What a metronome is for
A metronome clicks at a fixed tempo, measured in BPM — beats per minute. At 60 BPM you get one click per second; at 120 BPM, two. Set the tempo with the slider or the ±1 and ±5 buttons, choose how many beats are in a bar, and press Start. The first beat of each bar is accented with a higher tone and a brighter marker so you always know where the downbeat is.
Practising to a click is uncomfortable at first, and that discomfort is the point: it exposes exactly where your timing drifts. Almost every player unconsciously rushes the easy passages and drags the hard ones. Without a reference you cannot hear it, because your internal clock speeds up and slows down along with your hands.
Tempo markings and their BPM ranges
Classical scores label tempo in Italian rather than numbers. The traditional ranges are approximate — conductors argue about them constantly — but they map roughly as follows:
- Largo — 40–60 BPM, broad and slow
- Adagio — 66–76 BPM, at ease
- Andante — 76–108 BPM, walking pace
- Moderato — 108–120 BPM
- Allegro — 120–156 BPM, fast and bright
- Presto — 168–200 BPM, very fast
For reference, most pop and rock sits between 100 and 130 BPM, house music is built around 120–128, and a resting human heart runs at roughly 60–100 — which is why 60 BPM feels so natural to count against.
How to actually practise with it
- Start slower than feels necessary. Pick a tempo at which you can play the passage cleanly every single time. If you are making mistakes, the tempo is too high — you are rehearsing the mistake, not the passage.
- Raise it in small steps. Five BPM at a time, and only once you have played the passage correctly several times in a row. This is what the ±5 button is for.
- Go back down when it breaks. Hitting a wall at 120 means dropping to 110 and rebuilding, not grinding at 120.
- Listen for where you rush. Long notes and rests are where most players lose the beat — the click keeps you honest through both.
- Try clicking on beats 2 and 4. Once you are comfortable, halve the tempo and treat the clicks as the backbeat rather than every beat. It is much harder, and it does far more for your internal time.
Tap Tempo
To find the tempo of a song you are listening to, tap the Tap Tempo button in time with the beat. After a few taps the BPM is calculated from the average interval between them; the more taps, the more stable the reading. It is the quickest way to match a backing track, work out a drum-machine setting, or check the tempo of a recording before you learn it.
Beats per measure
The beats-per-measure setting controls where the accent falls. Four is the default and covers the overwhelming majority of popular music. Three gives you the waltz feel of 3/4. Two suits marches and polkas. Six is common in 6/8 time, and the odd values — five and seven — cover the irregular metres found in Balkan folk music, progressive rock and a good deal of twentieth-century concert music. Set it to one if you want an unaccented click with no bar structure at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Tap Tempo work?
Tap the button in rhythm several times. The metronome averages the gaps between your taps and sets the BPM from that. Four or more taps gives a noticeably steadier result than two.
What tempo range does it cover?
30 to 240 BPM, which spans everything from the slowest Largo to faster than most music ever goes.
Does the timing stay accurate in a background tab?
Yes — the clicks are scheduled through the Web Audio API, which runs on its own high-precision clock rather than on ordinary page timers, so background throttling does not make it wobble. Keeping the tab visible is still best if you want the flashing beat indicator.
Why can't I hear anything?
Browsers require an interaction before playing audio; pressing Start provides it. If it is still silent, check that the tab is not muted and that your system volume and output device are correct.
Is there a visual metronome?
Yes, the beat markers light up in time with the click — useful in a noisy room, when wearing headphones playing something else, or for anyone who finds a visual pulse easier to follow.
What tempo should I practise at?
The fastest tempo at which you can play the passage with no mistakes at all. That is almost always slower than you would like it to be.
Related tools
For timing a practice session, use the timer — the 25-minute preset works well for focused practice blocks. To measure how long you actually spent on a passage, use the stopwatch.