Dynamics (music)

With dynamics in music the doctrine of sound volume ( physically: loudness) respectively. A distinction

• Uniform volume levels ( steps),
• Sliding the volume changes ( transitions),
• Abrupt changes in volume (accents ).

The most dynamic instructions are in Italian; Since the 19th century, but also increasingly find information in the language of the composer.

Different Gain controls are executed on the various instruments in different ways: with stringed instruments, the pressure and speed of the bow stroke is changed, winds vary the pressure and the amount of air flow. The dynamics of the plucked and percussion instruments, as determined on the piano, by the hardness of the attack.

In modern notation, the sound volume is listed with cursive letters and signs among the staff. Dynamic names can also be used as a noun: The Forte for example, is a designation for that part of a song, which is sung with great volume, as one can speak of a huge orchestral crescendo.

Uniform volume

The Gain controls most commonly used in Western music are denoted by the following abbreviations Italian (ordered from quiet to loud):

With the letters as mezzo ( "medium", "half" ), the statement is weakened: ( mezzo forte) means " medium loud " and is somewhat quieter than while ( mezzo piano, " medium soft ") and is a little louder.

To increase both the letter and can be doubled ie fortissimo ( " noisy " ) and pianissimo ("very low "). In music until 1800, are the volume extremes originated in Romanticism also ( fortissimo forte, forte fortissimo or fortississimo ) and ( pianissimo piano, piano pianissimo or pianissimo possibile ), rarely more letters were still joined together: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote in his Symphonie Pathétique at the loudest and the quietest front, György Ligeti used partly even eight times piano or forte, but these nuances are hardly feasible.

Moving changes in the volume

The word crescendo ( cresc., " growing " ) prescribes a gradual strengthening of the volume. The opposite of this is the diminuendo ( dim., " reducing " ) or decrescendo ( decresc ), which requires a decreasing noise. Then is often a dynamic label, which indicates the end of the change to be achieved and the dynamics.

Cresc Instead of names. or dim. you can often find so-called forks, open from the quietest to the loudest part, or vice versa close, from the loudest to the quietest. Occasionally for the decreasing noise to silence ( al niente, " to nothing" ) is a closing fork which carries on its top a small circle.

The statement subito ( sub., "suddenly", "immediately" ) requires a sudden, often used as surprising effect of transition from one stage to another: subito piano, for example, means a sudden transition from loud to quiet.

With più (more) and meno ( less) a change from the currently valid dynamic stage is called. più forte means a stronger Forte than previously, means less meno piano piano, that is a little louder. Deviations from this design example, there are at Hugo Distler, the meno piano as less than piano, that is even quieter, would have interpreted.

Abrupt changes in the volume

These abbreviations are combined to further shading of many composers with the three letters for the basic dynamic stages, with names such as, ,, can be formed. In conjunction with the graphic characters for accents, thereby offering numerous possibilities of dynamic prescriptions which often can only be understood with great style knowledge or insight of Autographes for the musician.

In addition, the designation subito can be found in the literature frequently (abbreviated sub.; Italian: immediately) in conjunction with a regular dynamic mark. This allows, for example, with sub. p appear that suddenly piano to play music after previously forte or similar. was given.

History

At the beginning of the Baroque period had the momentum as a musical parameter little weight; it has been largely left to the oral tradition sense of style of the musicians was where to play louder or softer. Dynamic information in the performance material were rare and often referred to deviations from the rules. The earliest examples of the use of dynamic information is the Symphonia Sacrae by Giovanni Gabrieli (1597 ), that of Johann Hermann Schein Israelsbrünnlein ( 1623) or the Musicalisches funeral of Heinrich Schütz ( 1635). The dynamic data were intended to make the whole ensemble music louder or softer. In the late Baroque was then differentiated in more detail, such as when the violas have to play in the second movement of Vivaldi's Spring Concert forte - to represent barking dogs - while the rest of the orchestra and the solo violin piano playing. In Johann Sebastian Bach's works show dynamic information, shall retire at which point a voice behind another or be stressed.

Register change on harpsichord and baroque organ or the change between concertino and tutti Concerto grosso led to seamlessly changing volume and tone, which coined the term terrace dynamics in the early 20th century. This was applied in the following simplistic to all the music of the Baroque. From today's perspective, this is no longer tenable; historical sources show that even baroque singers and instrumentalists - interpreted with dynamic gradations and transitions from conscious articulation of individual sounds to larger arcs.

With the onset of the classical dynamics was given a new meaning. The harpsichord was supplanted by the fortepiano, which - as expressed by his name - was in a position to influence by variation of the attack also the volume. Around the same time formed by the Mannheim school an unprecedented level of precision in orchestral playing out, which made it possible to implement dynamic effects such as pianissimo and fortissimo uniform or the famous "Mannheim crescendo" with the entire orchestra.

When Ludwig van Beethoven, the dynamics obtained finally the rank of an independent musical parameter, valid for the precise game instructions. In his scores he unlisted addition to the basic dynamics of numerous previously or rarely used means of expression regularly used volume extremes and, often get in direct contrast, crescendo of the whole orchestra over many cycles, crescendo from to within a single clock, crescendo followed, decrescendo with followed, accents on the "weak" cycle times, etc.

Romanticism brought an innovation only further increase of extremes (see above).