Rhythm Test — how steady is your timing without a metronome?
Tap along with a click, then keep the tempo alone for 16 beats. Get a 0–100 score, average timing error in milliseconds, whether you rush or drag, the tempo you drifted to and your beat-to-beat stability — plus a shareable challenge at the same tempo.
🔒 Runs entirely in your browser. Your input and output are never sent to a server or stored — fully private.
Listen to 4 clicks, tap along with the next 4, then keep tapping the same tempo for 16 beats after the click stops. Tap the pad, or press Space or any letter key.
🔊 Turn your sound on. Wired headphones or speakers are best — Bluetooth adds delay.
Score = 100 × (1 − average error ÷ a sixteenth note), so being a sixteenth off on average scores 0. The silent part is what counts: keeping time without a click is the skill drummers and bassists practise most.
About this tool
This rhythm test measures how steadily you keep time once the metronome stops. A click plays eight times: listen to four, tap along with the next four, then carry on tapping the same tempo for sixteen beats in silence. Tap the pad on a phone or press Space or any letter key on a computer. Each silent beat is compared with where it should have fallen, and you get a score out of 100, your average timing error in milliseconds, whether you rush ahead or drag behind, the tempo you actually drifted to, how much your beat-to-beat spacing varied, and a chart of every beat. Choose 70, 100 or 140 BPM or a random tempo, keep a personal best, and share a link that sets a friend the same tempo. Everything runs in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
How is the rhythm score calculated, and what is a good result?
Only the sixteen silent beats count. Each is matched to your nearest tap within half a beat; a beat with no tap counts as half a beat off. The score is 100 × (1 − average error ÷ the length of a sixteenth note), so at 100 BPM, where a sixteenth is 150 ms, an average of 15 ms scores 90 and 75 ms scores 50. Averages under about 20 ms are steady, and consistently under 10 ms is drummer territory — the chart shows whether your errors are random or a slow drift.
Why do I tap slightly before the click?
Almost everyone does. Tapping research calls it negative mean asynchrony: when tapping with a metronome, people tend to land a little ahead of the click — often by a few tens of milliseconds for non-musicians and less for trained musicians. One explanation is that the brain lines up the moment it feels the tap with the moment it hears the click, and touch takes longer to register than sound. The "tendency" line shows your own bias; a few milliseconds either way is right on the beat.
Does my device or Bluetooth headphones affect the result?
They can. The test maps each click to the moment the browser says it is actually heard, which includes the output delay the audio system reports, but Bluetooth headphones often add 100–300 ms that is not reported. That shows up as a large, constant "late" bias during both the clicked and the silent parts. Use wired headphones or the built-in speaker for a fair result; random scatter and drift are unaffected by a constant delay, so the stability figure is still meaningful.
Why does my tempo speed up or slow down without the click?
Without an external beat, small errors accumulate instead of being corrected, and many people drift toward a tempo that feels comfortable to them — often somewhere around 90–120 BPM — so slow tempos tend to rush and fast ones to drag. Excitement and concentration push the tempo up, too. "Your tempo" is calculated from all your silent taps, so a drift of a few BPM over sixteen beats is already visible there before it is obvious by ear.
How can I improve my timing?
Practise exactly what this test measures: time with less help. Put the metronome on beats 2 and 4 only, then on beat 1 of every bar, then use a "gap click" that plays a bar and mutes the next one or two, and check you land together when it returns. Subdivide in your head — feeling the eighth or sixteenth notes between clicks steadies the beat. Record yourself and look at the waveform against a grid. Retake this test at the same tempo now and then; the challenge link keeps the comparison fair.