From the course: Learning Music Notation
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Dynamics
- [Narrator] Communicating expression is critical to the success of a musical arrangement, especially where musicians are sight-reading or there is very little time for rehearsal. Expression is conveyed through a variety of symbols and text markings. Let's start by taking a look at dynamics, symbols that communicate relative loudness. So a little bit of background. The use of dynamic markings started in the mid-1500s. But it wasn't 'til the late 18th and 19th centuries where they were common. And then in the 20th century, composers became hyper-concerned about communicating extremely specific levels of musical expression. And the use of dynamics was definitely an important part of that development. So in general, the markings that we use for dynamics are Italian terms. So if you look in this middle column here, you can see forte and piano. Those are very common terms, even in everyday language, for loud and soft. And in fact, the piano, when it was invented, was the first keyboard…
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