Metronome marking
- The speed of the
beat of a piece of music is indicated at the
start of a piece of music, and by convention appears at the top left,
just above the first stave.
- This indication
can be done in explicit terms by saying how many beats per minute and/or
in more subjective terms by using a
direction word or phrase.
- If beats per minute are specified, this is called a metronome marking
and is written in the form "mm x = nn"
where mm stands for metronome, x is a small graphical representation of the
note length which is the
beat
(e.g. crotchet or minim), and nn is the
number of these beats per minute. Sometimes, the "mm" is left out.
- In fact, historically speaking, mm stands for Maelzel's Metronome,
after the man who invented the metronome in the early 1800's.
- So in the example below, each crotchet takes just over one second:
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