Dynamics tell us how loud or quiet to play. Some of the first composers to use dynamic instructions were Italians in the late 1500s, so we use Italian words for these instructions to this day!
- Quiet = piano (abbreviated as p)
- Medium Quiet = mezzo piano (abbreviated as mp)
- Medium Loud = mezzo forte (abbreviated as mf)
- Loud = forte (abbreviated as f)
- In the Italian language “-issimo” is a suffix that means “very” — so pianissimo (abbreviated pp) is very quiet and fortissimo (abbreviated ff) is very loud!
The word crescendo (cresc.) tells us to gradually get louder, while diminuendo (dim.) or decrescendo (decresc.) tells us to gradually get quieter. We can also use symbols called hairpins to tell us exactly how long to gradually change our volume: < tells us to crescendo, while > tells us to diminuendo.
