| Marking | BPM | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Grave | 20–40 BPM | slow and solemn |
| Largo | 40–60 BPM | broadly |
| Lento | 40–60 BPM | broadly |
| Larghetto | 60–66 BPM | rather broadly |
| Adagio | 66–76 BPM | slow and stately |
| Andante | 76–108 BPM | at a walking pace |
| Moderato | 108–120 BPM | moderately |
| Allegretto | 112–120 BPM | moderately fast |
| Allegro moderato | 116–120 BPM | not quite allegro |
| Allegro | 120–168 BPM | fast and bright |
| Vivace | 168–176 BPM | lively and fast |
| Presto | 168–200 BPM | very fast |
How to read the table
Every number above is a range, and the ranges overlap. That is not sloppiness in the table — it is what the words are like. The vocabulary is centuries older than the device: Maelzel patented the metronome in 1815, long after composers had been writing adagio at the top of a page. The numbers were fitted to the words afterwards, by people who disagreed with each other, and editions still do.
So use them the way a musician does. The word tells you the character; the range tells you roughly where to start; and a metronome mark printed on the score beats both. If the music says ♩ = 96, that is the tempo, and the Italian above it is describing how to play it rather than how fast.
The full ladder, including the ones without a page
The metronome’s live readout has to name exactly one marking for any tempo, so it uses a narrower ladder in which each band starts where the last one ended. It is the same vocabulary, cut so that two names can never claim the same BPM — which is why these numbers are tighter than the published ranges above.
| Marking | Readout band | Character |
|---|---|---|
| Larghissimo | up to 24 | very, very slow |
| Grave | 25–40 | slow and solemn |
| Largo | 41–60 | broadly |
| Larghetto | 61–66 | rather broadly |
| Adagio | 67–75 | slow and stately |
| Andante | 76–107 | at a walking pace |
| Moderato | 108–111 | moderately |
| Allegretto | 112–115 | moderately fast |
| Allegro moderato | 116–119 | not quite allegro |
| Allegro | 120–167 | fast and bright |
| Vivace | 168–175 | lively and fast |
| Presto | 176–199 | very fast |
| Prestissimo | 200+ | as fast as possible |
Larghissimo and prestissimo have no page of their own: they are the two ends of the scale rather than tempos anyone looks up, and lento shares its band with largo — the two words cover the same speed and are often used interchangeably.
Two shortcuts worth knowing
One beat in milliseconds is 60,000 ÷ BPM. At 120 BPM that is 500 ms, at 92 it is 652 ms. That is the number you want for a delay pedal or a plugin, and it is shown live beside the tempo on every page here.
You can go the other way too. If you have the music but not the number, tap the tempo and read both the BPM and the marking that goes with it. And when you want the whole tool — odd meters, subdivisions, accents, a speed trainer and a gap trainer — the online metronome is the page for it.