After reading some of her very creative ideas on one of the Piano Teaching Email Lists, I asked Mary Jane Cope to write  a guest post on how to encourage students to play with more dynamics.  Mary Jane is a pianist and teacher currently on the staff of the University of California at Santa Cruz.   She holds degrees from Ohio Dominican College and Indiana University.  She was awarded the MTNA permanent Master Teacher Certificate in 1995 in national recognition of her outstanding accomplishments in the music teaching profession.  Here is her guest post:

Encouraging Dynamic Playing

A frequent complaint among colleagues is that they hear students playing with little or no dynamic variation.  To encourage students to develop and use a broad dynamic range, I explain that the word ‘dynamic’ means ‘lively, energetic, alive;’ the dynamics they use will bring their music to life.   To help them realize how lifeless a dynamically flat performance is, I may read a short excerpt from a story in a monotone voice, without nuance. They agree that this is boring! Even a simple word like ‘music’ has nuance. Sometimes I’ll ask them to imagine a world that is nothing but gray – no green grass, no blue sky, no brilliant sunlight, no colorful flowers – and how boring it would be.  

I have used a variety of strategies to encourage students to broaden their dynamic range. Explaining that dynamics are their musical crayons or paintbox, I ask them whether they would prefer a box of 8 crayons or a box of 48 crayons (they always choose the latter!).  I then remind them how many different shades of blue or red or brown there can be; highly visual students often enjoy assigning colors to different dynamics (pastel pink to pp, bright red to ff).  Color charts from a local paint store showing how many different shades of white there are make a big impression!

Students who are more tactile may respond to a display of various textures or surfaces:  burlap, wool, satin, nubby, plastic, wood.  To develop their aural awareness, I ask them to assign a number from 1 to 10 to dynamics, beginning from very soft to very loud.  Even a range of 1 to 5 will be helpful at first.  This can be done first by listening to an excerpt, and then by playing it.  Having them play scales and other exercises applying this idea will make even the most repetitive exercise more interesting and musical and will stretch their dynamic range.

I remind ALL of my students, even the most advanced, that it is musically illegal to play two consecutive notes at exactly the same dynamic unless the composer has specifically indicated this for a special effect.  Repeated notes especially should never be the same.  This is a very powerful concept for most students in heightening their aural awareness as they play! Here again, I relate this to the effectiveness of nuance in human speech.

Highlight the dynamic markings in their music. Ask students to exaggerate them. This almost always works. Invite them to assign a meaning to each dynamic marking: a really angry forte, or a pianissimo that is like a secret.  Have them think of the various meanings forte or piano can have.  For example, forte can be triumphant, angry, joyful, scary; piano can be sad, sleepy, mysterious, dreamy. Crescendo means initially quiet; diminuendo is initially loud (important, since some students associate crescendo with loud, and diminuendo with soft).  Lastly, remind them that the Italian word forte means ‘strong’ (not a noisy or unpleasant loudness); piano means gentle (not weak).

Students should never play anything without dynamic variation and nuance.  Recording them if possible is useful and a great learning tool for them; having them listen to excellent performances is also very important for increasing their awareness of the importance of dynamic nuance, and will help them ultimately to deepen their awareness of how dynamics reflect musical understanding and feeling.

-Mary Jane Cope
Email Mary Jane about her post.  mjcope@ucsc.edu

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