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A, an; one. Inside a direction it introduces a comparison ("wie ein Kondukt", like a funeral procession) or a degree ("ein wenig", a little).
A small word inside a longer German direction — wie ein Kondukt, ein wenig zurückhaltend — never a direction on its own. It is inflected to fit the phrase (eine, einem, einen, einer); read it with the words around it, which carry the instruction.
Also spelled: eine, einem, einen, einer
German directions are sentences, and the article is part of the grammar: ein wenig is the German poco, and wie ein … introduces an image the player is asked to evoke. A comparison built this way names a character, not a tempo, so pair it with a tempo word when the speed matters.
Ein is one of 1760 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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