Mari Berbagi dan Bermusik

Seperti pada istilah dinamo, dinamit, dan dinamika, juga pada istilah “dinamik lagu”
terdapat pengertian kekuatan. Maksudnya pada saat bernyanyi atau memainkan musik,
sebaiknya juga memperhatikan kekuatan setiap nada. Mungkin pada bagian tertentu perlu
dinyanyikan / dimainkan dengan kuat dann pada bagian yang lain dinyanyikan / dimainkan
dengan lebih lembut.

Keras lembutnya lagu disebut dinamik lagu. Dinamik lagu ditentukan oleh beberapa faktor.
Satu di antaranya adalah istilah dinamik. Istilah dinamik ini berupa huruf-huruf singkatan.
Jika berupa gambar disebut sebagai tanda dinamik. Istilah dinamik diambil dari bahasa
Italia [3]. Dan ini berlaku di mana saja.

Pada dasarnya ada dua istilah pokok, yaitu forte yang berarti kuat dan piano yang berarti
lembut. Forte disingkat menjadi f sedangkan piano disingkat menjadi p. Singkatan ini
selalu ditulis dalam huruf kecil. Kemudian mengenai kuat dan lembut ini ada tingkatannya.
Lengkapnya sebagai berikut :

1. f = kuat
ff = lebih kuat daripada f
fff = lebih kuat daripada ff
mf = agak kuat, atau kurang kuat daripada f (singkatan dari mezzo forte)

2. p = lembut
pp = lebih lembut daripada p
ppp = lebih lembut daripada pp 6
mp = agak lembut, atau kurang lembut daripada p (singkatan dari mezzo piano)

3. cresc singkatan dari crescendo = makin lama makin kuat
decresc singkatan dari decrescendo = makin lama makin lembut

Dalam dunia musik kecepatan lagu disebut sebagai tempo. Ada lagu yang bertempo cepat
ada pula yang bertempo lambat atau sedang. Istilah atau kata-kata yang menyatakan
kecepatan lagu (seberapa cepat) disebut sebagai istilah tempo. Pada umumnya istilah
tempo juga diambil dari bahasa Italia. Namun dapat saja dilakukan dengan menggunakan
bahasa Indonesia.

1 Istilah Tempo

Secara umum ada 8 istilah tempo utama yang sering dipakai. Selebihnya merupakan
pengembangan dari istilah tempo ini.

Istilah tempo utama:

Tingkat Kecepatan Istilah Tempo Angka Metronome
A. Lambat sekali • Largo 40 – 60 permenit
• Lento 60 – 66 permenit
B. Lambat • Adagio 66 – 76 permenit

C. Sedang • Andante 76 – 108 permenit
• Moderato 108 – 120 permenit

D. Cepat • Allegro 120 – 160 permenit

E. Cepat sekali • Vivace 160 – 184 permenit
• Presto 184 – 208 permenit


Selanjutnya mengenai tempo lagu sering merupakan kombinasi dari istilah di atas. Misalnya
Allegro Vivace, artinya lebih cepat dari Allegro tapi kurang dari Vivace. Ada pula dengan
menambahkan beberapa istilah lainnya, misalnya :
• con amore >> dengan penuh cinta
• con brio >> dengan hidup
• con fiesto >> dengan meriah
• con espressione >> dengan penuh perasaan
• con dolore >> dengan sedih
• con maestoso >> dengan agung

misalkan paduannya adagio con maestoso. Selain itu juga dapat dengan menambahkan akhiran –etto yang berarti ‘agak’ atau akhiran
–issimo yang berarti ‘sangat’. Jika allegro berarti cepat, maka allegretto berarti agak
cepat dan allegrissimo berarti sangat cepat.

2 Perubahan Tempo

Ada kalanya dalam sebuah lagu dinyanyikan tidak dengan tempo yang sama sepanjang lagu
dari awal sampai akhir, tetapi memiliki tempo yang berubah-ubah. Perubahan ini bisa
dilakukan dengan memakai istilah perubahan tempo. Beberapa istilah yang dipakai adalah :
• ritenuto disingkat rit. ?? diperlambat
• accelerando disingkat accel. ?? dipercepat
• tempo primo atau a tempo ?? kembali ke tempo semula
istilah perubahan ini dituliskan di atas paranada pada bagian yang diubah temponya.

Cara lain yang juga dapat dilakukan bila ada perubahan tempo adalah dengan menuliskan
jumlah angka metronome di atas paranada bagian yang ingin diubah.

