Dynamics: how loud and how soft

1Whisper it, then call it

Whisper the word Muraho to the person beside you. Now imagine calling it to a friend on the far side of a football pitch. The word and its notes are the same, but the message is different. Music works the same way: the notes on the page are only half of a performance. The other half is expression: how loud, how smoothly or sharply, and how fast the notes are played. Composers write these instructions as signs and Italian words. This unit teaches you to read them and to perform them.

The first expressive element is dynamics, the loudness of the music.

2The dynamic ladder

Dynamic marks are written in bold italic letters, usually below the staff (above it in songs where the words go below). A mark stays in force until the next mark appears.

3Reading dynamics in a phrase

Hairpins show exactly where a change starts and where it should arrive. In this phrase the music rises with the melody and falls back as the melody comes home:

4Performing dynamics well

• Singers control loudness with breath. A soft passage still needs full breath support, or the pitch sinks and the tone becomes breathy.
• Drummers control it with how high the hand or stick rises and how hard it falls; the tone should stay clear even at pp.
• Keyboard and guitar players control it with the weight and speed of the finger or the strum.
• A choir must agree: one voice at ff in a p passage spoils the whole sound.

Class activity. Sing the scale of C (d r m f s l t d') once at mf. Then sing it again with a crescendo from pp to f on the way up and a diminuendo from f back to pp on the way down. Let one pupil conduct, showing loudness with the size of the beat.