Hey guys,
I'm writing a tune for Xylophone Solo and Band and am starting out with a few cadenzas. What would be the correct terminology to put on the score if I wanted the end of the cadenza to be ";as fast as you can";? Presto? Prestissimo? Vivo? I usually see those markings as styles of entire sections, I would just want it to be on the same level of ";crescendo poco a poco"; or ";molto rubato"; type stuff. Any help? Is there maybe a site that would have this stuff, or maybe a book ya'll would recommend?

Thanks!

http://www.dolmetsch.com/

That is a great resource for everything music: theory, terminology, history in some cases, among other things.  There's a search feature on the right on the menu bar, so you could try using that.  I tried searching for ";as fast as possible"; and all of the presto superlatives seemed to fit the bill:

[b][i]prestissimamente[/i][/b]: (Italian) very quickly, with the utmost rapidity, as fast as possible.

Thanks for the site man, that's gonna help a lot. Have some karma for your toubles:)

Prestissimamente... hmmm... I better practice pronouncing that before I use it:)

Is it a piece for percussion?  Just put forte in... doesn't that mean as loud and fast as possible?

:p

Very good site Bryan.  I went there prestissimamente.  ;)  I lot of of good info there.

[quote]Is it a piece for percussion?  Just put forte in... doesn't that mean as loud and fast as possible?[/quote]

Nice one lol... but yea its a really good site, gonna come in handy in Music Lit. class when she starts spouting off words and I am just like... uhhh what was that?

Italian is nice, but I kind of dig Maslanka's approach to directions.  He just writes it all in English.  It was kind of amusing playing Morning Star and seeing directions like ";slow down a lot";  and ";suddenly in tempo"; instead of ";molto rit."; and ";a tempo";.  It's so simple and novel, I wonder why more composers don't do it.  I guess we just like us our classical terms too much. :)

[quote] Italian is nice, but I kind of dig Maslanka's approach to directions.  He just writes it all in English.  It was kind of amusing playing Morning Star and seeing directions like ";slow down a lot";  and ";suddenly in tempo"; instead of ";molto rit."; and ";a tempo";.  It's so simple and novel, I wonder why more composers don't do it.  I guess we just like us our classical terms too much. Smiley
[/quote]

Probably because of the same reason many snare players are die-hard trad players :)  It's part of the tradition and it looks cool.

Hoping not to incite a matched vs trad ";flamewar";,
-Charlie

P.S. Double trad FTW! <just kidding>