Tempo

:This article is about tempo in music. For tempo in chess, see Tempo (chess).

Rushing and dragging

When performers unintentionally speed up, they are said to rush. The similar term for unintentionally slowing down is drag. Both of these actions are undesirable, although dragging is usually worse, since it tends to suck the energy from a performance. Because of their negative connotation, neither rush nor drag (nor their equivalents in other languages) are often used as tempo indications in scores, Mahler being a notable exception: as part of a tempo indication he used schleppend ("dragging") in the first movement of his 1st symphony, for example.

Related Topics:
Mahler - 1st symphony

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~