Ballroom Guide

The Best Ballroom Apps


	Ballroom Competition Trainer This app is an app for running rounds. This means it takes songs from your phone and plays competition-length clips of those songs back to back, just like a competition. This allows you to practice, let's say, Cha Cha, then Rumba, then Samba, etc. just like in a competition. Ballroom Competition Trainer is perhaps the most customisable app for running rounds out there. You can control every aspect of this app through the user interface. There are too many ways to customise this app to name here, but some of them include: setting individual durations for songs, including allowing you to play an entire song; setting individual durations for the breaks between songs, or using a sound clip such as applause or the voice of an announcer instead of a pause; you can speed up and slow down your music; you can make your playlists include whatever dances you want. The bottom line is this - this app can do anything you want it to, and so much more.

	Ballroom Player This app is an app for running rounds. This means it takes songs from your phone and plays competition-length clips of those songs back to back, just like a competition. This allows you to practice, let's say, Cha Cha, then Rumba, then Samba, etc. just like in a competition. Ballroom Player aims to be simplest and most user-friendly app for running rounds. It comes preloaded with songs for all the dances, so you are literally just two clicks away from starting a round to whatever style you dance. However, don't think that just because this app is simple and intuitive it isn't powerful. This app allows you to set the duration of songs, the tempo, the break between songs, the order of songs, and even import your own songs from playlists. For a fully functioning and easy to use app, Ballroom Player fits the bill.

	Dance Picker This is a truly unique app. The purpose of this app is to expand your dance library by finding music, perfect for dancing, that you might never otherwise have come upon. To use it, you search for a song by name or artist, but you can also pick a dance style (such as Rumba, or Waltz), refine that style by setting Max and Min BPMs, or even genre of music (Disney, Halloween, Country, Rap, etc). The app brings up a list of songs that fit your criteria, and allows you to preview them to find the one you like most. While this app only provides you with a short clip of your song to listen to, you can save it to your favourites to purchase later on iTunes, or find it on Youtube.

	DanceSport Music Player This app is an app for running rounds. This means it takes songs from your phone and plays competition-length clips of those songs back to back, just like a competition. This allows you to practice, let's say, Cha Cha, then Rumba, then Samba, etc. just like in a competition. DanceSport Music Player goes into your library and finds all the songs labeled with the genre "Samba" or "Foxtrot", and allows you to play one randomly, or create a playlist and play songs back to back. You can, for example, click SSRVQ, which will give you two random Sambas, a Rumba, a Viennese Waltz, and a Quickstep. The app allows you to change the tempo easily, which stays in place even after that song is over.One neat thing about this app is that before each Paso Doble is played, a loud "Ole!" is sounded, giving you time to get ready.

	OnTheFloor This app is an app for running rounds. This means it takes songs from your phone and plays competition-length clips of those songs back to back, just like a competition. This allows you to practice, let's say, Cha Cha, then Rumba, then Samba, etc. just like in a competition. OnTheFloor sets itself apart from others in a few ways. Firstly, it allows you to adjust the tempo, changing it by as little as half a percent. It also allows you to track the BPM of your songs and adjust the tempo by BPM in the same interface. Secondly, it has a really neat tutorial, allowing even technologically illiterate dancers to navigate its beautiful interface with ease. Thirdly, it's highly customisable. You can rearrange or the order of the dances in your rounds, or get rid of dances entirely. You can set individual durations for breaks between songs or for songs themselves from 30 seconds to 3 minutes, or even play the entire song. You can also filter out songs that don't fit into a certain BPM range or that you have given low ratings in iTunes.

	Phonedancing This one of a kind app is aimed at teaching beginners basic steps, and sneaking in a bit of technique, too! Your phone becomes your teacher, showing you where to place your feet and then measuring your steps through the phone's built-in accelerometer, and your alignment based on the phone's compass. Use game mode and perform the steps correctly to get a score, or just look at the foot placements and walk through new figures stress-free. In addition to basic Ballroom and Latin figures, you can create your own custom routines and steps within the app. This app is aimed at total beginners, so it has limited figures available and it is unable to critique the nuances of a dancers technique, but it lets you learn at your own pace, and keep your teacher an arms length away at all times.

	Tempo SlowMo As one of the first tempo slowing apps on the market, this app lets you import songs or full playlists, and speed up or slow down music without distorting it or changing the pitch. You can use a beats-per-minute tracker to find out how fast each of your songs are, and change them to the right speed for dancing! You can even lock the tempo, so that all songs that come on will play at that tempo. You can also adjust other parts of the music by using the equaliser or the balance tool. It is a very simple app that's straightforward and easy to use.