Tempo markings in sheet music: andante, allegro, presto and more

One word that changes everything

Imagine the same melody played twice: once slow and solemn, once fast and energetic. The notes are identical. What changes is the tempo. And in a score, that difference isn't expressed with numbers at the top — it's expressed with a word in Italian written above the staff.

Tempo markings are instructions the composer leaves for the performer to define not just the speed of the music, but also its character. They're not simple speed labels: Andante doesn't just mean slow, it means walking. Allegro doesn't just mean fast, it means cheerful. Tempo in the classical tradition has always been a matter of spirit as much as metronome.

For the guitarist learning to read scores, recognizing these markings is as essential as recognizing the notes. They are the first message the score sends you.

Italian as the universal language of music

From the seventeenth century onward, Italian established itself as the lingua franca of Western music. Baroque and Classical composers — most of them trained in Italy or deeply influenced by the Italian tradition — adopted Italian for their tempo, dynamic, and character markings. The convention spread across Europe and survives to this day.

When you see Largo, Adagio, or Vivace at the start of a piece, you're reading a convention more than three centuries old. Beethoven, who was German and sometimes added markings in his own language, kept Italian for most of his tempo indications. Chopin, Polish, wrote in Italian and sometimes French. The classical guitar repertoire of the nineteenth century — Sor, Giuliani, Aguado — is written entirely under this convention.

Knowing these terms isn't an academic luxury. It's reading the language the score is written in.

The main tempo markings from slowest to fastest

Tempo markings are ordered by approximate speed. They aren't fixed values — each era and each performer interprets them with a degree of freedom — but there is a general consensus.

Largo (wide, broad) is the slowest tempo: solemn music with weight and gravity, around 40–60 beats per minute. Grave (grave, serious) is also very slow, with a heavy and profound character, similar to Largo in speed but with greater emphasis on severity. Adagio (at ease, calmly) is slow but expressive, one of the richest tempos for phrasing — there is space to breathe and shape each note, approximately 60–75 bpm.

Andante (walking) is the tempo of the natural human step: neither slow nor fast, fluid and continuous, around 76–108 bpm. It is perhaps the hardest to define because its very ordinariness makes it paradoxically subjective. Moderato (moderate) offers a clear middle tempo, with no urgency or sluggishness, around 108–120 bpm.

Allegretto is the diminutive of Allegro: lively but not as energetic, lighter, around 112–120 bpm. Allegro (cheerful, lively) is fast and energetic, the most common tempo for fast movements in the classical repertoire, between 120–168 bpm. Vivace (vivid, animated) is faster than Allegro, with brightness and energy, around 156–176 bpm. Presto (prompt, quick) demands solid technique, around 168–200 bpm. And Prestissimo, the superlative, is the fastest tempo marked in a score: above 200 bpm.

Modifiers: nuancing the tempo

Tempo markings rarely appear alone. Composers combine them with Italian adjectives and adverbs to specify character: the suffix -issimo forms the superlative (Larghissimo, Prestissimo), while -etto or -ino form the diminutive (Andantino, Allegretto).

Ma non troppo means but not too much: Allegro ma non troppo means fast, but don't overdo it. Con brio adds energy and enthusiasm; con moto, forward momentum. Cantabile calls for a flowing, vocal melodic line regardless of tempo. Espressivo asks for emphasis on emotion.

When you see Andante cantabile, the score is telling you: walk, but sing while you do it. On the guitar, that translates into careful vibrato, smooth transitions between notes, and an attack that imitates the voice.

Tempo in classical and modern guitar

In the guitar repertoire, tempo markings carry an additional dimension: the guitar is an instrument with limited sustain. An Adagio on the piano can hold a note resonating for several seconds; on guitar, that note fades sooner. This forces the guitarist to compensate with phrasing, vibrato, and choice of timbre.

That's why, when a guitar score indicates Largo or Adagio, it's not enough to simply play slowly: you have to think about how to sustain the musical character with an instrument that cannot sustain sound in the same way. The great performers — Andrés Segovia, John Williams, Julian Bream — solved this problem through extreme attention to attack, color, and silence.

In modern music and pop-rock repertoire, Italian markings coexist with metronome numbers (♩ = 120) and English descriptions such as slow, moderate, fast, or uptempo. In contemporary practice, the metronome number is more precise and more common; Italian markings tend to be reserved for classical repertoire or to convey character rather than exact speed.

Reading the tempo before playing

A habit that distinguishes experienced score readers: before playing the first note, they stop to read all the information in the header. The time signature, the key signature, the opening dynamic, and the tempo marking. In those five seconds they already have a sonic image of what they're about to play.

The tempo marking is part of that image. Allegro con brio tells you something different from Allegro ma non troppo. Adagio espressivo prepares you emotionally in a different way from Andante moderato. These aren't details: they're performance instructions.

In the next post we'll explore the other great system of score instructions: dynamics, which tell you not how fast to play, but with what intensity.

Tempo is the soul of music. Without it, technique is nothing; with it, even the simple becomes art. — Johann Nepomuk Hummel