How to call this melody?

• May 25, 2024 - 17:33

http://yun.complife.info/allegro-A-minor-flute-guitar.mp3
According to BPM (127), it's Allegro A minor. But it does not sound like allegro, does it?

Comments

• May 25, 2024 - 21:36

The guitar is playing half notes rather than quarters. Considered that way, the music runs at 126-130 (measured by a tap counter on my phone).

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• May 26, 2024 - 09:24

The Italian names for tempi are very subjective. "Allegro" is faster than "Moderato" and slower than "Vivace". So how fast does that make it?

In fact, the word "allegro" in Italian has nothing to do with speed at all, it means "joy" or "happy". "Andante" in Italian means "at a walking pace": how fast do you walk? I'm fairly sure that you and I don't walk at the same rate, except by purest chance.

These days "Allegro" is generally interpreted as a tempo in the range of about 115-140. Some people go a little higher or lower at the top of bottom, but that's the range that I use. This piece is at the slower end of that but well within any range of "Allegro" that I've seen. It has some ritardando sections, but those are not considered in describing the tempo of a piece.

I think I would have played the piece a little faster, but not much. That's what makes music art: it is all how one person (or a relatively small group of people) interpret the composer's intentions.

Look here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo#Basic_tempo_markings) and see how the ranges overlap.

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• May 28, 2024 - 15:57

Strange, I did not receive the notifications about the new answers, while the previous one came normally.

I started from this wiki article, and it made me ask my question. Exactly because I thought allegro meant more a vivid style than just a fast tempo, and this piece sounds to me more like adagio (as you said, halves instead of quarters makes it sound twice slower than the actual BPM). And actually that's what I wanted - I did not want it to sound faster. But if the modern use of names is based strictly on BPM, let it be "Allegro A-minor for flute and guitar",

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