Hi, I new to the forum and found this tread. I have an old metronome that I have never used,but the dial has numbers and, I believe, Italian words. So what word or number is equal to 4/4, 3/4 and 2/4? Thank for any help.
From my knowledge the metering (4/4, 3/4, etc) should be the same in any language using roman characters. If it is really old (not digital/computerized), then it probably doesn't have the metering at all, and the numbers you see would represent bpm (beats per minute).
The meters themselves don't indicate the speed (directly, anyway), so on metronomes with metering capabilities you would only get a different pitched beep on one or two of the notes (depending on which meter you are in). For example, with a setting of 120 bpm, your metronome would make beeps/clicks exactly 120 times per minute. If it had metering, lets say 4/4, you would hear something like:
dit-dit-dit-dit dit-dit-dit-dit... Where every beat is the same
dit-dah-dah-dah dit-dah-dah-dah... Where the first beat is emphasized in some way, like a raised pitch or shorter note (this is also morse code for J, in case you were wondering)
Try experimenting with it while looking at your clock. If I'm right, there should almost certainly be a 120 mark on there somewhere. If you set it to that, watch a clock for 10 seconds and count the beats. Do this several times to get a feel for it. If there are consistently 20 beats every 10 seconds, then your metronome works!
I hope my comments helped some.
-Tom
