three; in 3-2 it is the other way round. The song sets the direction; in SalsaBeat you switch it with the “2-3” and “3-2” buttons.
Yes. Open salsabeat.ru/en/ on your phone and add the site to your home screen: after that it works offline, plays in the iPhone's silent mode and keeps the screen awake.
Yes, SalsaBeat is free and needs no registration. All sounds and voices come from free libraries.
By topic: Salsa rhythm · Clave 2-3 and 3-2 · Counting in eight · Salsa metronome · Congas: tumbao · Campana · Timbales: cáscara · Montuno and bass