100 BPM Metronome
← All tools100 BPM is the top of andante and the last round number before the moderato band begins. It is also the one tempo on this site with a use outside music: resuscitation guidelines put chest compressions at 100 to 120 a minute, which is why every CPR course in the world teaches it with a song. The metronome below is set to 100 and its arithmetic is about as clean as tempo arithmetic gets — 0.6 seconds a beat, 400 sixteenths a minute.
Subdivision and swing
Subdivision clicks are quieter and higher than the beat, so the pulse stays the loudest thing in the bar. Swing applies to eighths and triplets only, and pushes the offbeat of each pair later — 33% lands it on the triplet grid, 50% on a dotted eighth. The downbeat never moves.
Tempo trainer
Trainer off — the tempo stays exactly where you put it.
How to practise at 100 BPM
- Press Start. Each beat is 600 milliseconds, and a bar of 4/4 is 2.4 seconds.
- For scale and arpeggio work, use sixteenths: 400 notes a minute is a genuinely useful technical rate, quick enough to matter and slow enough to correct.
- Use the tempo trainer to make 100 a destination rather than a setting. Start at 80, step 4, every 8 bars, stop at 100, and you have a five-step climb that takes about two minutes.
- If you are counting a piece in cut time, remember 100 in 4 and 50 in 2 are the same music. Set beats per bar to 2 and hear which one the phrasing wants.
Andante's ceiling, and what is on the other side of it
Andante's band closes at 108 and moderato's opens at 108, so 100 BPM is near the top of the slow half of the marking system without being in the fast half. That boundary is worth understanding, because it is the point where the words stop describing how the music moves and start describing how quickly it does. Everything below it — largo, lento, larghetto, adagio, andante — is named for a quality: broad, slow, at ease, walking. Everything from moderato upwards is named comparatively: moderate, quick-ish, quick, lively, very quick, as quick as possible.
In practice this means a piece marked Andante and played at 100 is being played at the fast end of its instruction and will sound like it. If the music is written in long note values, that is often exactly right; if it is already busy with sixteenths, 100 may be pushing the marking past what the texture supports. The click cannot tell you which. What it can do is let you hear 90 and 100 back to back and pick.
The one tempo with a use outside music
Resuscitation guidelines set the rate for chest compressions at 100 to 120 a minute, and the standard way of teaching it is to give people a song at that tempo to think of. The Bee Gees' Stayin' Alive, at a little over 100 BPM, is the canonical choice and has been endorsed in training material for years, partly for the tempo and partly for the title. Another One Bites the Dust is the other one people cite, at a similar rate and with a title that has aged less gracefully in context.
The reason it works is the reason a metronome works at all: a rate you have to count is a rate you will lose under stress, and a rate you can hear is one you can hold. That is the same argument for practising a difficult passage against a click rather than to your own internal pulse, in a much higher-stakes setting.
What 100 BPM works out to
Every number below follows from one division: sixty seconds over 100 beats. It is worth knowing the sixteenth-note figure before you decide a passage is playable — that is the rate your hands actually have to move at, not the tempo on the page.
| Note value | Per minute | One lasts |
|---|---|---|
| Quarter note — the beat | 100 | 600 ms |
| Eighth note | 200 | 300 ms |
| Eighth-note triplet | 300 | 200 ms |
| Sixteenth note | 400 | 150 ms |
| Bar of 4/4 | 25 | 2400 ms |
Two tempos on this site are one arithmetic step away: 200 BPM is twice this. Practising a passage at the slower one and hearing it at the faster one is the same notes at the same subdivision, counted differently.
Where 100 BPM falls in the Italian markings
100 BPM is covered by two words at once, Andante and Andantino. Overlap is normal and is not a defect of the system: these words were in use for a century and a half before Maelzel's metronome existed, and they describe a character — how the music carries itself — with speed as a consequence. The bands below are the ones the standard reference tables give.
FAQ
- How many beats is 100 BPM per second?
- One and two thirds, which is why 100 is less convenient than it looks. Each beat is 0.6 seconds, a bar of 4/4 is 2.4 seconds, and there are 400 sixteenth notes in a minute. Only the per-minute figures come out round; the per-second ones do not, unlike at 60 or 120.
- Is 100 BPM fast?
- It is at the top of andante and just short of moderato, so by the markings it is the fast end of slow. Most pop and rock sits above it, most ballads below it, and it is a common tempo for a mid-tempo song that wants to feel unhurried without dragging.
- Should I practise at 100 with eighths or sixteenths?
- Match the click to the fastest note value in the passage. If the music is in eighths, an eighth-note click at 200 a minute gives you a check on every note you play. If it is in sixteenths, use sixteenths — 400 a minute sounds relentless for about ten seconds and then becomes the most useful thing on the page, because a run that is not even cannot stay hidden against it.
