All About Sheet Music - Musical Expression

Music comes in various genres such as classical, jazz, pop, and rock. Which genre do you like the most?
Recently, I’ve been listening to songs by Mrs. Green Apple and TWICE, but my specialty in performance is classical music. While I’ve started exploring different genres, I’ve realized once again how truly delicate classical music is.
In my previous blog post, I wrote about how to read musical notes. This time, I’ll be sharing the basics of ‘expression’ in music!

Sheet music includes not just notes but also tempo markings, dynamics, and expressive signs.
Let’s take a look at the sheet music for Chopin’s Nocturne Op.9-1 as an example.

I marked each element with a different color for clarity. Let’s go through them one by one!

Tempo Markings (Orange)

Largo means broadly and slowly. Since it’s hard to convey speed with just words, let’s listen to a performance to understand better.

How was it?
When I listen to this piece, I feel not just a relaxed pace, but as if the waves are spreading with the wind on a quiet night, rocking me along. The ‘broad’ meaning of Larghetto becomes very important here.

Dynamics (Green)

Meaning: Softly

Meaning: Loudly

Meaning: Gradually increasing (louder)

Meaning: Gradually decreasing (softer)

Meaning: Strongly accent the note

These are the dynamics found in the beginning part of the piece. You might have learned forte and piano in school. As you can see, crescendos and decrescendos are frequently written even within just one page. The ebb and flow of the waves I mentioned earlier can be felt not just through the tempo but also through these dynamics.
For those who have just started playing the piano, expressing the music might seem difficult, but you can begin by broadening your dynamic range!

Expressive Markings (Blue)

The expressive markings introduced here are just a few among countless others. Adding these five expressions to the dynamics previously mentioned can greatly enhance your performance skills! For example, see the section circled in red below. ↓

While moving towards forte (loudly) with a crescendo (gradually getting louder), incorporating ‘passionate’ emotions can elevate your performance to a deeper, more profound level.

I’ve introduced three categories of musical symbols here. How did you find it? I believe these detailed notations are unique to classical music. I hope this conveyed a bit of the depth of classical music to you.