Ritardando
Gradually getting slower — often abbreviated rit.
Related
Ritardando (rit. or ritard.) means gradually getting slower. It often appears at the end of a phrase, the close of a section or before the final cadence, letting the music "land".
It is close to rallentando, and many scores use them interchangeably; the nuance is that rallentando can stress "broadening" while ritardando stresses "slowing". The usual mistake is to let a ritardando become a stop — it still has direction, each step wider than the last; slow it until the pulse disappears and the music dies.
Read deeper → Tempo
Sources
- ritardando 的速度含义与记谱，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Tempo and tempo marks"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.