Online Metronome

The metronome above runs from 20 to 300 beats per minute, which covers a funeral march at one end and the last page of a Chopin étude at the other. Beat one of every bar is accented, and each click is scheduled on the browser's audio clock rather than a timer, which is why it does not wobble when the page is busy or a tab is loading. Tap the tempo button along with a recording and the number matches its speed; then start, and play along.

Eighth notes split the beat when the gap between clicks is too wide. Triplet clicks and sixteenth clicks do the same. A count-in of one or two bars can lead you in, and zero means none. The tempo trainer waits for a clean run, then the next attempt in the Chordzy app is a few beats faster. The attempt you are already playing does not change speed. The app uses this same click.

1. The time signature comes first. Four beats to the bar (4/4) suits most songs. A waltz is 3/4. A jig, a barcarolle or "We Are the Champions" is 6/8, two groups of three with the click landing on beats one and four.

2. The tempo comes from the slider, from the minus and plus buttons, or from the Tap tempo button, tapped four or more times at the speed in your head. Four taps is enough; more taps average out your own unevenness. Drag the slider for a big change and use the buttons for a small one.

3. Press Start and it does what it says. Beat one is higher and louder than the rest, and the dots above the controls show where you are in the bar, which matters most on the day you come in on beat three and lose count.

4. Then you play. Falling behind or rushing means the tempo is wrong for today, and the fix is ten beats slower, not more effort. The click always wins.

5. Eighths, Triplets or Sixteenths split each beat. Those extra clicks are quieter. Count-in plays one or two bars before you start. Trainer raises only the next attempt, after a clean run.

The space bar starts and stops the metronome while the page has focus, so both hands stay on the keys.

Slower than you think. The point of a metronome is not to prove you can play fast; it is to make every repetition correct so that speed arrives on its own. A useful rule is to find the tempo at which you can play a passage three times in a row without a mistake, and practice there. Only then move the slider up by four or five beats per minute. The tempo trainer does that move for you, and only on the next attempt.

Some reference points, in beats per minute:

Most beginner pieces sit between 60 and 100. The usual way to practice a scale is 60 BPM with one note per beat, then two notes per beat at the same 60. That second pass is the same speed as 120 BPM with one note per beat, and far easier to keep even, because the click lands on every other note and tells you when the pair drifted.

The click is a mirror. If your playing drifts away from it, that is information: the passage is not yet secure at this speed. Three habits make the mirror useful.

Subdivide. At 60 BPM there is a whole second between clicks, and a second is a long time to guess in. Count "one and two and" out loud so that the space has shape. Eighth notes against a quarter-note click sit still once you can hear the "and".

Change one thing at a time. Either raise the tempo or add the second hand, not both. If you are learning a piece hands together, keep the tempo where each hand was comfortable alone, even if that is 50.

Leave the metronome off sometimes. Music breathes; a click does not. Once a passage is steady, play it without the click and listen for whether you kept the pulse yourself. The Chordzy app grades timing as well as pitch, which is the same idea with feedback: every attempt shows you the beat you were early on and by how much. Its metronome is this one, including the count-in and the tempo trainer.