Actual Rhythms Start practicing

Rhythm sight-reading practice

Every rhythm here was played by someone first.

Actual Rhythms is a rhythm-reading trainer built entirely from real music: 81,350 rhythms cut from 11,900 pieces, from Bach chorales and Irish fiddle tunes to Joplin rags and Coltrane solos. Read one, tap it, and see exactly where every tap landed.

Start practicing How it compares

Free. No account. Works in the browser on phones, tablets and laptops.

Two bars of 2/4: a sixteenth rest, sixteenths and syncopated eighths, then four eighths.
Maple Leaf Rag Scott JoplinPiano, mm. 28–29 · USA, published 1899
Son clave, 3-2: dotted quarter, eighth, rest, quarter; then rest, two quarters, rest.
Son clave (3-2)Claves · Cuba, traditional
81,350different rhythms
11,900pieces of music
584jazz solos, heads and arrangements
0rhythms made up for the app

Why real music

Practice the rhythms you'll actually be asked to read.

The right rhythms, in the right amounts

Generated exercises treat every combination as equally likely. Real music doesn't. Here, common figures come up often because composers use them often: two bars of even eighths in 2/4 turn up in 830 different pieces, while rare figures stay rare.

Every excerpt has a source

Each rhythm names its piece, composer, part, bars, place and date. One tap shows every other piece that uses it, including pieces that write it in another time signature with the same proportions.

Hear it as music

Listen plays the passage's own line on a sampled grand piano, or on bass, guitar or drums when that's the part it comes from. For about a third of the rhythms it can also play at the original tempo, from the score's metronome mark or the recording itself.

From the corpus

Four centuries, one staff line.

A few of the excerpts you might be handed next, exactly as the app draws them.

Two bars of 4/4 from a cornet solo: sixteenth syncopation, a tied triplet and quarter notes.
Big Butter and Egg Man Louis ArmstrongCornet solo, mm. 7–8 · recorded 1926
Two bars of 6/8: quarter, eighth, three eighths; dotted quarter, quarter, eighth rest.
Planxty Johnston O'Carolanmm. 10–11 · Ireland, published 1903 in O'Neill's Music of Ireland
Two bars of 3/4: three quarters; quarter, eighth rest, three eighths.
String Quartet K. 156, mvt. 3 Wolfgang Amadeus MozartViolin I, mm. 19–20 · composed 1772
Two bars of 4/4 from a tenor solo: a tied triplet, dotted and syncopated sixteenths, and triplets.
Blue Train John ColtraneTenor sax solo, mm. 25–26 · recorded 1957

How it works

Read it, tap it, see every tap.

  1. Read

    Pick a level from steady beats to triplets and sixteenth syncopation, and the time signatures and styles you want.

  2. Tap

    After a one-bar count-in, tap the rhythm on the pad, or press Space, F or J. It plays twice through (four times for one-bar patterns).

  3. See

    Each pass gets its own lane under the staff: a gray tick where every note falls, a colored dot where you tapped. Your score and average timing come with it.

Pass 1Pass 2

Three accuracy settings: Easy gives full credit within 110 ms of the note, Normal within 75 ms, Pro within 35 ms. Speakers and Bluetooth headphones each keep their own calibration.

Your next rhythm is a real one.

Open the app and tap. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.

Start practicing