Metronome – Inputting different time signature/beat combinations
We have had a few queries on how to set up different time signature/beat combinations in Metronome Beats so I thought I would give a quick explanation of how it works.
To use Metronome Beats (as with any other metronome) you need to know three things about your piece of music:
- How many beats per minute (BPM) are there?
- What does each beat represent?
- How many beats are there per bar?
A lot of music is written in a time signature where each beat represents a crotchet (also known as a quarter note). So, if we start with a simple example:
Example A: 4/4 time signature, 
=80
The 4/4 time signature means that there are four crotchet beats per bar, and the tempo indication (usually found at the top of a musical score) means that there are 80 beats per minute and that each beat represents one crotchet (quarter note). So you would input 80 BPM and 4 beats per bar into Metronome Beats. If you want to hear the metronome play crotchets then you would input a beat subdivision of 1, for quavers (eighth notes) you input 2, and semiquavers (sixteenth notes) input 4.
However, music doesn’t always have a nice and simple 4/4 time signature with each beat representing a crotchet (quarter note). Say we have two pieces of music in 6/8 with different speeds:
Example B: 6/8 and 
=80 (80 quaver/eighth note beats per minute)
Example C: 6/8 and 
=80 (80 dotted crotchet beats per minute)
Both of these examples have a tempo of 80 beats per minute. So for both of these you would need to input 80 BPM into Metronome Beats.
But what does each beat represent? In Example B the beats are quavers (eighth notes). It has a 6/8 time signature, which means that there are six quavers per bar. So Example B has six quaver beats per bar, and you need to set the beats per bar to 6 in Metronome Beats.
In Example C the beats are dotted crotchets. It also has a 6/8 time signature (so six quavers per bar). A dotted crotchet lasts for three quavers, so there are two dotted crotchet beats in each bar of 6/8. So in this case you need to set the beats per bar to 2 in Metronome Beats.
What about beat subdivisions? If you want Metronome Beats to play quavers (eighth notes), you would put a beat subdivision of 1 for Example B (as the beat is already a quaver in example B) and 3 for Example C (as there are three quavers in each dotted crotchet beat). For semiquavers (sixteenth notes) the beat subdivisions would be 2 and 6.
Hopefully this makes sense and should be applicable to any metronome. Confusion can sometimes arise when it is assumed that the beats are always crotchets/quarter notes. With Metronome Beats we haven’t made any assumption on this so that you can put in virtually any time signature/beat combination that you want.
I am by no means an expert on this (my past experience comes from playing the cello) so feel free to comment if you disagree!