Chronspan
Hear a reference tempo change, then reproduce the same tempo ratio from a new tempo. 4 rounds.
About Chronspan: reproduce a tempo ratio
Chronspan is about relationships between speeds, not the speeds themselves. One tempo shifts into another, and your task is to rebuild that same shift after everything resets to a brand-new starting point.
This one bites harder than it looks. In real playing a proportion that comes out even slightly wrong drags a whole section out of alignment, and there is no click running underneath to rescue you.
Nail the proportion and a metric modulation lands clean instead of stumbling. Start with what subdivision is, or browse the full set of tempo guides.
What Chronspan trains
Chronspan trains proportional tempo sense: hearing how one speed relates to another and reproducing that ratio from a fresh starting point. You don't copy an absolute BPM, you copy a relationship. Get the proportion right and it survives transplanting to any starting tempo, which is what a subdivided passage needs to stay locked to the pulse, felt as an even "1 e and a" underneath the beat.
How to play
Hear a reference tempo shift, beat A moving to beat B, which defines a ratio. Then a new starting tempo plays, and you reproduce the same ratio from it, across four rounds. So if the reference doubled, you double your new start; if it went up by half, you match that proportion. Sound on carries both the reference and your attempt; the on-screen pulse mirrors it. Keyboard users can adjust and confirm with arrows and Enter.
How scoring works
Your result reflects how closely your reproduced ratio matches the reference ratio, averaged across the four rounds. Closeness is judged on the ratio itself, not the raw tempo: if the reference sped up by a factor of 1.5 and your attempt lands near 1.48, that near-miss scores almost full marks, while a 1.5 read as 1.2 is counted as a wide miss. Small ratios (a gentle nudge) and large ones (a full doubling) each carry their own difficulty, and consistency across them is what lifts the score.
What your score means
Read the outcome as a rough band:
| Result | Rough interpretation |
|---|---|
| Ratios close across rounds | Strong proportional tempo sense |
| Mostly close | A solid grasp of tempo relationships |
| Ratios wide | Reproducing proportions is the skill to build |
Bigger ratios and unfamiliar starting tempos are harder; a wider miss there is expected.
Common mistakes
Copying the absolute tempo of the reference instead of its ratio is the core error, and the start changes every round for exactly this reason. Confusing the direction (halving when the reference doubled) flips the answer. And doing arithmetic rather than feeling the proportion tends to lag behind the pulse, since a number you calculate always arrives a beat late. Trust the sound before the sum.
Practice progression
Chronspan is a "proportion" workout. (5 min, beginner) focus on the simple ratios, doubling and halving, and feel the subdivision underneath. (10 min, intermediate) take on the odd ratios, reproducing them from one hearing. (weekly) pair it with subdivision (the home of even ratios) and Chrontween (the midpoint tempo), which build the same relational sense.
The science behind it
Reproducing a ratio is a relative-timing task: the brain represents tempo relationships as proportions, which is why a rhythm keeps its identity when sped up or slowed down. It is why a familiar tune stays recognisable played fast or slow: the pattern of long and short notes rides in the ratios between them, not in any single duration. This is the machinery behind metric modulation and clean subdivision, and it is closely tied to the interval sense that subdivision trains. More context in the complete guide to tempo perception.
Limitations
Chronspan is a game and an informal self-check, not a clinical or diagnostic tool. Browser and device timing are not laboratory-grade, so results from different devices are not strictly comparable, and one session does not fix your "true" ability. The score reflects proportional tempo reproduction specifically, not rhythm reading or musicianship overall.
Where it shows up
Proportional tempo sense is what makes advanced rhythm hang together. When a piece performs a metric modulation, reinterpreting the beat so that, say, the old triplet becomes the new quarter-note, the performer is reproducing a precise ratio, not an absolute speed. A drummer sliding a passage into double-time keeps the underlying subdivision even by feeling the two-to-one relationship. A producer time-stretching a loop to sit against another track is matching a proportion by ear. Even a dancer syncing a spin to a phrase that runs at a fraction of the main pulse is working in ratios. A film composer scoring to picture leans on it too, holding one cue's pulse in a clean two-against-three with the next so the edit breathes. Chronspan isolates that skill, an advanced but trainable corner of timing that pays off in tight subdivisions and clean transitions between sections. Get it into your body and the maths fades: you stop counting the ratio and start hearing it, the way a seasoned player locks a modulation without ever reaching for a number.
Can you copy the ratio, not the tempo? Hear the shift, then reproduce it from a new speed across four rounds.
Frequently asked questions
What does Chronspan train?
Proportional tempo sense: reproducing the ratio between two speeds from a new starting tempo, rather than copying an absolute BPM.
Why does the starting tempo change each round?
So you cannot memorise a BPM. You must extract the proportion and re-apply it, which is the whole point of the game.
How is it scored?
By how closely your reproduced ratio matches the reference ratio, averaged over the four rounds.
What if I mix up the direction?
Halving when the reference doubled flips the answer, so feel whether the reference sped up or slowed down before you reproduce it.
Does headphone lag matter?
Slightly near the true ratio; mainly it means absolute results should not be compared across devices.
Related reading & games
- Subdivision: the home of even tempo ratios.
- The complete guide to tempo perception: the bigger picture.
- Chrontween: find the midpoint between two tempos.
Sources: Justin London, Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter (2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2012); Poudrier, È. and Repp, B. H. (2012), Can musicians track two different beats simultaneously?, Music Perception.
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