A scherzo is a piece of music — often one part of a longer work for many instruments — that should feel playful and move at a fast speed. In Italian the word means “joke,” and you can still hear that joke in the music: it bounces; it is not a slow, heavy piece. From Beethoven’s time on, composers often wrote a scherzo in the place where older music had a minuet (a polite dance in three beats). You will meet the word on concert programmes more than in street talk. Though actually, a scherzo is not always “happy” in a simple smiling way; some sound dark, or like a bitter joke. The first idea is still play, not a sad slow song.