Tempo Practice: Keep the Beat
Tempo is the only event you answer by ear. A metronome clicks, you tap along for four beats, the sound stops, and you keep the pulse for eight more. Practising it alone makes the silent stretch the thing you work on.
How Tempo is played
- 1
Tap the calibration beats
Four clicks play and you tap each one. These four taps exist only to find your pulse — they are not scored.
- 2
Keep going in silence
The click stops and you tap eight more beats on your own, on the stage or with the space bar. Steady beats score better than fast ones.
- 3
Read drift and jitter
The result separates how far your pulse slid from where the beat would have been (drift) from how uneven your taps were (jitter), both in milliseconds.
Tempo questions
How many beats do I tap?
Four with the click, then eight after it stops. Only the silent eight are scored; the first four exist so the run does not depend on how quickly you can find the tempo.
Does Tempo need sound?
No. If the browser blocks audio the event falls back to a pulsing ring on the stage, and the taps are timed the same way. Headphones are not required either way.
What is the difference between drift and jitter?
Drift is the average shift of your whole pulse — you are consistently early or late. Jitter is the spread around that average — your beats are uneven. The score weighs drift a little more heavily than jitter.
How fast is the beat?
Built-in questions run from 75 to 130 beats per minute. Challenges you build yourself can go from 60 to 160; anything above 130 is flagged as a hard one, not rejected.