How long is one beat at 60 bpm?

Exactly one second, because 60 beats per minute is one beat per second. That is what makes 60 the tempo people use to check a metronome against a clock or a watch second hand: if the clicks and the seconds drift apart, something is wrong.

Is 60 bpm largo or larghetto?

The tool calls it Larghetto. 60 sits exactly on the boundary between Largo and Larghetto on a printed metronome face, and different editions place the boundaries a few beats apart anyway, so a choice has to be made. This tool resolves every boundary low-inclusive: 60 is the first tempo of Larghetto rather than the last of Largo. Anything below 60 down to 40 is Largo.

Why practise at 60 bpm?

Because a passage played slowly enough to be played correctly is the only version worth repeating. 60 bpm is also convenient arithmetic: a bar of 4/4 is four seconds, so fifteen bars a minute, and every subdivision lands on a round fraction of a second.

Does the click drift over a long practice session?

No. Beats are booked on the audio hardware clock a tenth of a second ahead, which is the method browser sequencers use, and each beat time is accumulated from the last one with the lost floating-point bits carried forward. A metronome driven by setTimeout would fall behind whenever the page was busy, and every late click would push the next one later still. This one does not work that way.

Can I change the tempo without losing the beat?

Yes. Type a new tempo, step it with the minus and plus buttons, or tap it out with Tap tempo, which averages the gaps between your last eight taps. The scheduler picks the new tempo up on its next pass, so the metronome does not stop and restart. The playable range is 20 to 300 bpm; a tempo outside it is refused with a message rather than silently changed to something else.

60 BPM Metronome

The metronome above is already set to 60 beats per minute, so one click is exactly one second apart. Press Start and it runs. 60 bpm is the slowest tempo most people practise at deliberately: slow enough that every note has somewhere to go, and the tempo scale calls it Larghetto. The table below gives every note value at 60 bpm in seconds and milliseconds, computed from the same interval the metronome plays on.

Larghetto · 4/460beats per minute

Tempo

Beats per bar

Subdivide

Sound

Accent first

Volume

70%

Stopped. Press Start, or the space bar, to hear 60 beats per minute.

Timing methodwhy it does not drift
Web Audio look-ahead scheduler: 100 ms window, 25 ms tick, beat times accumulated
Tap tempotap the button or press T in time
Tap the button, or press T, at least twice. The last 8 gaps between taps are averaged.
Soundclick, with the accent a higher pitch
A short burst of noise through a narrow filter, the sound of a mechanical metronome's escapement.
Keyboardhands stay on the instrument
Space start and stop ↑ ↓ one bpm ← → five bpm T tap

The shortcuts wake up once you have clicked or tabbed into the tool, and only while the metronome is on screen. Until then the space bar and the arrow keys scroll the page, the way they do everywhere else.

Tempo markings

The Italian markings and the beats per minute usually printed against them. They are a naming convention, not a measurement: composers used these words for two centuries before anyone attached numbers, and editions place the boundaries a few beats apart. The row matching your tempo is highlighted.

Marking	Beats per minute	Feel
Largo	40 to 59	very slow, broad
Larghetto	60 to 65	slow, a shade lighter than largo
Adagio	66 to 75	slow, at ease
Andante	76 to 107	walking pace
Moderato	108 to 119	moderate
Allegro	120 to 167	fast, bright
Vivace	168 to 175	lively
Presto	176 to 199	very fast
Prestissimo	200 and up	as fast as it will go

setInterval is not a metronome. A page timer fires late whenever the browser is busy, and the lateness accumulates, so a click driven by one is audibly behind after a few minutes. This schedules each click a tenth of a second ahead on the audio hardware's own clock, the technique browser sequencers use, and each beat time is worked out from the beat before it rather than from a fresh clock reading. That is what puts the beats 1.0000 seconds apart at 60 bpm and keeps them there. If the page is ever starved for longer than the look-ahead window, the beats that were lost are counted and shown rather than played late.

Accuracy. Beats are scheduled on the audio hardware clock a tenth of a second ahead, the method used by browser sequencers, so the pulse does not drift when the page is busy. Tap tempo averages your last eight taps. Below 20 and above 300 beats per minute is outside what this plays, and tapping cannot set anything slower than 30, because a gap over two seconds is read as a pause. Type those tempos instead.

Note lengths at 60 bpm

Computed from the interval the metronome actually schedules on: sixty seconds divided by the tempo, then by the subdivision. The quarter note is the beat. Milliseconds are the same figure, and are the numbers to type into a delay or a tremolo set to 60 bpm.

Note value	Length in seconds	In milliseconds
Whole note, four beats	4 s	4000 ms
Half note, two beats	2 s	2000 ms
Quarter note, one beat	1 s	1000 ms
Eighth note	0.5 s	500 ms
Eighth-note triplet	0.3333 s	333.33 ms
Sixteenth note	0.25 s	250 ms
One bar of 4/4	4 s	4000 ms

Common questions

How long is one beat at 60 bpm?: Exactly one second, because 60 beats per minute is one beat per second. That is what makes 60 the tempo people use to check a metronome against a clock or a watch second hand: if the clicks and the seconds drift apart, something is wrong.
Is 60 bpm largo or larghetto?: The tool calls it Larghetto. 60 sits exactly on the boundary between Largo and Larghetto on a printed metronome face, and different editions place the boundaries a few beats apart anyway, so a choice has to be made. This tool resolves every boundary low-inclusive: 60 is the first tempo of Larghetto rather than the last of Largo. Anything below 60 down to 40 is Largo.
Why practise at 60 bpm?: Because a passage played slowly enough to be played correctly is the only version worth repeating. 60 bpm is also convenient arithmetic: a bar of 4/4 is four seconds, so fifteen bars a minute, and every subdivision lands on a round fraction of a second.
Does the click drift over a long practice session?: No. Beats are booked on the audio hardware clock a tenth of a second ahead, which is the method browser sequencers use, and each beat time is accumulated from the last one with the lost floating-point bits carried forward. A metronome driven by setTimeout would fall behind whenever the page was busy, and every late click would push the next one later still. This one does not work that way.
Can I change the tempo without losing the beat?: Yes. Type a new tempo, step it with the minus and plus buttons, or tap it out with Tap tempo, which averages the gaps between your last eight taps. The scheduler picks the new tempo up on its next pass, so the metronome does not stop and restart. The playable range is 20 to 300 bpm; a tempo outside it is refused with a message rather than silently changed to something else.

Beats are scheduled on the audio hardware clock a tenth of a second ahead, the method used by browser sequencers, so the pulse does not drift when the page is busy. Tap tempo averages your last eight taps.