Swing Metronome: Free Shuffle Click for Guitar

This metronome opens with a swing click: two sounds on every beat, a long one and a short one. The off-beat click is softer and lands late, on the last third of the beat, exactly where a swung or shuffled up stroke belongs. The tempo counts the beats you tap your foot to, so set it the way you would for any song in 4/4. It is free, with no account, and the same tool plays 6/8 and 12/8 when the music is written that way.

What the swing click actually plays

On paper, swing is written as two plain eighth notes. They are not played evenly. Split the beat in three, a triplet, and play only the first and the third note: the first eighth takes two thirds of the beat, the second takes the last third. Long, short. Long, short. That is a 2:1 swing, and it is exactly what the Swing shuffle figure clicks.

Close-up of wire brushes sweeping across a white snare drum head — Wire brushes on a snare drum. In a jazz band this is where the long short pulse usually comes from; with no drummer around, the swing click stands in for it. Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

1 (and) a 2 (and) a

Count "1 and a 2 and a" and leave the "and" silent: the clicks fall on the number and on the "a". The ratio is fixed, and there is no slider to make it lighter or heavier. That is a feature for practice: the click gives you the triplet reference, and you learn where your own swing sits against it.

Figure in the menu	Clicks per beat	Split of the beat	What it is for
Eighth note	Two, evenly spaced	1/2 + 1/2	Straight eighths, the even feel
Triplet	Three, evenly spaced	1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3	The full triplet the swing is cut from
Swing shuffle	Two, long then short	2/3 + 1/3	Swing and shuffle, the middle triplet left out
Dotted eighth and sixteenth	Two, longer then very short	3/4 + 1/4	A sharper, dotted lilt, not a triplet swing

Dotted eighth and sixteenth is not a swing setting, even though it is also long then short. Its split is three quarters and one quarter, so the second click comes later and sharper than a triplet swing. If your shuffle sounds jerky, check that this is not the figure you picked.

Swing and shuffle on the guitar

The shuffle is swing with more weight on it. It is the feel of the blues, rock and roll, boogie and a lot of rhythm and blues: the long short pairs are the same, they are just played harder and more obviously. Swing can be much lighter. For the metronome they are the same setting, and the difference is in your hand.

A gypsy jazz band playing outdoors at a street festival: two acoustic guitarists in white shirts in front, a double bass player behind them, a crowd watching — A gypsy jazz band at the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans. There is no drummer: the rhythm guitar carries the swing on its own. Photo: dsb nola, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Start from the full triplet

Set the figure to Triplet and play three even strokes per beat on muted strings, counting 1 and a 2 and a. Then switch to Swing shuffle and keep the arm moving in exactly the same triplets, but let the middle stroke miss the strings. Down on the number, up on the "a". The arm does not change, only what touches the strings.

Then add a chord

Take an E7 or an A7 and play the same long short motion, down up, four pairs to the bar. Work slowly, between 60 and 80 BPM. The trap is to stiffen the arm to sound bluesy: a shuffle should bounce, not hit hard. When it sits, put it on a strumming pattern from our guitar strumming patterns, which explains why the swing is never in the pattern itself.

Two things go wrong, in opposite directions. Played too straight, it does not swing at all and sounds like plain eighths. Pushed too far, it turns into a caricature. The click is there to keep you between the two. And a swing is never half applied: if beats one and two lean and beats three and four go straight, it does not sound half swung, it sounds wrong.

Does this song swing or play straight?

Listen to the eighth notes, not the beat. If they sound even, "ta ta ta ta", the song is straight and the Eighth note figure is the right click. If they sound long short, "taa ta taa ta", it swings or shuffles. Test it by counting over the record: "1 and 2 and" first, then "1 and a 2 and a". Over a shuffle, the straight count puts the "and" too early. Over a straight song, forcing the swing makes it drag. The right count sits on the music with no effort.

Outdoor big band concert under a tent: a guitarist with an electric guitar in the foreground, a row of saxophonists behind music stands, the conductor standing at the right — A student big band at the Newport Jazz Festival. In this music the eighth notes swing unless the chart asks for straight ones, and the guitar comps inside that feel. Photo: digboston, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

A slow blues or a soul ballad written in 12/8 has the same triplet feel over four big beats. If your sheet music says 12/8, set it on the metronome in 12/8, where the tempo counts eighth notes instead of beats.

Take the click away

Once the shuffle holds, the next question is whether it holds without help. Choose Random mute in the play mode menu and set a low percentage: that share of the clicks drops out at random, and the ones that remain land exactly where they always would. Start around a fifth of the clicks, then raise it. When a click comes back and your up stroke is early or late against it, you hear it at once.

This is unsettling the first few times, and that is normal. The silence shows you your inner pulse. For a more musical backing than a click, the online drum machine gives you a groove to play over. More on working with a click in how to practice with a metronome, and on the whole subject in how to improve your guitar rhythm.

Frequently asked questions

What swing ratio does this metronome use?

A triplet swing, 2:1. Each beat gets two clicks: the first lasts two thirds of the beat and the second one third, so the off-beat lands exactly on the third note of a triplet. The ratio is fixed. There is no slider to make the swing lighter or heavier, so treat it as the reference point and let your own feel lean around it.

Is a swing metronome the same as a shuffle metronome?

Yes, as far as the click goes. Swing and shuffle use the same long short split of the beat. What changes is the style around it: the shuffle is the heavier, more marked version you hear in blues, rock and roll and boogie, while swing can be played much lighter. Here they share one setting, Swing shuffle.

What does the BPM count in swing?

The quarter note, the beat you tap your foot to. The swing lives inside each beat, so 80 BPM in swing gives you eighty long short pairs per minute. Unlike 6/8 and 12/8, where the metronome counts eighth notes, nothing needs converting here.

What is the difference between swing and 12/8?

Very little in sound. A shuffle in 4/4 and a 12/8 bar both have four big beats split in three. The difference is how the music is written and how the metronome counts it: in 4/4 with the Swing shuffle figure, the BPM counts the four beats; in 12/8, it counts the twelve eighth notes. The 6/8 metronome page has the 12/8 setting and the conversion.

Why does my swing sound stiff against the click?

Usually because the arm stops between strokes or tightens up to sound bluesy. Keep the arm moving in triplets, three swings per beat with the middle one missing the strings, and keep the wrist loose. A shuffle should bounce, not hit hard.

Yohann Abbou, guitar teacher and founder of Guitar Social Club

Who made this

Guitar Social Club is the work of Yohann Abbou, a guitar teacher in Paris who teaches adults. Swing is a feel before it is a formula, and he teaches it the same way this page does: the triplet first, then the missing middle note, then the click taken away. The rest of our free guitar tools work the same way, with no sign up before they work.

More about Yohann on his page, and about why Guitar Social Club exists.

Swing metronome, free online