Reading Music: Dynamics, Tempo & Articulation

The notes and their timing are only half a performance. The marks layered on top - how loud, how fast, and with what touch - are what turn a correct reading into music. Play the phrase below and switch the marks to hear the same notes come alive in different ways.

Dynamics - how loud

Dynamics mark the volume. The two basics are p (piano, soft) and f (forte, loud); between and beyond them runs a scale - pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff - from very soft to very loud. Gradual changes are drawn as hairpins: an opening wedge is a crescendo (getting louder), a closing one a diminuendo (getting softer). Dynamics are the written instruction; the loudness you actually hear is the wave's amplitude.

Tempo - how fast

Tempo is the speed of the beat. It may be an Italian word - Allegro (fast and lively), Andante (a walking pace), Adagio (slow) - or a precise BPM number. Drag the tempo slider above to feel how much the same phrase changes character with speed alone.

Articulation - how each note is touched

Articulation shapes how a note is attacked and released. Staccato (a dot above or below the head - not after it, which would be an augmentation dot) means short and detached. Legato, shown by a slur arcing over the notes, means smooth and connected. An accent (>) gives a note extra emphasis. A slur looks like a tie but joins notes of different pitch; a tie joins the same pitch into one sound.

That completes reading the page. To put pitch on a firm footing next, the Key Signatures concept shows how a key decides every note's spelling.