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But; joins a direction with its qualification in French.
Joins a direction to a qualification that limits it, usually after a comma — Assez doux, mais d’une sonorité large; léger mais sans sécheresse; soutenu, mais ardent. Both parts apply together for the same span: the main word sets the manner, the mais clause tells the player what not to lose.
The French ma. A mais clause anticipates a misreading: Debussy’s léger mais sans sécheresse expects a pianist to make “light” dry and forbids it. Use it when a single word would push the performer too far in one direction, and put the main instruction first. If the second word cancels the first rather than tempering it, the direction is contradictory and a more exact word is needed.
Debussy, Trois Chansons de Bilitis, “La flûte de Pan”, piano, m. 22: “Léger mais sans sécheresse”, in the same bar as the voice’s “Plus lent”.
Mais is one of 1755 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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