Dynamics: How to create lots of colour in music

Why Dynamics Are the Most Powerful Tool in a Musician’s Hands

Have you ever sat in a concert hall and felt a piece of music physically move you — not because of the melody alone, but because of a sudden hush, or an explosive fortissimo that made your heart leap? That wasn’t an accident. That was a musician who truly understood dynamics.

Music, at its finest, does exactly the same thing. And the tool that makes that breathing possible? Dynamics.

Dynamics — the collective term for how loudly or softly we play — are one of five categories of performance direction a composer uses. Yet in my years of teaching, they are consistently the most overlooked element.

Students spend hours drilling notes and rhythms, then treat dynamics as something to sprinkle on at the end, like a garnish. And I completely understand why.

“Dynamics are like an artist’s paint palette. By mixing paints, you can achieve an almost infinite array of shades. Dynamics in music work in exactly the same way.”

When you’re concentrating on the notes, it feels like quite enough to manage. But here’s the thing: a piece played with perfect pitching and no dynamic life can leave an audience entirely cold. Dynamics are not the garnish. They are the meal.

The Relative Nature of Loud and Soft

One of the first things I always explain to students is this: there is no universal, fixed volume that defines forte or piano. They are entirely relative to each other — and to the other dynamic markings that exist within the same piece. This is a genuinely liberating idea once you sit with it.

Imagine a piece that travels only from pp up to mf. In that context, your mf needs to feel genuinely loud — because it is the loudest thing in the room. Meanwhile, think about Tchaikovsky, who famously used four and five consecutive p markings in certain passages. Is five ps even physically achievable?

The point is not to chase an impossible standard of silence — it’s to create so many shades of soft that the listener is drawn into a kind of spell. The loudest marking in that passage is still only piano, so your job is to make that piano noticeable.

What I’ve noticed time and again is this: when I ask students whether they’ve practised their dynamics and they say yes with confidence — and then I listen — it often sounds as though they’ve been playing at one consistent level throughout.

They genuinely believe they’re making a contrast. And in their heads, they probably are. But sound dies as it travels. You are right on top of it when you play. The person across the room hears something quite different. Which leads me to the single most transformative practice habit I can recommend.

Record Yourself. It Will Astonish You.

Before you do anything else — press record. It doesn’t need to be a professional setup; your phone is absolutely fine. Play a piece you know well, and really try to communicate every dynamic marking with intention.
Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Dynamics are easily lost in recordings. They need to be bigger, more committed, more courageous than we think.

One of my students, working on Tchaikovsky’s Chanson Triste, was convinced her dynamic range was rich and varied. When we listened back together, she was going from mezzo-piano to barely mezzo-forte.

The piece, which should unfurl like a melancholy love song, had something of a march about it. There was also the question of tonal quality — even her soft playing had a certain stridency that needed softening. The recording was not cruel; it was a gift. It showed her exactly where to focus. And she couldn’t un-hear it.

When Dynamics Change Everything: Haydn’s Famous Surprise

If you want a perfect illustration of what dynamics can do to a piece of music — and to an audience — look no further than the second movement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 94 in G major, nicknamed The Surprise.

The theme begins as pure, almost nursery-rhyme simplicity — a gentle, tiptoeing melody at the softest of dynamics, so unassuming it could lull you into a comfortable doze. And then, mid-phrase, a single fortissimo chord from the full orchestra detonates the silence. Haydn reportedly said he wanted to wake up the ladies in the front row who had nodded off.

Without that long, pianissimo preparation, the fortissimo would be just another loud note. With it, it becomes one of the most famous comedic moments in the entire orchestral repertoire. That is the power of dynamics — not just the volume itself, but what comes before and after it.

I urge you to listen to this movement right now. You can find wonderful recordings from conductors like Sir Georg Solti with the Chicago Symphony, or the period-performance approach of Frans Brüggen with the Orchestra of the 18th Century — each handling that famous chord quite differently, and both entirely thrilling.

Listen with fresh ears and ask yourself: would this piece be one tenth as memorable if the dynamics were removed?

