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In music, asolo (Italian for 'alone') is apiece or asection of a piece played or sung featuring a single performer, who may be performing completely alone or supported by an accompanying instrument such as a piano ororgan, acontinuo group (inBaroque music), or the rest of a choir, orchestra, band, or other ensemble. Performing a solo is "to solo", and the performer is known as asoloist.
The plural issoli or theanglicised formsolos. In some contexts these are interchangeable, butsoli tends to be restricted to classical music, and mostly either the solo performers or the solopassages in a single piece. Furthermore, the wordsoli can be used to refer to a small number of simultaneous parts assigned to single players in an orchestral composition. In the Baroqueconcerto grosso, the term for such a group of soloists wasconcertino.
An instrumental solo is often used in popular music during abreak orbridge to add interest and variety to a part of the song without lyrics.[citation needed]
In theBaroque andClassical periods, the wordsolo was virtually equivalent tosonata, and could refer either to a piece for one melody instrument with (continuo) accompaniment, or to a sonata for an unaccompanied melody instrument, such asJohann Sebastian Bach'ssonatas for violin alone.[1]
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