Dynamic Affairs

With a little understanding of dynamics and how they work, you can use their de-fault to your advantage.

Everyone knows that p means soft and f means loud, but there is a little more to itthan that. Many people these days might relate dynamics to a MIDI controllervalue. pp is 10, p 30, mp 50, mf 75, f 100, ff 120 or something like that. But as we arewriting for humans, dynamics are subjective and forte is not the same volume inevery case. What I have found useful is to think of dynamics not in terms of volume,but confidence and type of attack.

A pianissmo dynamic will get you a mushy attack, and so will piano and mezzo piano. It is not until you get to mezzo forte where the attacks firm up. One day mezzo pianomight be the same volume as mezzo forte; it depends on what is going on around it,but you still get the mushy attack. Keep in mind I am talking about the orchestra hereas a whole, obviously a Harp can not play a mushy attack.

At dynamics pianissimo to mezzo piano you will also get a tapering effect. The effect ofthe mushy attack is a slight crescendo at the start of a phrase. Players also do littlediminuendos at the end, giving a natural breath to the music. This is especially evi-dent in the string section.

I have found that mezzo piano is the most ambiguous dynamic. If you are not surehow soft a passage should be, write mp and the band will sort it out. It is like saying‘proceed with caution.’ If I could reprogram the orchestra I would change mp so thatit had a firmer attack. I wish mezzo piano meant ‘soft with a firm attack,’ but alas, thatis not what happens. One trick to get this is to put a tenuto on the starting note. Thiswill get you a more assertive attack. The strings will use a down-bow and/or applymore pressure. As well as meaning to play full duration, a tenuto articulation meansto play broadly. In doing that, the attack is firmed up. This is good for all string,woodwind, and brass sections. For percussion, harp, and keyboards, it is redundant;however, some would argue it has a psychological effect.

The first ‘confident’ dynamic is mezzo forte. Attacks firm up (but are still not accented)and there is less automatic phrasing. I think of mezzo forte as a full sound, but notpowerful. One still needs to watch out for notes at the end of a phrases. The players,especially strings, will still pull back a little on the last note unless you force them notto. It sounds natural, as it is the way the traditional orchestra phrases, but often infilm music we need a hold to the bar line, so I find I have to say senza dim. to cancelthe default.

Full confidence happens at forte. Everyone starts together with a solid attack andthere is less natural tapering to phrases.

Finally, fortissimo is all out and assertive attacks. People tend to use a lot of accents aswell at fortissimo. I save the accents for when I really want one; remember the defini-tion of an accent is that it is louder than the notes around it. If you really do wantthem to go all out, feel free to use accents on every note but know that once you havedone that you can’t get much more out of the players. If you want big attacks, mark itmarc. and save the accents.

The ExtremesIn my work the softest dynamic I use is pp and the loudest is ff. I have found thatthere is no difference in writing ff or fff and in the last ten years when it has been upto me I have never used fff. I have orchestrated the two loudest scores ever, God ofWar 2 and God of War 3, and I made it without going above ff. In the absence of fff,players know that ff means to really go for it. I will sometimes put a little crescendoon the last bar even if we are already at ff, just to get that last push out of them, but Istill never put fff at the end of it; it is pretty much implied. So what makes somethingsound fff? Orchestration. Once everyone is playing ff, as loud as they can, it is howyou orchestrate that pushes the sound to the next level. You make sure everyone isplaying in their most powerful range and use percussion to build the volume even

more.

At the other end, I do not use ppp on my own projects. The only time I use ppp and fffis when I am not lead orchestrator and I know the lead uses it; I will be consistentwith the lead’s dynamic use. There is nothing wrong with using these more extremedynamics, but I have found in the absence of ppp or fff, pp and ff adapt to mean supersoft and very loud, especially if orchestrated properly. I think of niente as an effect,not so much a dynamic.

ContextAs I mentioned earlier, mp could be the same as mf on a different day. As we are deal-ing with humans, they listen and work out where things should be; it is one of thoseamazing ‘pack’ things an orchestra can do. So too f can be different. When we arerecording an aggressive game score f will be louder and harsher than f in a romanticcomedy score. You don’t need to say anything. I have never added a lot of descrip-tions like ‘aggressively’ or ‘ forcefully.’ Standard notation and good orchestration canmake it happen; no description is needed.

If the above confuses you, perhaps this will help, or maybe not!

Using Dynamics to BalanceA common way to balance an ensemble for a particular sound or color is to give dif-ferent dynamics to different sections. But there is more at play with this than just thevolumes. In fact, as no player knows what other players have as their dynamic, theytend to blend the volume. So then why and how does this work? The dynamic im-plies a type of attack and a confidence level. By mixing the dynamics you are givingimportance, not just volume, to different lines.

The best way to bring out an important line is to mark it ‘soli’ or say ‘bring out;” thatway you can employ the correct dynamic for the attack you want.

One thing I have noticed is that the larger the orchestra, the more evening out thatwill happen. With a small orchestra you do have to think a little more about your dy-namics.

An example of using different dynamics is in a romantic tutti. Strings are playing abig tune in octaves and trombones are providing harmonic pad. If you mark thestrings f and the trombones mf or mp, perhaps with swells, you get that classic blend;the trombones will not stick out and their attacks and transitions will be legato. If yougive them f, the attacks will be stronger and they will stick out. They will go frombackground to foreground. All we want from them in this situation is to provide a

harmonic pad.

Articulation Dynamicssfz, sf, fz… So many variations, but what do they mean? Honestly, books are prettyconfusing on the subject, with all sorts of pictures and explanations. All I can do istell you what happens when you use them in the real world. They all produce an ac-cented attack. I also do not see much reason for using sffz; technically it should belouder than sfz, but I just use sfz and have always gotten what I wanted, even if thescore is already at ff. The players are not computers. They don’t think ‘this now hasonly one f so I have to play less,’ they just see that the note needs a bigger attack. Itend to leave accents off a note that has sfz (and sfp etc) on it, as sfz already means toaccent. In general you will get a bigger accent for sfz than with a > symbol; however,using both does not make it any different. Like all dynamics, it is contextual.

Both fp and sfp mean to hit the note and drop back. Usually they are followed by acrescendo. If you ever do use these and do NOT want the players to crescendo, it is agood idea to mark it ‘no cresc,’ or some players will assume you just forgot to put itin. This is a place where I have to go against all my theories of restraint and intention-ally over-notate.

Useful Dynamicssfp is great in brass, however sometimes it can be too much to drop all the way downto p. In cases where you need to maintain a certain volume floor (and that seems to bemore and more these days), I have found sfmf gets me a nice accent with a slight dropin sound. You will hear it happen, but it does not feel like the brass have dropped outfor a second. Be a little more mindful when using these in strings as it is much harderto get a tight performance of it. The accent is often longer than it is in the brass, whichis especially noticeable when strings are performing tremolo. The accent requires alot of momentum and it is hard to then lose that in order to drop back to p. I often justgive the strings an accent and leave the sfp to just the brass. This is another way tomaintain some sound immediately after the attack, and you get a nice push from thebrass as they come back. I have found that as samples do not play sfp too well, com-posers and directors are not as used to hearing the dramatic drop in sound. This iswhere sfmf comes in handy. fmf is also quite useful, it produces a nice round attackwith a slight drop off, but in most cases the results are the same as mf with an accent.

PlacementI often see dynamics placed before notes. Thisis incorrect. The dynamic goes right under ora hair left of center of the note it refers to.

Sometimes you need to move them around a bit in the score to avoid a collision, butin the part they must be under the note.

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