Polymetro - Polyrhythmic PWA metronome
screenshots of mobile interface of polymetro in dark and light mode
Polymetro (live) is a polyrhythmic metronome built as a PWA using Vue for the frontend and Web Audio as the sound engine. The app can only be accessed via mobile.
Background
I designed and developed Polymetro in March of 2020, when I was learning Magnus Lindberg’s Twine. The piece is filled with polyrhythms, many of which I have never encountered before.
snippet of Twine
In order to learn these rhythms, it was necessary to flatten the polyrhythm into one composite rhythm and subsequently learn it as a chunk. This wasn’t always easy when faced with a dense rhythm, like 9 against 8. To easy this process for myself, I set out to create Polymetro.
Development
The idea was to have a digital metronome that could play both single rhythms and polyrhythms. Setting the desired metrum, the pulse grid would adjust itself to visually show the number of beats per cycle.
screenshot of pulsegrid
Each glyph in the pulse grid could be toggled by tapping on it, cycling between three states: strong, weak and silent.
The metronome is also trilingual. Clicking on the settings, a modal will appear with the option to select between English, German and Chinese.