A Guide to When to Use These Basic Italian Musical Terms
A Guide to When to Use These Basic Italian Musical Terms
Italian terms are like a common tongue, which musicians use to communicate style, feeling, and interpretation.
Basic Italian Musical Terms: Why Italian Still Reigns in Music Today
Whether you are an up-and-coming performer, a person with a little curiosity, or someone trying to dig into the basics of music theory, these few terms help you read, feel, and play music with perception and intent.
Why Italian? The Historical Background of Musical Directions
Such an inquiry into the Italian predominance in musical notation calls for a historical approach.
As early as the 1400s, Italian composers were at the forefront of notating music during the Renaissance.
As they began to articulate more and more complex musical ideas, they began to use Italian words to instruct the performers more clearly in their scores.
Basic Italian Musical Terms: Why Is Music Written in Italian?
Italian music, while spreading across Europe, keeps on travelling slowly outside Italy.
By the time of the late 18th and early 19th century, the learning of Italian would almost always accompany the study of music, especially among educated and elite people.
This helped keep alive the tradition of using Italian in scores and teaching materials.
Italian today is, meanwhile, is not studied so often by foreigners anymore. Nevertheless, the musical legacy of Italians concerning the present remains.
In any element of the world of classical music, Italian remains the language of choice when it comes to any expressive or technical markings.
As the creative minds in music, we still study these terms and put them into practice.
Getting Acquainted: The Smallest Words that Mean the Most
Before getting to more common Italian music terms, it helps to be aware of a few small prefixes, suffixes, and words frequently encountered in nontonal areas of music.
These tend to indicate mood, amount, or nature of the instruction:
- Con-“with” (e.g., con brio = with spirit)
- issimo makes the word stronger in meaning (e.g., fortissimo = very loud).
- etto/-ino-enters as a softener, indicating slightness (e.g., pianissimo=very soft).
30 Italian Music Terms We Must Know
This is the score where these terms crop up often–string and orchestral clave mostly–and must be interpreted for emotional expression.
- Andante- At a moderate, walking pace
- Adagio-Slow and expressive
- Vivace-Lively and spirited
- Presto-Always very fast
- Forte (f)-Loud and strong
- Piano (p)-Soft and gentle
- Mezzo Forte (mf)-Moderately loud
- Mezzo Piano (mp)-Moderately soft
- Crescendo-Become gradually louder
- Decrescendo or Diminuendo- Become gradually softer
- Legato-smooth and connected notes
- Staccato-Short and separated
- Fermata- to hold or pause, generally for a note or rest
- Ritardando (rit.)-Gradually slowing down
- Accelerando (accel.)-Gradually speeding up
- CCantabile is an ingenuous, lyrical style
- Con Brio- with vigor and energy
- Dolce-sweetly and softly
- Grazioson in a graceful manner
- Largo-very slow and broad
- Marcato-marked or emphasized
- Molto-very or much (used with other terms)
- Poco-a little
- Prestissimo fast as possible
- Rubato, with expressive flexibility in tempo
- Sforzando (sfz)-a sudden, strong accent
- Tranquillo-calmly and peacefully
- L’istessotempo- at the same tempo as before
- Tempo Primo- back to the original tempo
Basic Italian Musical Terms: All in All
The learning and application of these Italian terms add another dimension to one’s capacity to read and interpret sheet music.
Essentially, they act as signposts in the emotional domain of a piece, which allow you to realize the composer’s conception.
So, as you travel along this journey of musical discovery, hang on to these words as tightly as you can; they will serve as the bridge between the notes and the nuances, technical execution, and expressiveness.
