Build speed without stopping
This page opens the metronome with the speed trainer switched on: it starts at 80 BPM in 4/4 and adds 5 BPM every 4 bars, holding at 120. Play a scale, an exercise or a loop of the passage you’re learning, and the click moves up under you; the tempo display follows it, and the status line says when you reach the goal.
Working a tempo up step by step is a familiar way to build speed: the passage stays clean at each step, and the next step is small enough to absorb. Doing it by hand means stopping to change the number every few bars; the trainer does it on the bar line.
Setting it for your exercise
- Add (BPM): how much each step adds, 1 to 20.
- Every (bars): how long each tempo lasts. Use the length of your exercise (a 2-bar lick: 2 or 4 bars).
- Up to (BPM): the goal. The trainer holds there until you stop.
- Start tempo: the big number above. Changing it while it runs moves the climb to that tempo; the steps carry on from there.
Tips
- If the passage falls apart at some tempo, stop, note it, and next time start 10 BPM below and use smaller steps.
- Combine it with the gap trainer to mute every other bar pair: speed with your own time, not just the click’s.
- Use any meter or subdivision: a 6/8 or a sixteenth-note pattern climbs the same way.
For slow, steady work below 60 BPM, open the slow metronome.