The <metronome> element

Parent element: <direction-type>

The <metronome> element represents metronome marks and other metric relationships. The <beat-unit> element group and <per-minute> element specify regular metronome marks. The <metronome-note> and <metronome-relation> elements allow for the specification of metric modulations and other metric relationships, such as swing tempo marks where two eighths are equated to a quarter note / eighth note triplet. Tied notes can be represented in both types of metronome marks by using the <beat-unit-tied> and <metronome-tied> elements. The print-object attribute is set to no in cases where the <metronome> element represents a relationship or range that is not displayed in the music notation.

Content

Exactly one of the following

Attributes

Name Type Required? Description
color color No Indicates the color of an element.
default-x tenths No Changes the computation of the default horizontal position. The origin is changed relative to the start of the entire current measure, at either the left barline or the start of the system. Positive x is right and negative x is left.

This attribute provides higher-resolution positioning data than the <offset> element. Applications reading a MusicXML file that can understand both features should generally rely on this attribute for its greater accuracy.
default-y tenths No Changes the computation of the default vertical position. The origin is changed relative to the top line of the staff. Positive y is up and negative y is down.

This attribute provides higher-resolution positioning data than the placement attribute. Applications reading a MusicXML file that can understand both attributes should generally rely on this attribute for its greater accuracy.
font-family font-family No A comma-separated list of font names.
font-size font-size No One of the CSS sizes or a numeric point size.
font-style font-style No Normal or italic style.
font-weight font-weight No Normal or bold weight.
halign left-center-right No In cases where text extends over more than one line, horizontal alignment and justify values can be different. The most typical case is for credits, such as:

Words and music by
Pat Songwriter

Typically this type of credit is aligned to the right, so that the position information refers to the right-most part of the text. But in this example, the text is center-justified, not right-justified.

The halign attribute is used in these situations. If it is not present, its value is the same as for the justify attribute. For elements where a justify attribute is not allowed, the default is implementation-dependent.
id ID No Specifies an ID that is unique to the entire document.
justify left-center-right No Indicates left, center, or right justification. The default value varies for different elements. For elements where the justify attribute is present but the halign attribute is not, the justify attribute indicates horizontal alignment as well as justification.
parentheses yes-no No Indicates whether or not to put the metronome mark in parentheses. It is no if not specified.
print-object yes-no No Specifies whether or not to print an object. It is yes if not specified.
relative-x tenths No Changes the horizontal position relative to the default position, either as computed by the individual program, or as overridden by the default-x attribute. Positive x is right and negative x is left. It should be interpreted in the context of the <offset> element or directive attribute if those are present.
relative-y tenths No Changes the vertical position relative to the default position, either as computed by the individual program, or as overridden by the default-y attribute. Positive y is up and negative y is down. It should be interpreted in the context of the placement attribute if that is present.
valign valign No Indicates vertical alignment to the top, middle, bottom, or baseline of the text. The default is implementation-dependent.

Examples

This element is used in the following examples:

<beat-unit-dot>, <beat-unit-tied>, <beat-unit>, <metronome-arrows>, <metronome-note>, <metronome-tied>, <metronome>, <per-minute>