FR sans traîner tempo common Support my free tools
How is sans traîner played?
Keep the music moving and on time without making it hurried. The circumflex belongs in traîner. Poulenc’s Eight Nocturnes places Sans traîner beside both Très calme and other independent tempo words, proving that the caution excludes slack, over-lengthened motion rather than prescribing a fast tempo. It is the French counterpart of non trascinare and close in practical aim to nicht schleppen or nicht schleppend, but unlike sans presser it answers dragging rather than pressure or haste. Maintain living inner motion until another direction.
How does sans traîner sound?
The pulse stays alive even when the character is broad.
Sans traîner is the opposite caution: don't linger. CNRTL gives traîner a figurative sense of dragging on too long, and in vocal writing specifically, of over-lengthening syllables or notes. Either way it's a warning against a process, not a designated speed — the French cousin of non trascinare.
In context
CNRTL documents traîner as prolonging an action or drawing out a sound and records a historical musical sense of slowness in execution. Poulenc’s Eight Nocturnes prints the complete wording as the first nocturne’s title and again in Très calme mais sans traîner; calmness can therefore coexist with the instruction. The result preserves the baseline: the pulse stays alive even when the character is broad. No stable general abbreviation was established, so sans traîner and its circumflex remain written out.
Equivalent terms
- IT non trascinare
- DE nicht schleppend
- EN without dragging