Metronome
A click with a real meter in it. Set the tempo, choose the time signature, and move the accent to where you want it. Most online metronomes give you an undifferentiated tick; a bar you can hear the shape of is far more useful to practise against.
- 40 to 240 bpm
- accents you can move
- no account
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What it does
It plays a steady pulse at the tempo you choose, with an accent on the first beat of the bar and optional subdivisions underneath. That accent is what turns a tick into a bar, and practising against a bar is a different experience from practising against a stream of clicks.
How to use it
Set a tempo, choose a time signature, and start. For practice, the most useful setting is the one most people never try: put the click on beats two and four only, or on the first beat of every second bar. Both force you to keep time yourself instead of leaning on the machine.
What it will not do
It will not fix your timing on its own. A metronome shows you where you are relative to a grid; making that information useful is the practice, and playing along with a click for an hour without listening to it does nothing.
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