At the start of a song you will see a marking similar to this:
This is the metronome mark and tells you how fast the song is. The mark above is saying that there are 120 crotchet beats in a minute. As the number gets lower, the song gets slower and vice versa. You can see any note value in place of the crotchet, but more often than not this is how it will be set out. The speed can also be referred to as BPM (Beats Per Minute).
If the speed of the song changes you will find this marking again above the bar where the change occurs.
Sometimes a song will slow down or speed up gradually. You will see these markings to indicate this:
- ral._ _ _ – rallentando – Shown below the stave and means gradually slow down. The dashes that follow will continue under the section the ral. applies to.
- accel._ _ _ – accelerando – Shown below the stave and means gradually speed up. The dashes that follow will continue under the section the accel. applies to.
- a tempo – Shown above the stave and means return to the original tempo. Often seen after rallentando or crescendo marks
- Free Time – Shown above the stave and means the section of music is played with no strict tempo. If the piece returns to the original tempo you will see 'a tempo' or 'Strict Time' above the stave.
- Loose Time – Shown above the stave and means the music roughly follows the tempo but may drift in and out. If the piece returns to the original tempo you will see 'a tempo' or 'Strict Time' above the stave.
- Strict Time – Shown above the stave and means the music is played exactly to tempo.
– this sign means pause briefly before moving on
You may also see these markings next to the metronome mark:
This means that all quavers are to be played as quaver triplets with the second of the 3 notes missing through the entire song.
This means that all semiquavers are to be played as semiquaver triplets with the second of the three notes missing through the entire song.
Both of these are known as playing in 'swung time'. Will we cover this in detail later on.
