Okay Scott, here's a brief summary of some of the musical commands that may or may not be interesting to you. Probably, you'll just find it a case of TMI, but here goes:
In musical terminology, for some reason everyone uses the Italian terms to describe dynamics, especially in piano music. Piano is the Italian word for soft, and it is abbreviated as p on a musical score. Pianissimo, or most soft(ly) is abbreviated as pp; but composers frequently also direct ppp, or pppp, which means almost imperceptibly soft. On the piano we also get the command "una corda" which is the direction to use the soft pedal which actually shifts the whole piano action so that only one string is struck by the hammers. This is clearly a hangover from the harpsichord which had to rely on pedal work to give soft dynamics. Similarly, forte means loud, it is abbreviated f, and fortissimo (most loud) is abbreviated ff, fff, ffff respectively. Btw, there is also mf, which is mezzo forte, or loud but not very loud. Another direction is sf, which is the abbreviation for sforzando, which means suddenly loud, or a sudden stress to demarcate a note or bar phrase of music from the passage it occurs in, not to be confused with fz, or forzando which is practically the same thing (forced). Other terms that you might need to know if you read some of the music criticism here and at other forums is the term crescendo, which means to gradually increase in loudness, diminuendo which means to gradually get softer (also sometimes referred to as decrescendo).
Then there are also the directions which refers generally to the dynamics as "dolce" which means literally, "sweet(ly)" and means that the piece is to be played in a sweetly soft, or dulcet manner; or cantabile, or as if singing; or even or "scherzando" which means playfully. Those are the hardest type of commands to figure out, because they characterize the mood of the music, and involve all of the skills of musicianship at once.
Italian is also used for general tempo markings such as allegro (fast or lively), allegretto, allegro ma non troppo (allegro, but not too much!), largo, lento, andante (walking tempo), presto, etc. When a composer really wanted to be specific, he put down metronome markings as well but frequently the only note one finds on the score is the Italian direction which leaves a lot of room for the musician to play around. Other tempo marks are "ritard" for ritardando, which means slower in a particular measure, allargando or gradually slower and more majestic, or "acc" for accelerando which means gradually faster. I won't even begin to describe rubato, which means robbed. That means that one note, or even a rest (a mark which denotes silence) in a measure will be prolonged at the expense of the other notes in the measure. I was always happy to see the dot and tie, because then I didn't have to start worrying just how long to rob another note.
There is also a third type of command which actually combines tempo and dynamics, so that you find an "Andante Cantabile" command too, which means literally walking singing, which is usually interpreted as the tempo at which you can walk and sing comfortably. Obviously that will vary from individual to individual.
Well, I hoped this was helpful but if you are still confused, there is a
website that has a dictionary of the terms.
