Music · Practice tools
Metronome
A steady click to practice with. A speed trainer raises the tempo a little at a time, and silent bars teach you to keep the beat yourself.
100BPM
Andante at a walking pace
Beat
Press a beat dot to change it: accent (gold), normal, soft (small) or silent (dashed).
Sound
Every sound here is made by your browser on the spot. Nothing is downloaded.
Speed trainer
Add BPM every bars, up to BPM.
It starts from the tempo above when you press Start. A target below the tempo makes it slow down instead.
Silent bars
Play bars, then stay silent for bars.
When the click comes back, you hear at once whether you stayed with it. Turn on Check my timing to see it in numbers.
Check my timing
Each tap is compared with the nearest beat, after the delay correction below. Gold marks are taps made in silent bars.
Delay and headphones
Sound takes a moment to reach you. Wired headphones and the device's own speaker add very little. Bluetooth headphones and speakers often add a tenth of a second or more, so your taps seem late even when they are right. Measure your delay once with the headphones you use; the metronome and the rhythm trainer both subtract it.
Tempo words
Composers write the speed in Italian words. They describe a mood as much as a speed, so the numbers are approximate: sources differ by a few beats either way. The row for the tempo you have set is highlighted.
| Word | Meaning | About (BPM) | Set tempo |
|---|
Keys
- Space start or stop (Enter presses the button you are on)
- ↑ ↓ one beat per minute faster or slower (Shift for ten)
- T tap tempo
- J tap the timing pad
- Esc stop
What the numbers mean
BPM means beats per minute. At 60 BPM you hear one click every second. At 120 BPM you hear two clicks every second.
The beat is the note value the tempo counts. In 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 the beat is a quarter note. In 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8 most music is felt in groups of three eighth notes, so the metronome counts one dotted quarter note per group (you can switch it to count every eighth note instead). In 5/8 and 7/8 it counts every eighth note and leans a little on the first note of each group, such as 2 + 2 + 3.
A tempo printed in music, such as ♩ = 100, means 100 quarter-note beats per minute. Older editions write M.M. ♩ = 100. M.M. stands for Maelzel’s Metronome, after Johann Maelzel, who patented a clockwork metronome in 1815.
How to practice with a metronome
- Start slow. Pick a tempo at which you can play the passage right every time, even if it feels too easy.
- Count out loud. Say “1, 2, 3, 4” with the clicks. If the notes are shorter than the beat, turn on a subdivision and say “1 and 2 and” or “1-trip-let”.
- Lock in. Try to make the click disappear under your note, so you hear one sound instead of two.
- Speed up in small steps. Two to five BPM at a time is plenty. The speed trainer does this for you: for example, add 4 BPM every 8 bars.
- Back off when it falls apart. Go back to the last tempo where it was clean, play it there a few times, and climb again.
- Build your own clock. Turn on silent bars. When the click drops out, keep counting and keep playing. When it comes back, you hear at once whether you rushed or dragged.
Accents and subdivisions
The first beat of each bar is accented: it has a higher, stronger click, so you always know where “1” is. You can move the accent, add more, make beats soft, or silence some beats entirely. Some players silence beats 1 and 3 and keep only 2 and 4, the backbeat of jazz and pop.
Subdivisions split each beat into smaller, quieter clicks: two for eighth notes, three for triplets, four for sixteenth notes. They help you place short notes evenly.
How this metronome keeps time
Your browser’s audio system has its own very precise clock. This page plans every click a tenth of a second ahead and hands it to that clock, so the beat stays steady even when the page is busy or you switch to another tab. The beat dots follow the same clock, so what you see matches what you hear.
Want to train two hands at once? Try the two-hand rhythm trainer.