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In musical terminology, tempo ( Italian for " time") is the speed or pace of a given piece.
The tempo of a piece will typically be written at the start of a piece of music, and is usually indicated in beats per minute (BPM). This means that a particular note value (for example, a quarter note = crochet) is specified as the beat, and the marking indicates that a certain number of these beats must be played per minute.
Mathematical tempo markings of this kind became increasingly popular during the first half of the 19th century, after the metronome had been invented. MIDI files today also use the BPM system to denote tempo.
Some 20th century composers (such as Bela Bartok and John Cage) would alternatively give the total execution time of a piece, from which the proper tempo can be roughly derived.
Whether a music piece has a mathematical time indication or not, in classical music it is customary to describe the tempo of a piece by one or more words. Most of these words are Italian, a result of the fact that many of the most important composers of the Renaissance were Italian, and this period was when tempo indications were used extensively for the first time.
Before the metronome, words were the only way to describe the tempo of a composition. Yet after the metronome's invention, these words continued to be used, often additionally indicating the mood of the piece, thus blurring the traditional distinction between tempo and mood indicators. For example, "presto" and "allegro" both indicate a speedy execution ("presto" being faster), but "allegro" has more of a connotation of joy (seen its original meaning in Italian), while "presto" rather indicates speed as such (with possibly an additional connotation of virtuosity).
Additional Italian words came into use for indicating tempo and mood long after the metronome. For example, the "agitato" in the Allegro agitato of the last movement of George Gershwin's piano concerto in FConcerto in F is a composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and orchestra which is closer in form to a traditional concerto than the earlier jazz-influenced Rhapsody in Blue''. It was written in 1925 on a commission from the conductor and director Wa has both a tempo indication (undoubtedly faster than a usual "Allegro") and a mood indication ("agitated").
In some cases (quite often up to the end of the BaroqueBaroque music is Western classical music from the Baroque era, after the Renaissance music era and before the Classical music era proper. This roughly covers the time period from Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) through Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). period), conventions governing musical composition were so strong that no tempo had to be indicated: e.g. the 1st movement of BachJohann Sebastian Bach ( March 21, 1685 July 28, 1750) was a German composer and organist of the Baroque period, and is almost universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. His works, noted for their intellectual depth, technical comma's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 has no tempo or mood indication whatsoever. To provide movement names, publishers of recordings resort to ad hoc measures, for instance marking the Brandenburg movement "Allegro", "(Allegro)", "(Without indication)", and so on.
Often a particular musical formThe term musical form is used in two related ways: a generic type of composition such as the symphony or concerto the structure of a particular piece, how its parts are put together to make the whole; this too can be generic, such as binary form or sonata or genreMusical genres are categories which contain music which share a certain style or which have certain elements in common. See also musical form. Some genres, such as Indian music, are geographically defined; others, like Baroque music, are largely defined b implies its own tempo, so no further explanation is placed in the score. Thus musicians expect a minuetA minuet sometimes spelt menuet is a dance for two persons, usually in 3/4 time. The word was adapted, under the influence of the Italian minuetto from the French menuet meaning small, pretty, delicate, a diminutive of menu from the Latin minutus menuetto to be performed as a fairly stately tempo, slower than a Viennese waltz; a Perpetuum Mobile to be quite fast, and so on. The association of tempo with genre means that genres can be used to define tempos; thus Ludwig van Beethoven wrote "In tempo d'un Menuetto" over the first movement of his Piano Sonata Op. 54, although that movement is not a minuet.