The Score Is a Starting Point, Not a Straitjacket

Here’s something that surprises a lot of learners: many of the dynamic markings printed in your music are editorial additions — not written by the composer themselves.

Composers of the Baroque period rarely notated dynamics at all. It was considered the performer’s responsibility to shape the music, and so-called terraced dynamics were common practice — playing a motif loudly, then echoing it softly when it repeated.

Even in the Classical period, Mozart was sparing with dynamic markings. It wasn’t until the Romantic era that composers began writing detailed instructions.

What does this mean for you as a player? It means you have permission — and I’d argue, a responsibility — to bring your own musical instincts to the page. Think of the printed dynamics the way you might think of a tin of tomatoes in a bolognese. They are an essential foundation. But to create something truly memorable, you need to add your own ingredients.

A helpful guiding principle:

• Melodies that ascend tend to grow in emotional intensity. Let them crescendo.
• Melodies that descend often carry a sense of settling, of repose. Let them diminuendo.
• Likewise, as the harmony moves away from the home key — the tonic and primary chords — tension increases. When the music finds its way back home, it releases.
• Use your dynamics to underline that harmonic journey, and the music will suddenly start to speak.

One of my favourite exercises for unlocking this is to play a piece you know well, but deliberately reverse all the dynamics. If it starts forte, start it piano. It sounds counterintuitive, but it is great fun — and almost always results in a wider, richer array of tonal shades than you had before. Funny how often the rule-breaking unlocks the rule-following.

Common Dynamic Markings

The Mechanics: How soft is soft

Let’s get practical for a moment, because understanding the concept of dynamics is only half the work. The other half is understanding the physical mechanics of how to achieve them on your instrument — without compromising your tone.

The problem is that most players, understandably, operate in a comfortable central zone — they avoid pressing too hard for fear of a scratchy sound, and avoid going too soft for fear of a wispy, unsupported tone. This caution, while sensible, shrinks the dynamic range considerably.

The answer? You have to find the outer limits deliberately. Purposefully make a scratchy, rough sound. Go further than you’d ever take it in performance, and truly understand what causes it.

Then do the same at the other end — find the point where the sound almost disappears. Only when you know exactly where those edges are can you confidently occupy the full territory between them.

And here’s something I’ve found: for most players, it’s the soft that unlocks the loud — not the other way round. If you don’t push far enough into pianissimo territory, you leave yourself nowhere to go. The softest sound becomes the foundation everything else is measured against. Invest time in it. Treasure it.

The Deeper Truth: Dynamics Are Emotional, Not Just Technical

want to come back to something I said at the start, because I think it matters more than any technical tip. When a piece of music moves us — truly moves us — it is almost always because of the way it manages light and shadow. Volume and silence. Anticipation and release.

I once heard the pianist Stephen Hough perform Traumerei by Schumann as an encore at the Festival Hall — a deceptively simple piece that many students play in early grades. In his hands it was nothing short of extraordinary. Not because of the notes — he and thousands of others know those notes. It was the way the piece breathed.

The way silence was left to resonate. The way a phrase would swell almost imperceptibly and then retreat, like a wave finding its natural tideline. That is what dynamic mastery looks like at the highest level.

Learn more about phrasing here.

And here’s the thing about simple pieces — they are actually harder to play expressively than technically demanding ones. When there are no fast passages to hide behind, no elaborate ornaments to distract the listener, every note is exposed. Every dynamic choice is laid bare.

Simple music done beautifully is one of the most sophisticated things a musician can offer.

So as you return to your practice today, I’d love you to ask yourself this:

• Where in my current piece are the moments of greatest emotional intensity?
• Where does the music need to breathe?
• Which bar can I let the volume drop away — not because the score tells me to, but because the music is asking for it?
• And where can I allow myself to fill the room, boldly and unapologetically, with sound?

Dynamics are not something you add to music. They are something you reveal in it — the colour, the emotion, the story that was waiting beneath the surface all along. Don’t leave them until last. Start with them, shape everything around them, and then watch how your whole musicality transforms.