Tempo

The beat is a pulse that underlies much of the music we hear, and meter is how those beats are organized, however there is one final element we should cover with respect to rhythmic music: tempo - how fast the music should be played. There are two primary ways to set the tempo of a piece:

• Tempo Marking: General terms (typically written in Italian) that deal with the speed (and sometimes the mood) of the piece
• Metronome Marking: A more modern invention (still really old though...) that gives a specific indication of the speed using beats per minute