VITON13 SCHOOL · Music
Online metronome
Steady clicks timed by your browser’s audio clock. Set the tempo, the metre and the accents, then let the trainer speed you up bar by bar.
Stopped
One click is a quarter note.
Beats of the bar. Tap a beat to change its accent.
- Strong
- Accent
- Normal
- Muted
Practice
Changes the tempo by a step every few bars until it reaches the target, then holds it.
Plays some bars, then leaves some silent, so you keep the time yourself.
Space starts and stops, ↑ and ↓ change the tempo by 1 (with Shift by 5), T is tap tempo.
Your settings are saved in this browser only.
How to use it
- Set the tempoDrag the slider, press −1/+1 or −5/+5, type a number from 20 to 300, or press Tap in time with the music. The Italian tempo name for that speed appears above.
- Choose the metre and accentsPick a time signature from 1/4 to 7/4 or 3/8 to 12/8, and a grouping for odd metres such as 7/8. Tap any beat dot to make it strong, accented, normal or muted.
- Start and practisePress Start or Space. Add eighths, triplets or sixteenths, turn on the tempo trainer to speed up every few bars, or mute bars to test your own time.
Tempo names and timing
Composers mark tempo with Italian words: Largo is broad, Andante is a walking pace, Allegro is fast and bright, Presto is very fast. The BPM spans shown for each name are approximate and traditional; sources disagree and a piece’s character matters more than an exact number.
The clicks are scheduled on your browser’s audio clock (the Web Audio AudioContext) a little ahead of time, the method described in “A tale of two clocks”, so the beat stays even when the page is busy. The lit dot follows the same clock. In a background tab the browser wakes the page less often, so the metronome schedules further ahead and keeps playing.
Questions
What does BPM mean?
Beats per minute: how many beats fit into one minute. At 60 BPM a beat lasts exactly one second, at 120 BPM half a second. Here one click is a quarter note in 1/4 to 7/4 and an eighth note in the x/8 metres; for 3/8, 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8 the page also shows the tempo in dotted quarters.
How do I practise with a metronome?
Start at a tempo where you can play the passage cleanly, repeat it, then raise the tempo a few BPM. The tempo trainer does this for you: it adds a step every few bars up to your target. Muted bars leave some bars silent, so you can hear whether you kept the time yourself.
How does tap tempo work?
Press Tap or the T key in time with the music, at least twice. The metronome averages the intervals between your last taps, up to eight, and sets that tempo. After a pause of more than three seconds it starts counting from the next tap.
How do I set the accents?
Each dot is one beat of the bar. Tap a dot to step it through strong, accent, normal and muted. By default the first beat is strong and the first beat of every other group is accented, for example 2+2+3 in 7/8. The pattern is kept for each time signature, and Reset accents restores the default.
Sources
Related guides
- What is BPM in music? Beats per minute, tempo markings and how to find a song’s tempoBPM means beats per minute: the speed of the beat. How it fits the time signature, the Italian tempo markings with BPM ranges and how to find a song’s BPM.
- Time signatures explained: what 4/4, 3/4 and 6/8 mean and how to count themTime signatures tell you how many beats are in a bar and which note gets the beat. Simple and compound metre, common and cut time, 5/4 and 7/8 counted.
More tools
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