tempo

tempo, speed or pacing of a piece of music, playing an essential role in performance and acting as the heartbeat of expression. The word tempo, meaning “time” in Italian, is derived from the Latin tempus. Prior to the 17th century, Western classical music rarely made use of tempo markings, since fixed pulse, mensuration, and note values were used to determine tempo. In the modern era, there are two main ways to indicate tempo: namely, verbal instructions and metronomic designations, which can be used in combination or interchangeably.

Tempo designation

Verbal instructions to designate tempo are single words or phrases that usually are expressed in Italian, owing to their original context of use; examples of such designations include allegro (fast) or andante (moderately slow). Other languages, however, have also been used, such as German, with langsam (slow), or French, with modéré, reflecting the composers’ cultural environments. The variety in verbal designation for tempo mirrors the practice of non-Western genres, such as Hindustani classical music, which employs terms such as vilambit (slow) or drut (lively). Some Western composers combine Italian with their native language, as exemplified by the terms andantino sans lenteur (one step faster than andante without slowness) or andante très expressif, used by French composer Claude Debussy in his Rêverie and Clair de lune, respectively. Verbal instructions for tempo are often used as the titles of movements of concertos or symphonies or of entire pieces.

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Metronomic designations for tempo involve using a note in conjunction with a range or a specific number, as exemplified by ♩ = 60, meaning 60 crotchets (or quarter notes) per minute (or beats per minute; BPM). This was aided by the manufacture of the metronome by German inventor Johann Nepomuk Maelzel in 1815–16, which Ludwig van Beethoven used in his output. Today verbal instructions are typically associated with a specific tempo range, but metronomic designations allow for further precision across genres.

Interpretation of tempo

While tempo markings pervade the scores of several popular music styles, jazz lead sheets often omit them. The Real Book, a popular compilation of lead sheets for jazz standards, merely features an indication of style, such as ballad, bossa, or medium swing, which can foster variety in terms of interpretation. This practice, however, hints at the link between tempo and a given style. In oral traditions, such as Spanish flamenco, for instance, players know that a given palo (category of flamenco defined by its rhythmic pattern, tonalities, and recurring figures) is played at a certain tempo, as exemplified by the slower soleás and siguiriyas and the faster sevillanas and bulerías.

Differences in the interpretation of tempo may also reflect cultural diversity and musical preferences. German musicologist Curt Sachs, for instance, noted how slow pieces in Tunisian music ranged from 116 to 162 BPM, which would be considered allegro molto from a Western classical music standpoint. Similarly, pieces performed in 18th-century French and Italian contexts may have been played at different tempos compared with performances of the same pieces in 18th-century Germany.

The use of tempo markings was challenged by some German composers, such as Beethoven, who used different tempos for the same piece of music. Johannes Brahms condemned the rigidity of metronomic tempos, and dramatic composer Richard Wagner complained that his music was being played at incorrect tempos. Today, in fact, different editions of compositions by these composers make it difficult to determine which markings were introduced by the composers themselves, despite the availability of urtexts (original editions of works of classical music).

Although the acoustics of a venue and the size of the ensemble can influence the performers’ choice of tempo, it can also vary according to personal taste and interpretation. This is exemplified by the fact that late 19th-century pieces are often performed more slowly than they would have been performed at the time when they were composed. Similarly, American musician Miles Davis used faster tempos in his renditions of jazz standards for his 1965 Columbia recordings in comparison with his 1956 Prestige recordings.

According to French-born British musician and instrument maker Arnold Dolmetsch, alterations of time are “as old as music itself,” notwithstanding treatises such as the Commemoratio brevis de tonis et psalmis modulandis, which advocated a constant, even tempo. Western classical music manuscripts abound with phrases such as tempo rubato and tempo primo, which prompt the altering and regaining of the original tempo. Such modifications were not necessarily notated in styles such as Romanticism, paving the way for personal expression. Custom requires that certain musical genres vary tempo during the performance, as occurs with Hindustani classical music, where the laya can increase from 15 to more than 400 BPM over the course of an hour. Similarly, in Indonesian gamelan the changing of tempo of the kendhang (drum) can shape the melody and rhythm, fostering the narrative while prompting togetherness within the ensemble.

Such flexibility in terms of tempo is also used by DJs in beatmatching, a mixing technique that matches the tempo of a given track with the next track in the playlist. Time stretching, used on television or radio, allows for tempo changes without affecting pitch. Beyond flexibility and interpretation, some compositions are polytempic, meaning that several tempos co-occur. This is exemplified by the music of Henry Cowell, Charles Ives, and Elliott Carter.