Free online metronome

How to use the metronome

Set the tempo with the slider, the arrow keys, the minus and plus buttons (hold one to keep going) or by typing it in, from 30 to 300 beats per minute (BPM). The first beat of every bar clicks higher, so you always know where "one" is; tap any beat to make it louder, softer or silent. Subdivisions add quieter clicks between the beats, and you can change anything while it plays. Everything stays in this browser, so it opens the way you left it.

How to practise with a metronome

• Start slower than you think. Find the tempo where you can play the passage cleanly three times in a row, then go up 4 or 5 BPM at a time. Speed comes from playing it right, not from playing it fast.
• Count in a bar first. Let a full bar go by before you play, so you're with the click from the first note.
• Let the speed trainer push you. Set it to add a few BPM every few bars up to your goal tempo. When it stops being clean, stop: the metronome goes back to where you started and tells you how far you got.
• Mute some bars. Play two bars with the click and two without, and see if you land with it when it comes back. Random muting is harder still, because you can't brace for the gap.
• Turn on subdivisions for anything with eighths or sixteenths in it. Hearing the notes between the beats shows you whether you're rushing the fills or dragging the runs.
• Hear the click on 2 and 4. For swing, funk and backbeat grooves, set the tempo to half and treat each click as the backbeat. It's harder, and it makes you hold the time yourself.
• Practise the gig tempo too. Once a song is solid, play it at the tempo you'll count it in at on the night, then a few BPM either side: songs drift live, and you'll be ready when they do.

Common tempos by style

The Italian markings under the tempo are the classical names for the same ranges: Largo and Adagio for slow, Andante at a walking pace, Moderato in the middle, Allegro for quick and Presto for very fast.

Time signatures and accents

In 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 5/4 each click is a quarter note. 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8 are felt in dotted quarters, so the metronome clicks two, three or four beats a bar and the BPM counts those; add Eighths to hear all three in each beat, or switch to counting every eighth for a slow 6/8. 5/8 and 7/8 click every eighth with the groups accented: 2+3 or 3+2, and 2+2+3, 3+2+2 or 2+3+2.

From the practice room to the gig

Write the tempo down once you've settled on it. The free setlist maker keeps a tempo against every song for the band copy, and the tap tempo tool finds the tempo of a recording and saves it there. When it's time to book the band, GigPenguin sends each player their own gig sheet and shows you who's in.