The instrument
Metronome
A metronome is a device that sounds a steady pulse at a chosen number of beats per minute, used to establish and gradually increase tempo in practice.
Its value is diagnostic as much as disciplinary: playing along reveals exactly where a passage rushes or drags, which is almost never where the player thinks. The standard method is to find the fastest tempo at which a passage is genuinely clean, then raise it two to four beats at a time, dropping back whenever accuracy slips.
Advanced uses go further, setting the click on beats two and four rather than every beat, or on only the first beat of each bar, forces the player to carry the pulse internally rather than lean on it. Practising exclusively with a metronome is a mistake, though: musical time breathes, and a player who can only play to a click struggles with rubato and with following a conductor.
Try it now · no account needed
Try a one-minute pulse exercise
Set the metronome to 60 BPM. Listen for four clicks, then tap once on each click while counting 1, 2, 3, 4. Repeat for four bars before adding any notes on your instrument.
Clicks: 1 2 3 4 Count: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and
Next, clap twice per click: once with the click and once halfway to the next. The clicks stay at 60 BPM, while the eight evenly spaced claps fill one 4/4 bar. If the spacing becomes uneven, return to one clap per click.
Check your understanding
With a quarter-note click at 60 BPM, how many evenly spaced eighth notes fit between the start of beat 1 and the start of beat 2?
Show answer and explanation
Two eighth-note durations: one starts with beat 1 and the next starts halfway to beat 2. Beat 2 begins the next pair. Each eighth note lasts half a second.
A common mix-up
Increasing the number of notes between clicks does not require increasing the BPM. Subdivision changes the note rate while the underlying beat can stay exactly the same.
Related terms
Every term in this glossary is taught in context somewhere in Arco's curricula, on the staff, on the keyboard, and on your own fingerboard at the same time.