| Term | Description |
|---|
| tacet | silent; do not play |
| tempo | time; i.e., the overall speed of a piece of music |
| tempo di marcia | march tempo |
| tempo di sturb de neighbors | occasionally seen on jazz charts |
| tempo di valse | waltz tempo |
| tempo giusto | in strict time |
| tempo primo, tempo uno, or tempo I (sometimes also written as tempo I°) | resume the original speed |
| teneramente | tenderly |
| tenerezza | tenderness |
| tenor | the second lowest of the standard four voice ranges (bass, tenor, alto, soprano) |
| tenuto | held; i.e., touch on a note slightly longer than usual, but without generally altering the note's value |
| tranquillo | calmly, peacefully |
| tremolo | shaking; i.e., a rapid repetition of the same note, or an alternation between two or more notes. It can also be intended (inaccurately) to mean a rapid and repetitive variation in pitch for the duration of a note (see vibrato). It is notated by a strong diagonal bar across the note stem, or a detached bar for a set of notes (or stemless notes). |
| tre corde or tc | three strings; i.e., release the soft pedal of the piano (see una corda) |
| troppo | too much; usually seen as non troppo, meaning moderately or, when combined with other terms, not too much, such as allegro [ma] non troppo (fast but not too fast) |
| tutti | all; i.e., all together, usually used in an orchestral or choral score when the orchestra or all of the voices come in at the same time, also seen in Baroque-era music where two instruments share the same copy of music, after one instrument has broken off to play a more advanced form: they both play together again at the point marked tutti. See also: ripieno. |
| un, uno, or una | one, as for example in the following entries |
| una corda | one string; i.e., in piano music, depress the soft pedal, altering, and reducing the volume of, the sound. In some pianos, this literally results in the hammer striking one string rather than two or three. (For most notes on modern instruments, in fact it results in striking two rather than three strings.) Its counterpart, tre corde (three strings; see in this list), is the opposite: the soft pedal is to be released. |
| un poco | a little |
| unisono or unis (Fr) | in unison; i.e., several players in a group are to play exactly the same notes within their written part, as opposed to splitting simultaneous notes among themselves. Often used to mark the return from divisi. |
