I'm learning a little classical tune right now, the style called for is 'grazioso'. So I looked it up, it means 'gracefully'.
Uh... OK... not sure what that means. The guitar is a plucked instrument. Is this a joke designed to make little boys ask questions? Somehow I feel duped.
At any rate when I'm through with it it will be about as graceful as a cow bell.
Ha, ha - I'm working on Fields of Green by Jasper Smith and it says "Peacefully".
So, Gracefully - go for smooth. No thrashing, shredding or fortissimo, ok?
A :-)
"Be good at what you can do" - Fingerbanger"
I have always felt that it is better to do what is beautiful than what is 'right'" - Eliot Fisk
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There are a few categories of performance terms (the next lesson in my standard notation series is going to talk about 'em in detail).
You've got tempo stuff: andante, allegro, and so on, and the tempo changes
You've got dynamic stuff: the F, FF, mp and so on - all Italian abbreviations - and the little symbols for accents, crescendos, etc.
Then you've got the performance stuff, like Grazioso, Agitato, and several dozen others.
Most of the performance terms developed from strings and woodwinds... they have a lot more control over the 'envelope' of a sound than a guitar does. So if you imagine the melody being played by a violin or cello, you can get some clues: it's probably heavy on legato, with one note blending into the next... it might be a dance form, so you can picture the little 'lift' of the dancers as they move to the music, and can shape your dynamics within a measure accordingly... and within larger phrases, you can probably tell where the dynamic level swells and ebbs a bit, and so on.
These terms are meant to be highly subjective. You're the interpreter of the piece - show folks how graceful it is :)
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