Tempo Markings

Poco a Poco

Pronounced POH-koh ah POH-koh

Definition

Poco a poco means 'little by little'. Attached to cresc., dim., accel. or rit., it asks for a change spread gradually over a longer passage rather than happening quickly.

Poco a poco means "little by little". It turns a change into a long, gradual process: poco a poco cresc. grows louder over several bars, poco a poco accel. speeds up so gently that each bar is only slightly faster than the one before.

Two four-bar treble-clef melodies in 4/4 in quarter notes. The first starts piano with the words poco a poco cresc. below the staff and ends on a whole-note C marked forte. The second has poco a poco accel. above bar 1 and ends on a half-note C and a half rest. — Two original four-bar lines. In the first, *poco a poco cresc.* grows from p to f over four bars. In the second, *poco a poco accel.* speeds up a few beats per minute at a time, from ♩ = 80 to about ♩ = 128.

Where you see it

poco a poco cresc.: a long build, often toward a climax several bars away.
poco a poco dim.: a long fading away (see decrescendo).
poco a poco accel. and poco a poco rit.: gradual tempo changes over a longer span than a plain accel. or rit.
poco a poco animato: becoming more animated bit by bit (see animato).

Composers use the words instead of a hairpin when the change lasts too long for a hairpin to be practical, or when they want to stress that it must not happen too soon.

Not the same as poco

Poco on its own means "a little", a small change. Poco a poco says nothing about the size of the change, only its speed: it can end up very loud or very fast. The trap is to spend the whole change in the first bar. Plan the passage: decide where it starts, where it ends and where the midpoint is, and spread the change evenly between them.

Build the dynamic steps with the Dynamic Ladder handout, practice gradual tempo changes in Ritardando & Accelerando, and try both kinds of change in Dynamics & Tempo Ladders.

Common questions

What does poco a poco cresc. mean?

Get louder little by little: a gradual crescendo spread over the whole passage, not a sudden or early one.