Prestissimo Tempo in BPM
Prestissimo is commonly given as 200 BPM and above. It is the superlative of Presto and marks the top of the standard tempo scale.
Timing is scheduled on the Web Audio clock, so the beat stays steady even while the page is busy. Tap the tempo button in time with a song to set the BPM by ear. Keyboard: space starts and stops, up and down arrows change the tempo by 1 (hold shift for 10), escape stops.
The metronome above starts at 220 BPM, the middle of the Prestissimo range. Drag the tempo anywhere between 200 and 240 to hear the whole range.
What Prestissimo means
Prestissimo translates as as quick as possible. Prestissimo is an instruction to play at the limit, and it is rare precisely because that limit depends on the player and the instrument rather than on a number. Its range tables usually stop at whatever the author considered playable, which is why they disagree so much at the top.
The TuneStand metronome tops out at 240 BPM, which covers the Prestissimo range as it is normally quoted. Above that a click stops being a useful reference anyway: the ear starts to fuse rapid clicks into a pitch rather than hearing them as separate beats, and at 240 BPM you are already at four clicks per second.
Why the BPM range is a convention, not a measurement
This is the part most tempo tables leave out. Italian tempo words were in general use for about a century before Maelzel's metronome made a beats-per-minute number practical at all, and the composers who wrote them never defined them numerically. Every published range, including the 200 to 240BPM given here, is somebody's later reconstruction, and different sources disagree by ten or twenty beats per minute at the edges.
Treat the number as a region and the word as the instruction. On a site that computes frequencies to two decimals it is worth being explicit about which figures are exact and which are conventional: the frequencies are exact, these ranges are not.
Where Prestissimo sits against the other markings
| Marking | Means | Commonly quoted BPM |
|---|---|---|
| Largo | broad, wide | 40 to 60 |
| Adagio | at ease, comfortable | 66 to 76 |
| Andante | walking | 76 to 108 |
| Moderato | moderate | 108 to 120 |
| Allegro | cheerful, lively | 120 to 168 |
| Vivace | lively, vivacious | 168 to 176 |
| Presto | quick | 168 to 200 |
| Prestissimo | as quick as possible | 200 to 240 |
Exact tempos inside the Prestissimo range
Each of these opens the metronome already running at that tempo, with its own notes on what the speed is used for.
Frequently asked questions
How many BPM is Prestissimo?
Commonly 200 BPM and above. There is no agreed upper bound, because the marking asks for the fastest playable tempo rather than a specific one.
What is the fastest useful metronome tempo?
Around 240 BPM for a click you can still follow as separate beats, which is where the TuneStand metronome stops. Faster than that, players normally halve the tempo and count every other beat instead.
Other tempo markings
More timing tools
Frequencies on this page are computed at build time from twelve tone equal temperament with A4 = 440 Hz, using the twelfth root of two (about 1.059463) per semitone. Nothing is typed in by hand. See the full method and sources. Maintained by FusionStudios. Last reviewed: .