How it works
A 13/8 metronome counts the eighth note, thirteen to a bar. This one opens on 3+3+3+2+2, the grouping Open Music Theory prints beside its example in 13/8.
Read the full guide
Start
Tap the pad, or press Space. Clicks one, four, seven, ten and twelve are raised, and one is the highest. Tap once more and it stops.
Change the tempo
Tap the number under the pad and type the eighth-note tempo the music asks for, or move it a step at a time with minus and plus. Whole numbers from 1 to 1000 play.
Questions and answers
How do you count 13/8?
One two three, one two three, one two three, one two, one two. The first three beats are long and the last two short, and each starts on a raised click. The highest click of all is the top of the bar.
Is 13/8 just 12/8 with an extra note?
Open Music Theory reads its example that way: the passage, from a 1981 stage musical, could have been written in 12/8, and the added eighth note keeps the listener from settling into a regular pattern. Here the fourth group of three becomes two pairs.
How else can 13/8 be grouped?
Wikipedia's list of works in unusual time signatures writes the same show tune as 3+3+3+4, and gives one bar of a Villa-Lobos piano piece as six eighth notes and then seven. Its Aksak article has a thirteen grouped 2+2+2+3+2+2. For those, follow the highest click.
What music uses 13/8 time?
Arabic vocal music, for one. MaqamWorld, a reference site for Arabic music, lists dharafat, also spelled zarafat, as a rhythm in 13/8 used mostly in the muwashah genre. This pad clicks its own grouping, not that rhythm's drum strokes.
Why can't I hear the metronome?
Rule out the phone first: a ring switch on silent, the volume slid to nothing, or Bluetooth earphones that are still connected. Whichever it is, the thirteen dots keep lighting in turn, the first, fourth, seventh, tenth and twelfth larger than the rest.