Terms and signs

In the early days of music printing, many of the most famous composers came from Italy. Musicians in other countries became used to seeing instruction on how to play a piece in Italian, and we still use many of these words today. Some of the more common Italian terms are listed below.

Tempo means 'time' and refers to the speed at which music is played or sung. Most pieces have a tempo direction at the start of the music, printed above the time signature. It tells you how fast or slow to perform the music. A fast tempo means a fast speed and a slow tempo means a slow speed.

Tempo can be indicated more exactly by the number of beats in a minute. All of the following mean 60 crotchet beats per minute - one beat per second - which is slow speed

Directions used if the tempo should be modified or the beat interrupted.

A dynamic marking indicates how loud or soft music should be. Usually dynamics are shown by the abbreviations or signs listed below, rather than by full words