più

Più (pronounced "pyoo") modifies other musical terms to indicate an increase. "Più mosso" means "more motion" (faster), "più forte" means "more loud" (louder), and "più piano" means "more soft" (softer). Like its counterpart meno, più provides a relative adjustment rather than an absolute instruction, allowing performers to interpret the degree of change based on musical context. The term is particularly common in passages where the music needs to gradually intensify or where a composer wants a noticeable but not dramatic shift in character. Più mosso is one of the most frequently encountered uses, providing an alternative to a full tempo change marking. In many Romantic-era scores, alternating più mosso and meno mosso markings create the flexible, breathing tempo that characterizes the style, replacing the stricter tempo discipline of Classical-era performance.