How To Use Our Metronome Using our free online metronome in your music practice is easy! 1. Select Your BPM - To start, select your BPM (beats per minute) using the slider or the large plus and minus buttons. You can select any number between 1 BPM (1 beat per minute) and 240 (240 beats per minute). 2. Select The Number Of Beats - You can also select how many beats you'd like in a measure. First, toggle the button that says "Stress First Beat," and then it will produce a different-sounding tick on the first beat. You can then drag the slider or use the plus and minus buttons to choose your desired number of beats per measure. 3. Press Play - You're now ready to go! Just hit the big blue play button in the middle, make sure your volume is turned up (but not too loud), and you can get started. 4. Select A Subdivision - We've also included the option to select different subdivisions per beat. Select your desired subdivision by clicking the notes at the bottom of the metronome. The default is quarter notes, but you can have eighth notes, sixteenth notes, triplets , and many others. Tempo, in music, is essentially the speed at which you play a song. A song can have a fast tempo , a medium tempo, or a slow tempo . Tempo is almost always measured in Beats per Minute , or BPM for short. BPM is just how many beats of the song occur in a minute. For example, a piece with a BPM of 60 has 60 Beats per Minute; therefore, every beat is one second long. For a much more detailed look, check out our guide to tempo here. Here's a list of the Italian tempo markings and their BPMs. Larghissimo - slow as possible (below 20 BPM) Grave - very slow, solemnly (24–40 BPM) Largo - broadly (40–60 BPM) Lento - slowly (45–60 BPM) Adagio - slowly, with great expression (66–76 BPM) Andante - at a walking pace (76–108 BPM) Moderato - at a moderate speed (98–112 BPM) Allegro - fast, quick, and bright (120–156 BPM) Vivace - lively and fast (156–176 BPM) Presto - very, very fast (168–200 BPM) Prestissimo - as fast as possible (200+ BPM)

What Is A Metronome A metronome is a device that produces a click or sound at a regular interval, set in BPM, which stands for Beats Per Minute. This device helps both amateur and professional musicians play at the speed they are supposed to. For example, say you have a piece of music that says 78 BPM. You set the metronome to 78, and it produces a click 78 times in a minute. Then, when you play along, you can hear if your singing or playing is not at the correct speed. History Of The Metronome The metronome was first patented as a device in 1815 by Johann Maelzel . He created the name Metronome for his device and said it was an “Instrument/Machine for the Improvement of all Musical Performance.” His type of Metronome was a mechanical, wind-up device. It had a weight on an upside-down pendulum, and the weight could slide up and down to decrease or increase the tempo. If the weight slides down, the tempo increases and speeds up. The tempo slows down if the weight is slid up the pendulum rod. Here’s a picture of a mechanical metronome. To use a mechanical metronome, you wind it up, set it to the desired BPM, and then move the pendulum rod to one side to start it. When it is in use, the mechanical pendulum swings back and forth like this: Another type of metronome is an electronic metronome. Instead of a wind-up spring, like the mechanical metronome, this metronome runs on electricity and has a quartz crystal inside of it to keep it as accurate as possible, like what a wristwatch does. To set the tempo and time signature, you just have to press a few buttons. You can also “tap in” the tempo, which means you can set the tempo of the metronome by trying to tap the specific BPM on a certain button. Sometimes, electronic metronomes also produce a few specific notes, so you can use them to tune your instrument as well. This is what an electronic metronome looks like: Lastly, some metronomes are built into a software Digital Audio Workstation, or DAW. Nowadays, a lot of music, like electronic music or pop music, is written on the computer, with software like Logic, Pro Tools, Cubase, or FL Studios. These software DAWs usually have a built-in software metronome, and all you have to do for these is just click on them and type the specific BPM you want them to produce. They are usually set to 120 BPM as standard. Signup for Our Newsletter and Get Our Free Ebook With 40+ of Our Favorite Music Theory Resources Here contact@hellomusictheory.com © Hello Music Theory 2026 | Sitemap