How do duration and tempo work?

Duration is the length of time each note is played for.

You can have notes that are long or short in duration.

When you combine notes of different durations, you can create a rhythm.

Listen carefully to this opening of Beethoven's 5th Symphony:

You can change the duration of a note in different ways, depending on the instrument you are playing.

To play a long note on a wind or brass instrument, you have to keep blowing into it.

On a piano, the duration of a note depends on how long you press down the key.

In music notation, there are symbols that tell us the duration of the notes.

Each symbol tells us to play a note for a different duration - by learning these symbols, we know how long to play the note for.

The tempo is the speed of the music. It is how fast or slow the pulse is.

It's measured in beats per minute (BPM).

• 60BPM is one beat per second.
• 120BPM is two beats per second.

Different styles of music often have different tempos.

Ballads often use a slow tempo. Dance music has a faster tempo that might make you want to get up and move.

You will often see Italian or German words used to describe tempo.

The tempo of the music can be fast (allegro) or slow (adagio) or anything in between.

Composers sometimes like to change the tempo in a piece of music. It helps them change the feel of the music.

• If music gets faster this is called accelerando.
• If it gets gradually slower it is called ritardando.

Watch Lightning Jelly learn more about duration and tempo from Beethoven.

See if you can spot some of the words used to describe tempo.