g the correct tempo of a composition. These are:

1. The metronome indication, found at the beginning of most
modern scores.

2. The tempo or mood expressions (_andante_, _allegro_,
_adagio_, _et cetera_), which have been in universal use for
two centuries or more, and which are found in practically
all music, even when a metronome indication is also given.

3. The swing and, in vocal music, the general spirit of the
text.

4. Tradition.

5. Individual judgment of tempo as depending upon and
resulting from the "quality" of the music.

Of these, the fifth, _viz._, individual judgment is most important,
and is the court of final resort in the case of the mature musician;
but the amateur who has had but little experience and who is therefore
without any well developed musical taste must depend largely upon his
metronome, upon his knowledge of Italian tempo terms, and upon
tradition. A brief discussion of these matters will accordingly be in
order at this time.

[Sidenote: THE METRONOME AS A TEMPO INDICATOR]

The metronome[13] is a sort of clock with inverted pendulum, the ticks
or clicks or which can be regulated as to rate of speed by means of a
sliding weight. When this weight is set at the point marked 64, for
example, the metronome gives sixty-four clicks per minute; when set
at 84, or 112, corresponding numbers of clicks per minute result; so
that in this way the composer is able to indicate precisely the rate
of speed of his composition by indicating the number of beats per
minute. The indication [quarter-note symbol] = 84 means that the
sliding weight is to be set at the point marked 84, the metronome then
clicking eighty-four times per minute, each of these clicks indicating
a quarter-note. But if the marking is [half-note symbol] = 64, this
means that sixty-four half-notes are to be performed in a minute,--a
tempo equal to one hundred and twenty-eight quarter-notes in the same
composition. In compound measures such as 6-8, 9-8, _et cetera_, the
tempo indication shows the number of eighth-notes per minute if the
composition is in slow tempo; but in moderate and rapid tempos the
direction is usually given by taking the dotted-quarter-note as the
beat unit, thus: [dotted quarter-note symbol] = 84. It is of course
obvious that in this case the composer is thinking of each measure as
having only two or three beats instead of six or nine.

[Footnote 13: