Beginner guides
Rhythm
made practical.
Tempo and metre are the two things every instrument shares. These guides cover setting a metronome honestly, raising a tempo in steps that stick, counting subdivisions aloud and measuring the BPM of a track by tapping along with it.
Choose your next practice step
Keep a steady beat
Start here if you speed up during a difficult passage. Choose a tempo slow enough to play cleanly, count before you start and repeat a short section. The guide explains how to increase speed and how to practise with fewer clicks as your internal pulse improves.
Find the tempo of a song
Use this guide when you know the song but not its BPM. Compare counting beats over a timed sample with tapping along. Worked examples explain why a reading can be half or double what you expected and how to check it against the metronome.
Tell 3/4 from 6/8
Choose this lesson if six eighth notes look the same on paper but feel different when you clap. A comparison chart separates the main beat from its subdivisions, and the practice exercise gives exact settings for both time signatures on this site's metronome.
How to practise rhythm without a teacher
Rhythm practice is two skills wearing one coat. The first is keeping a pulse steady while your hands do something else — that is metronome work. The second is knowing what the pulse is counting — that is metre, the difference between three beats in a bar and two larger ones. Practise them separately at first: a session spent fighting the click teaches you less than one where the tempo feels almost too slow.
The guides below cover the whole loop. Use the metronome guide to build a steady pulse and to raise a tempo in steps that survive to the next day. Learn to count in 3/4 and 6/8 once you can hold one steady beat. Use the tap tempo guide to find the BPM of a song before you try to play along with it.
A practical order for your first month: count a bar out loud before you start, play short sections with the click, and finish each session by playing the same section with the metronome silent, imagining the clicks. When you can hold the tempo without the click, the pulse has moved from the tool into you.
3/4 vs 6/8 Time: Count and Hear the Difference
Learn the difference between 3/4 and 6/8 time with a counting chart, metronome settings and a short clapping exercise. Understand which note gets the beat.
Read guide →How to Use a Metronome Without Feeling Rigid
How to use a metronome in music practice: set the BPM and time signature, count subdivisions, raise the tempo in steps and stay relaxed while you play.
Read guide →How to Calculate BPM by Tapping or Timing
How to calculate BPM: use the 60-divided-by-seconds formula, count beats per minute over a timed sample and check the answer with a tap tempo tool.
Read guide →