Expressive Gems: Tempo Alterations

In “Expressly YOU”, we focussed on the foundational role of good technical skills in developing musical artistry. In this series, Expressive Gems, we will exam various expressive techniques that pianists can employ to help convey emotions, scenes and ideas to our audience. 

Our first expressive gem is tempo alterations, symbolized by the Garnet! — a brilliant stone that comes in variety of rich colours such as green, yellow, orange and red. Kind of like our traffic lights! 

Tempo alterations within a piece of music can be powerful expressive tools! For example, acceleration can heighten tension and suspense, while slowing down can be calming, reflective or extend an emotional passage. Let’s examine three of the most common tempo alteration directions encountered at the elementary levels. 

1) Ritardando (rit. or ritard.), Italian for to be late, delay, retard , in music means, gradually getting slower.

Think of ritardando as how you would approach a stop sign when you’re driving. You don’t slam on your breaks when you get there. You see the stop sign ahead and gradually slow the vehicle, only fully depressing the break when you arrive at the stop sign. 

Ritardando is similar. The ritardando direction, supplied by the composer, is when you start to apply the brakes. The stop sign is where the ritardando ends — usually at the end of a piece, section or phrase. And unless it’s at the end of the piece, it will be followed by another tempo direction such as a tempo (return to the previous tempo) or tempo primo (return to the original tempo). As a performer, you see the ritardando sign, look ahead to where it ends and begin to appropriately and gradually decrease the tempo until you arrive at the stop.

2) Fermata symbol, from Italian, fermare, to hold, in music means, hold the note longer than its value..

A fermata is similar to ritardando, only it is the stop sign, and once you get to it, you linger longer. With ritardando, you arrive at the stop sign, but get going soon after. Just like when you’re driving — you look around, make sure it’s safe to go, and proceed. But with a fermata, it’s like arriving at the stop sign and lingering there while the cars behind you get backed up! How long you linger there is up to you, the performer, although if the composer intended an extended pause, the fermata would likely be accompanied by lunga, signalling a long pause. In fact, there are variations on the fermata symbol itself, though not usually encountered at the elementary level, that indicate a longer or shorter pause.

A fermata also differs in that, being the stop sign itself, there’s no indication as to when to begin slowing down, but it generally requires a shorter approach, slowing only the last few notes before stopping, whereas the approach of a ritardando can last several measures.

Think of the song, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and how everyone stretches the last few words and loves to linger as long as possible on the “low” of the final and climatic “fel-low”! That’s because there’s a fermata over the note! It wouldn’t make musical sense to slam on the breaks and suddenly hold the one note. The brief slowing down (ritard) prepares the listener for the pause that’s to follow. Try singing it without a ritard towards the fermata. It doesn’t work very well, musically speaking!

Like many musical directions, the application of the fermata has evolved over time. Scholars have pondered exactly how J.S. Bach employed the fermata in his chorales, whereas Beethoven was very clear how fermatas in his scores should always be approached — with a ritard.

3) Ritenuto (riten.), Italian for held back, in music means, an immediate reduction in speed.

Ritenuto, on the other hand, is more like slamming on the brakes, only, typically, it doesn’t continue slowing down or come to a stop. It’s an immediate reduction in tempo to a new sustained speed until the direction to return to the previous or another tempo is indicated. Think of driving at 50 km/hour but suddenly realizing you’re in a 30 km school zone! You apply sudden firm pressure to the breaks to quickly adjust to the new speed. Once you’re out of the zone, you return to the previous speed or whatever speed is indicated. This is similar to ritenuto, only the composer doesn’t indicate the exact speed to drop down to! It’s up to the performer to determine an appropriate tempo in response to what is happening in the musical setting surrounding the ritenuto. 

There are plenty of other tempo alterations, some referring to increases in tempo, such as accelerando, which as it sounds, means to accelerate, to gradually speed up (it takes time to go from zero to 60 in a vehicle!), and stringendo, which means to gradually speed up and build intensity. And then there’s rallentando, which, though seemingly synonymous with ritardando, is shrouded in mystery as to whether there’s any measurable difference between the two!

The most important factor in all of these tempo change directions, is you, the performer! Unless the composer is sitting right beside you instructing meticulously, you determine how to execute these tempo changes in a fitting, seamless and artistically appropriate and convincing way. Sometimes tempo alterations will be accompanied by modifiers such as poco, (Italian for a little or a few) as in poco ritardando, or molto, (Italian for very, much, a lot), as in molto ritardando, but even these are subject to interpretation, and in the absence of a conductor, no two performers are going to execute tempo alterations identically! That’s the beauty of it! 

Learning to apply these simple tempo changes in a variety of musical contexts is an important aspect of developing one’s own artistic voice and helps prepare for more advanced tempo altering techniques, such as rubato, a very precious expressive gem, which we will look at next time!