# Metronome

Source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/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.

Canonical source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/metronome