Tempo is an Italian word which comes from the Latin tempus which means time.
In order to understand these tempos (some people say tempi for the plural), we’ll refer to the metronome and how many beats per minute each tempo is. To review the metronome, see “The Metronome (or: The Torture Device)” on page 152. Most metronomes have these markings listed somewhere on them.
Here are the most common tempos, from slowest to fastest:





TEMPO NAME BEATS PER MINUTE

Largo 40-60
Larghetto 60-66
Adagio 66-76
Andante 76-108
Moderato 108-120
Allegro 120-168
Presto 168-200
Prestissimo 200-208



Tempo-related Terms

There are other terms that affect the tempo of a piece. They are:
accelerando (accel.) = speed up gradually.
allargando (allarg.) = slow down and grow louder.
ritardando (rit.) = slow down gradually.
rallentando (rall.) = slow down gradually.

Dynamics is another word for how loud or soft to play. The base words to
remember for dynamics are piano (quiet) and forte (loud). All of the
dynamic markings are variations of these two words. You’ll see what I
mean. Often in music, you’ll see an abbreviation of the dynamic, shown
in the following chart in parentheses.

DYNAMIC MARKING MEANING

pianissimo (pp) very quiet
piano (p) quiet
mezzo piano (mp) medium quiet
mezzo forte (mf) medium loud
forte (f) loud
fortissimo (ff) very loud

Grow Gradually
In the Romantic era—around 1800—composers began writing music
which contained sections that would grow gradually louder or softer.
Up until this time, dynamic changes were usually abrupt. This new
technique needed a name. What did they do? They used Italian of
course.
To grow gradually louder is to crescendo (kra-SHEN-doe), and to
grow gradually softer is to decrescendo (DEE-kra-SHEN-doe). Below
are the symbols used to show this








Another term for becoming gradually quieter is diminuendo (dim.).

The second most common clef. The bass clef uses both the head (that bulbous part) and those two dots to indicate which line it names. The bass clef was also once a letter. Which one do you think it was? We’ll go over the details in Chapter 9. The only thing to remember at the moment is that both the head of the bass clef and the dots indicate
the fourth line.


The Bass Clef. The bass clef indicates the fourth line.







Bass clef is used for instruments with a low sound. Some of them are: tuba, cello, double bass, trombone, bassoon, electric bass, and piano.
Because of their large range between high and low, keyboard instruments like piano, organ, and synthesizer use both the treble and bass clefs.

Note names on the bass clef staff.

This is the most common clef. Remember up above when I said each clef has something about it which tells the letter name of a line? Well, with treble clef, it’s the inner loop which circles the second line and gives it a name.
What name, you ask? All in good time. No need to rush. You’ll find
out soon. What letter does the treble clef look like? Take a guess now and see if
you’re right. You’ll find out all these niggling details in the next
chapter.

The treble clef. Notice how the inner loop circles the second line.









Treble clef is used for instruments with a high pitch. Some of them are: piccolo, flute, clarinet, oboe, guitar, violin, French horn, saxophone, trumpet, and piano.

Note names in the treble clef. Notice the letter change from the 3rd note to the 4th note.

C Clefs








The C clef isn’t used much any more, except by viola players and
occasionally trombone and bassoon players.
It’s pretty easy to imagine the symbol looks like the letter C, which is what it used to be. It’s also obvious which line is being indicated. That big arrow pointer in the middle is what tells you which line or space is C.
The C clef is different than other clefs and can be confusing at first because it’s a moveable clef. Depending on which line the clef indicates, the name of the clef is different. Confused? Don’t worry about it. You don’t really need to know much about these clefs, but you should be able to generally identify them and know what they do. In case you already forgot, they’re C clefs. I couldn’t resist, so here are the names of the different C clefs. Feel free to forget them immediately. Except maybe you should remember that the alto clef is used by viola players.

A clef is a symbol used at the beginning of a musical staff to tell the

reader which letter name goes with which line or space. The word clef

didn’t show up until around the middle 1500s. Clef is a French word that

means key, as in, “Hey man, what key are we in?”

In early music, a letter was written at the beginning of the text of a

plainchant (remember monophonic music on page 19?). The letter told

the singer which note to start on.

Around 1000 AD some bright soul thought to draw a line from the letter

all the way across the page. Then Guido di Arezzo added more lines and

we had our staff. Over time, composers made that beginning letter more

and more fancy until it no longer looked like a letter at all. That was

probably when somebody in France in the middle of the 1500s decided to

call them clefs.

There are several different kinds of clefs: C clefs, treble clef, bass clef,

and rhythm clef (also called the percussion clef). We’ll only be learning

the three most common ones: treble clef, bass clef, and the rhythm clef.

Each clef has something which shows the letter name of one line.

Because you now know how letter names are used in music (A through

G, right?), you can figure out what all the other letters are for that staff

once you know the name of one line. I’ll show you how when we look at

each clef in its own chapter.

For now, just remember a clef points to and names one line of the staff.

I’ll show you all the gory details when we go over each clef in its own

chapter.