also called alla breve. Other rhythms not so common are 64, 84, 14, 28, 12, 62, 32, 42, 316, and less often 11, 54, 58 and 516, etc.
On the first pulse of all kinds of rhythm is a primary accent called thesis. Secondary accents, called arsis, occur in 44 on the third count and in 68 on the fourth count. These natural accents give a "swing" to the music. They can only be displaced or overshadowed by artificial accents which are designated in various ways. The most common artificial accents are the forzando (designated thus: >, ^, or fz), meaning a sudden strong accent to the note or chord over or under which it is placed; the rinforzando (which is not quite so marked as the forzando); the staccato (designated by a dot placed over or under the note or chord) which makes the note thus indicated short and crisp, and the syncopation, which is a form of rhythm displacing the natural accent by the note's entrance on an unaccented part of the measure and its sustentation through the pulse.
The rapidity of the occurrence of pulses is called tempo, which is indicated at the beginning of a movement by Italian words usually, the most common of which are as follows:—
Grave, slow and solemn (the slowest tempo).
Largo, slow, a trifle faster than Grave.
Larghetto, a trifle faster than Largo.
Adagio, a trifle faster than Larghetto.
Lento, slow.
Andante, moderately slow.