Tango flamenco is a lively four count cante chico palo characterized by a heavily accented rhythm and clear, sharply defined rasgueado. It is very similar to the flamenco rumba. The two forms are distinguished primarily by the guitar: in tango, the beat is crisply marked by the tocaor(guitar player), in rumba the guitar is played in a more continuous, rolling manner.

Tango flamenco has no musically discernable relationship to Argentine tango (a common point of linguistic confusion), though both forms are the result of multiple trans-atlantic exchanges in the colonial era. Tango flamenco has, however, a distinctly flamenco character. As tango became part of the flamenco repertoire in the 19th century, elements of older flamenco forms were folded into it, including letras from twelve-count solea, which were re-shaped to fit tango’s four count compas.

Tango is usually played either por media (on the fifth string in A phyrgian, relative to the capo) or por arriba (on the fifth string in E phyrgian, relative to the capo). Its compas is a simple four-count, with accents on the 2, 3, and 4: