Dynamics: getting loud and soft on purpose
Okay, so this is the lesson where I talk about the volume knob nobody's turning.
Here's the thing though. Most choirs sing at one dynamic level the whole song, and that level is "medium loud, all the time, no matter what the page says." You'll see a little p printed under the staff, which means soft, and the room will sing it exactly the same as the f four bars later, which means loud. Nobody's doing this on purpose. It just happens because getting louder or softer as a group requires actual coordination, and coordination is the whole subject of this class, so, here we are.
The why behind it
Dynamics aren't decoration. They're the thing that makes a piece feel like it's going somewhere instead of just sitting there being sung at you. A verse that starts soft and builds to a loud ending tells a story with volume alone, before anyone even parses the words. If you flatten that out, you've still got all the right notes, but the piece stops breathing.
Okay, technically, dynamics also include everything in between, not just loud and soft. Mezzo piano, mezzo forte, crescendo, decrescendo. I'm not going to make you memorize Italian tonight. I care way more about you feeling the difference in your body than naming it correctly on a quiz that doesn't exist.
Soft is not the same as weak
This is the part people get wrong first. Singing quietly does not mean backing off your breath support and letting your voice go thin and airy. That's not soft, that's just tired-sounding. Real soft singing still has full support behind it, you're just controlling how much air gets through. Think of it like a hose. Full pressure, smaller opening.
Try this one at home, it's genuinely useful: hum a comfortable note, medium volume, hand on your stomach. Now get quieter without losing the hum, without it going breathy or wobbly. If you can keep that hum steady and soft at the same time, that's the muscle you're building. Do it for thirty seconds, a few times a day. It's boring. It works anyway.
Loud is not the same as strain
And this connects straight back to blend, which I've hammered on before and will keep hammering on, because it's true. The person straining to sing loud is almost always making things worse, not better. Loud, done right, still has to feel free in the throat. If your neck's tight and your face is doing something dramatic, you've left "loud" and gone straight to "yelling with pitch," which is a different skill and not the one we want.
My opinion here, and I could be wrong, but I don't think I am: a choir that can sing a genuine, controlled soft passage is way more impressive than one that can just get loud. Loud is easy. Anybody can get loud. Soft and together and still in tune, that's the hard one, and that's usually where the actual goosebump moment of a piece lives.
Doing it as a group
The hard part isn't singing loud or soft alone, it's twenty people agreeing on how loud or soft at the same moment. A few practical things that help:
- Watch for the marking, not just the melody. When you're learning a piece, glance at the dynamic markings the same pass you learn the notes, don't bolt them on later. They're part of the part, not an accessory.
- Undersing a crescendo at first. If you start the swell too loud, you've got nowhere to go and you'll just get louder and louder past the point of being pretty. Start smaller than feels natural. You'll have room.
- Trust the section next to you. If everyone's listening for blend like we practiced, dynamics come along for free, because you're already tuned into the people around you instead of just your own voice in your own head.
My dad's flat note, again
I've told you all before that my dad used to sing a whole step under everybody during "Come, Come, Ye Saints" and swear he was in tune. What I haven't said is that he also sang it loud. Every verse. Same volume, top to bottom, wrong note and all, like the song only had one setting and he'd found it and was staying there.
I spent a long time being annoyed by that. Now I think about it a lot when I'm teaching dynamics, because it's the exact thing I'm asking you not to do, just in the pitch department instead of the volume one. Commit is good. Committing to the same thing regardless of what the music's actually asking for, less good. He never once asked the song what it wanted. He just sang it at his one volume, his one pitch, and meant every bit of it. I miss that a little, honestly, even while I'm telling you to do the opposite.
Before next time
Try the hum exercise, quiet but supported, for a few days, even just while you're doing dishes or driving. And next rehearsal, bring a pencil and actually mark the loud and soft spots in your piece before we start, so your eye catches them before your voice does.