How it works
A 9/4 time signature metronome has to pick a note to count. This one counts the quarter note: nine clicks a bar, with one, four and seven raised. Open Music Theory lists 9/4 as compound triple: three dotted half-note beats.
Read the full guide
Start
Tap the pad, or press Space. Clicks one, four and seven are higher and their dots larger, with one the highest. Tap again to stop.
Change the tempo
Tap the number under the pad and type the quarter-note tempo, or press minus and plus. If your score gives the dotted half note, type three times its figure: dotted half note = 40 is 120 on this page.
Questions and answers
Where do the accents fall in 9/4 time?
On quarter notes one, four and seven. Open Music Theory's rule for compound time: divide the top number by three to find the beats, and with a 4 underneath each beat is a dotted half note. The first third of each beat is accented.
Will a 9/8 metronome work for 9/4?
Yes, with another number and quieter clicks between beats. Open Music Theory files both bars under compound triple; only the note that divides the beat changes, a quarter here, an eighth there. The 9/8 page counts the beat: type a third of this page's figure.
What if a 9/4 bar is not grouped in threes?
Then this pad will not match it: three threes is all it plays. Wikipedia's list of works in unusual time signatures calls nine beats grouped 3+3+3 very common and collects the exceptions, among them single 9/4 bars by Stravinsky grouped 3+2+2+2, 4+3+2 and 2+3+4.
Does 9/4 count as an unusual time signature?
Not by the definition in Wikipedia's list of works in unusual time signatures, which leaves out compound signatures with 6, 9 or 12 on top and 4, 8 or 16 underneath. A regular 9/4, three threes, is one of them.
Why can't I hear the metronome?
Check the phone before the page: the ring switch, the volume, a Bluetooth speaker in another room. Without sound the bar can still be read, nine dots lighting left to right with the large ones on one, four and seven.