Tempo
Tempo means the speed at which a piece of music should be played.
As with many other musical terms, Italian words are used to describe different tempos of music.
Adagio- a slow tempo (other words for slow are lento and largo)
Andante - performed at a walking pace
Moderato - played at a medium tempo
Allegro - a quick and lively tempo (another common word for fast is vivace)
The tempo is written above the first bar on a piece of sheet music.
Sometimes a metronome mark is used with the beats per minute (BPM) written down.
Writing the term for the tempo and the BPM gives the musician reading the music a very clear idea of how it should be played.
The image above shows the BPM (in this case 90 BPM) as well as the term andante which describes the tempo.