TIME SIGNATURES:
This is a very important aspect of how to read music as it tells you how many beats there are in the bar (the "metre" of the music, ie. whether you should be counting 2 beats in the bar or 3 or 4 or whatever).
This link explains it very well.
DYNAMICS
Very simple. The loudness of the music.
A dynamic may change very suddenly, when this happens we use the word “subito” which is Italian for suddenly. Eg. subito f (or sub. f) means suddenly loud.
ITALIAN TEMPO/STYLE MARKINGS:
Sometimes you will see marking of tempo given in English (eg. fast or slow). Sometimes you will see a metronome marking (ie. giving the bpm of the music).
Sometimes you will see the tempo of a song given in Italian. Here are some of the more common ones:
These are used to add emphasis to particular notes.
This link gives a fairly good explanation but suggests they are used rather more precisely than they actually are...
TIES/SLURS/PHRASE MARKS
These are the curly lines you will normally see printed/written over two or more notes to join them up. They all look the same; it is the context that will tell you which is which.
A slur / phrase mark is used to connect two or more notes together to indicate that they are to be played or sung smoothly together (perhaps in one bow on a string instrument or in one breath on a wind instrument). It can also be used to indicate that several notes are to be sung to one syllable. Generally, slurs are used to join together two or three notes whereas a phrase mark joins a longer group of notes together.
A tie is used to join two or more notes together so that they sound as one note. eg. a crochet c tied to a crochet c would sound like a minim c. Please note: It is only a tie if it is between two notes at the same pitch. It is used when the two notes are either side of the bar line or when it would be ugly, confusing or impossible to render the combined notes as one note.
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