# Andante (Italian, "walking")

Source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/andante

**Andante is a tempo marking meaning a moderate walking pace, conventionally around 76 to 108 beats per minute, between the slow adagio and the moderate moderato.**

The walking image is the useful part: an andante moves. It is not a slow movement in the sense of stillness, and playing it too slowly, a common student instinct with a lyrical melody, drains the line of direction.

Andantino is ambiguous by tradition. Logically the diminutive should mean slightly slower, but most composers have used it to mean slightly faster, and Beethoven complained about the confusion in writing. Where it matters, look at the note values and the character.

Andante con moto asks for the walk with more motion still, and andante sostenuto for a sustained, broader version of the same pace.

Canonical source: https://arcosounds.com/glossary/andante