Tempo: rit, accel, fermata and pickup

▶ Open in Aratu to hear the examples, change them and do the exercises

Tempo changes

The tempo can change at a bar marked with at bar:

tempo: 100
at bar 3: rit to 60 over 2 bars
hh = c c c c

rit to 60 over 2 bars is a ritardando to 60 over two bars (rall works too). The opposite is accel to 140 over 4 bars. a tempo goes back to the tempo before the rit, and tempo primo back to the piece's first tempo.

During a ritardando the tempo changes evenly, beat by beat, as a score reads, and every note lands at its exact moment.

A new tempo all at once, at one bar: at bar 9: tempo 130. And a ramp between any two tempos, right from the start:

tempo 90 -> 140 over 8 bars
hh = cc cc cc cc
bd = b - b -

The length can be in beats too: rit to 60 over 6 beats.

Fermata

^ after a note is a fermata: the note lasts twice as long, and every part waits for it. With a number, it lasts that many times as long: g4^3 lasts three times as long.

tempo: 90
melody = | c4 e g c5^ | g4 _ _ _ |
hh = c c c c

Pickup

Many tunes start before the first beat. pickup: beat 4 says the piece starts on beat 4 of an incomplete bar:

tempo: 100
pickup: beat 4
melody = | g3 | c4 _ e _ | g _ _ _ |
bd = | b - b - |

The pickup is bar 0, so bar 1 is the first full bar, as musicians number them. A line whose first bar is as long as the pickup starts in it; the others start at bar 1.

Exercises

The exercises in this lesson also check when each note arrives.

Put a fermata on the last note of the first bar.

melody = | c4 d e f | g _ _ _ |

melody = | c4 d e f^ | g _ _ _ |

Make this tune start with the pickup g3 on beat 4.

melody = | c4 _ e _ | g _ _ _ |

pickup: beat 4
melody = | g3 | c4 _ e _ | g _ _ _ |

Make a ritardando to 60, over two bars, starting at bar 2.

tempo: 100
hh = c c c c

tempo: 100
hh = c c c c
at bar 2: rit to 60 over 2 bars

Now a fermata three times as long on the final G.

melody = | c4 e g4^ - |

melody = | c4 e g4^3 - |