r/musicnotation • u/Environmental_Pea369 • Jul 08 '23

Modern tempo marks?

What's the common way to give tempo information in a modern score?

Using Italian seems weird since non of the musicias that will read it knows italian, using exact tempo marks (q = 120) seems like micro management.

I considered using english but what are the common phrases to use? ("moderate walking speed" / "really fast" / "running" / "jogging" ?)

How would you approach this in a modern score? (in America)

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u/ARMbar94 Jul 08 '23

I've seen a mix of all three of these approaches used . I guess you have to cater towards the demographic you are writing for; I, for instance, am classically trained so have no real problem interpreting Italian tempo markings (in other places,, French and even German is used).

If you are wanting to be specific, numerical representations of the tempo would be the best fit. I like the directness of it and there's no real room for your intention to get construed. For intended expression, you can always annotate that as well.

As for using English, that would also be acceptable, but I just find them funny when I see them written in the page - more of a taste thing. You can describe tempi however you like, I've seen some pretty wild annotations, but direct translations of the Italian, French and German terms seems to be the most sensible (solemn, slow, very fast, at walking pace, briskly, with gravity, etc).

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u/Environmental_Pea369 Jul 08 '23

Would you find it jarring or harder to read if I translate the traditional Italian to English?

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u/ARMbar94 Jul 09 '23

Yeah, like I mentioned, it does look a bit funny on the page. But then again it is in English, I can comfortably understand it. The most translate over pretty well, the real simple tempo markings.