Palmas
Compás y palmas — a flamenco metronome
Flamenco is not counted in bars of four. Each palo has its own compás — a twelve-beat cycle with accents in particular places for soleá and alegrías, a different cycle for tangos, another for seguiriyas. Palmas plays those cycles, with the instruments that actually keep them: palmas, cajón, jaleo, pitos and more. Set the tempo, choose which instruments sound, and practise against a rhythm that is the real thing rather than a click.
Ways to use Palmas
Palmas in your browser
The full app, free and open source, in any modern browser — nothing to buy, nothing to install. Choose a palo, set the tempo, mix the instruments, and watch the compás as dots, a counter, or a clock. Your settings stay on your own device.
It also installs as an app, with its own icon and window — and once installed it works with no connection at all, which is what a rehearsal room tends to offer. See Install it as an app.
Free & open source — runs in your browser
Open the web app Source on GitHubMac, Windows, Linux & Android
Download Palmas for macOS (Apple silicon), Windows or Linux, or as an Android app. The releases page has every file, with install notes for each system. The Android app is installed directly rather than from Google Play.
Palmas does not update itself: new versions appear on the same page and install the same way.
Free & open source
Download Source on GitHubiPhone & iPad
Palmas is on the App Store: the same app, with every sound built in, so it works with no connection at all. Free, with no ads and no in-app purchases. Needs iOS 15 or later.
Free on the App Store
Install it as an app
Palmas runs perfectly well in a browser tab. Installing it as a Progressive Web App gives it an icon, a standalone window with no browser furniture around the compás, and — the part that matters for practice — it keeps working with no network. The app and every sample are stored on your device the first time you open it, so a rehearsal room with no signal makes no difference.
- Chrome (desktop): click Install at the right end of the address bar, or open the menu (⋮) and choose Cast, Save, and Share → Install Palmas…. Neither showing? It is already installed — see chrome://apps.
- Edge (desktop): open the Settings and more menu (···), then Apps → Install this site as an app.
- Chrome (Android): open the menu (⋮) and choose Add to Home screen / Install app.
- Safari (iPhone / iPad): tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.
- Safari (Mac, Sonoma or later): choose File → Add to Dock.
Once installed, launch it like any other app rather than from a browser tab — the home-screen icon or app drawer on a phone, the Start menu or Spotlight on a computer, and chrome://apps (edge://apps) if you have mislaid it.
Installing also protects your settings. Tempo, swing, instrument mix and any beats you have silenced are stored on your own device and nowhere else, and Safari clears a website's storage after about a week without a visit — on both macOS and iOS. An installed app is not treated that way.
What it plays
Palmas covers the flamenco repertoire and several related traditions — among them:
- Alegrías
- Bulerías
- Soleá
- Soleá por bulería
- Tangos
- Tientos
- Seguiriyas
- Fandangos
- Farruca
- Rumba
- Sevillanas
- Tanguillos
- Verdiales
- Zapateado
- Abandolaos
- Jaleos
Alongside the flamenco palos there are Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian rhythms, and a tuning fork for good measure.
What it does
The real compás
Accents where they belong for each palo, not an even click — with a prestart count-in, adjustable swing, and a humanise option so it breathes.
See the cycle
Three ways to watch the beat: dots around the compás, a plain counter, or a clock face. Whichever makes the cycle legible to you.
Mix the instruments
Palmas, cajón, jaleo, pitos and more — turn each on or off, set its volume, and choose whether it plays eighths. Adjust the reverb decay to suit the room you are practising in.
In your language
Nine languages: English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Arabic, Persian, Japanese and Chinese.
Yours alone
No accounts, no analytics, no tracking of any kind. Nothing about your practice leaves your device.
Free and open
Licensed under the AGPL. Read the source, build it yourself, or send a patch.
Documentation & help
Built on A Compás
Palmas is a modified version of A Compás by Olivier Ricordeau and Jérémie Sieffert, who wrote the great majority of it and hold copyright from 2014 to 2023. It is distributed under the same AGPL-3.0 licence, which is what makes this version possible — and it carries a different name because the changes here are not theirs to answer for. Please report anything about Palmas on its own repository, not to them.
The jaleo recordings are by Aziz Andry.