Proportional or linear?

Proportional, unless you have a reason. Adding ten beats per minute to 60 is a 17% increase; adding ten to 200 is 5%. Linear spacing therefore makes the early steps disproportionately hard and the late ones nearly free, which is the opposite of what you want. Proportional makes every rung the same amount harder.

How many steps should I use?

Six to eight for a passage you nearly have, twelve or more for something a long way off. The trade is direct: more steps means smaller jumps and a higher chance each one works, at the cost of taking longer to arrive.

How do I know when to move up a rung?

The usual rule is three consecutive clean repetitions, with clean meaning no tension and no near-misses rather than no complete breakdowns. Moving up on a nearly-right rung is the single most common reason a ladder stalls.

No. It is a calculator — the same inputs always give the same ladder. It sits on a site of generators because it is the tool the practice routine generator points at, not because there is a draw in it.

Tempo Ladder Generator

Everybody knows you practise a hard passage slowly and speed it up. Almost nobody plans the steps, so the increments end up arbitrary — twenty at a time near the bottom where it is easy and five at a time near the top where it is hard, which is exactly backwards. This gives you the ladder, spaced so that each rung is the same amount harder than the last.

Starting tempo

A tempo you can already play it cleanly and without tension — not your fastest.

Target tempo

Where it needs to end up, in beats per minute.

Number of steps

Between 2 and 20. Six to eight is usual.

Spacing

Your tempo ladder will appear here.

What this generator does

Produces the list of metronome marks between where you are and where you need to be, spaced by a rule rather than by guesswork, together with the percentage increase at each step and the seconds per beat. It gives you two spacings, and the difference between them is real: linear spacing adds the same number of beats per minute each time, which means the early steps are large percentage jumps and the late ones are small; proportional spacing multiplies by a constant ratio, so every step is the same percentage harder.

How to use this tool

Enter the tempo you can already play it at cleanly, and the tempo you need.
Choose how many steps you want.
Choose proportional spacing unless you have a reason not to.
Work up the ladder, only moving on when a step is genuinely clean.

Understanding the controls

Starting and target tempo: The starting tempo should be one you can already play the passage at cleanly and without tension — not the fastest you can scrape through it. Almost everybody starts a ladder too fast, which is why the middle of it stops working.
Number of steps: Between two and twenty. Six to eight is usual for a passage you can nearly play; twelve or more for something a long way off. More steps means smaller jumps and slower progress, which is the trade.
Spacing: Proportional makes every step the same percentage faster, which is closer to how difficulty actually scales and is the sensible default. Linear adds the same number of beats per minute each time, which is easier to do in your head and gets progressively harder as you climb.

Worked examples

Proportional, 60 to 120 in six: 60, 69, 79, 91, 104, 120 — each step about 15% faster than the last.
Linear, the same range: 60, 72, 84, 96, 108, 120 — twelve beats per minute each time, which is a 20% jump at the bottom and 11% at the top.
A narrow range: 60 to 63 in ten steps has only four whole numbers available, so the tool gives four and explains why.

Common use cases

Working a difficult passage up to performance tempo methodically
A teacher setting an explicit practice plan for the week
Preparing a technical exam piece to a required metronome mark
Building speed on scales or rudiments without hitting a wall
Any deliberate-practice routine where the increments matter

How this generator works

Both spacings are pinned to the endpoints rather than derived from a step size, which is what guarantees the last rung is your target and not something close to it — a ladder that stops at 118 when you needed 120 leaves the last and hardest step undone. Proportional spacing multiplies by the constant ratio that gets from start to target in the number of steps you asked for; linear spacing divides the difference evenly. Rounding to whole beats per minute can occasionally produce a repeated value on a narrow range, and where that happens the repeats are removed and the shortfall is reported rather than quietly returning fewer steps than you asked for.

Randomness and fairness

Nothing here is random at all. The same start, target, step count and spacing always produce exactly the same ladder, because it is arithmetic rather than a draw. That is worth stating on a site full of generators: this one is a calculator.

For how randomness is produced across the whole site, see how Generate Random works.

Assumptions this tool makes

The starting tempo is one you can already play cleanly and without tension.
Beats per minute refers to whatever beat unit your metronome is set to.

Limitations and good to know

It cannot tell you when a step is clean enough to move on. That judgement is the whole method and no tool can make it for you.
Metronome marks are whole numbers here. Some metronomes offer fractional tempi and some passages genuinely want one.
It assumes a single passage at a single tempo. Music with tempo changes needs a ladder per section.
There is no metronome built in — this produces the numbers to set on the one you have.
The spacing rules are about arithmetic, not about physiology. How fast anybody can actually progress varies enormously.

Common mistakes

Starting the ladder at the fastest tempo you can scrape through: Start where it is genuinely clean and relaxed, which is usually considerably slower than feels reasonable. A ladder built on a shaky bottom rung falls apart in the middle every time.
Moving up when a step is nearly right: Nearly right at 90 becomes wrong at 120. The rule most teachers give is three clean repetitions before moving on, and it exists because of exactly this.
Using linear spacing without thinking about it: Linear is easier to do in your head and makes each step progressively harder as a proportion. If you keep stalling near the top of your ladders, that is usually why.
Trying to climb the whole ladder in one session: A ladder is usually a week's work, not an afternoon's. Speed gained in one sitting is mostly gone by the next day.

Practical tips

Write the ladder on the music. A ladder you have to look up is one you will stop using by Wednesday.
When you stall, drop two rungs rather than one and come back up. Dropping one usually puts you back on the tempo that was already shaky.
The seconds-per-beat column is useful for setting up a delay or a loop pedal, and for working out how long a passage will actually take.

Troubleshooting

It gave me fewer steps than I asked for: There are not that many whole numbers in the range you chose. Widen the range or ask for fewer steps — the tool says which has happened rather than silently returning a short ladder.
The first jump feels much bigger than the last: You are on linear spacing, where equal bpm increases are large percentage jumps at slow tempi. Switch to proportional.

Privacy and your data

Nothing is stored and nothing is entered beyond two tempi and a step count. The ladder is calculated in your browser and analytics records only that the tool was used along with the spacing chosen.

Frequently asked questions

Proportional or linear?: Proportional, unless you have a reason. Adding ten beats per minute to 60 is a 17% increase; adding ten to 200 is 5%. Linear spacing therefore makes the early steps disproportionately hard and the late ones nearly free, which is the opposite of what you want. Proportional makes every rung the same amount harder.
How many steps should I use?: Six to eight for a passage you nearly have, twelve or more for something a long way off. The trade is direct: more steps means smaller jumps and a higher chance each one works, at the cost of taking longer to arrive.
How do I know when to move up a rung?: The usual rule is three consecutive clean repetitions, with clean meaning no tension and no near-misses rather than no complete breakdowns. Moving up on a nearly-right rung is the single most common reason a ladder stalls.
Is this random?: No. It is a calculator — the same inputs always give the same ladder. It sits on a site of generators because it is the tool the practice routine generator points at, not because there is a draw in it.