A Definition of Dynamic Range

A Definition of Dynamic Range

Ed Dumas 

When I was a young pup just beginning on trumpet, even then I could understand that our definitions of dynamic levels for our bands were not consistent between the groups. As my school years went by, I could see that the size of the groups that I played in changed from year to year or group to group. As such, what I was being told about playing louder to achieve a forte or softer to achieve a piano was not consistent. You see, the levels that were compared to “what you normally play for a forte volume,” would now change if the group was suddenly made smaller. Now I was asked to play louder to make up for the missing players, so what I played as “normal” obviously had changed.

Now I understand that as a trumpet player, my fortes and pianos will need to change at least some depending on the group that I am playing in. But clearly, the standard for the various levels was inadequate because of contradictions built into a system that was supposed to be defined. I don’t mind dynamics being a little undefined, but I am concerned about telling students one thing and doing another. That is just a recipe for confusion.

My Early Years of Teaching Dynamics

So, in my early years of teaching secondary band, I tried to define dynamic levels for students against the amount of effort that the students need to put into their instrument to create that dynamic level. This helped some, as it at least gave the students something consistent in themselves to measure against. It also helped students to clear up a fundamental misunderstanding of effort versus the volume of sound created. But first I need to explain the simplistic view of dynamics that many students fall victim to.

In their first year or two at the most, most students come to understand that to play louder on their instrument, they must blow harder. As a sidebar, I want them to be even more specific that it is the volume of air that creates the volume of sound. If they blow faster air, they will get a higher sound, and that is not what we are after. To blow more volume of air, the students will need to open the aperture of their embouchure (or the reed tip) to let more air through. If they do not open their aperture some, the pitch will rise. If they open too much, the pitch will fall. So how much to open? Simple – listen to the sound!

Now, that is all well and good, but students quickly start to over-generalize and create rules where rules do not exist. When we start with the statement “In order to play louder, you need to blow harder,” students will typically start to create an inverse rule. This usually takes just a few seconds. The inverse rule is, “To play softer, you need to blow less hard.” Here the students will equate “less hard” with “less effort.”

You will quickly find that this inverse rule is inadequate because the softest that the students now ever create is about a Mezzo-Forte. That is because the mezzo-forte level requires the least amount of effort from the students to achieve, and since this “less effort” creates less sound than the Fortissimo, it must be the piano, at least in a student’s thinking.

Students do not formally use this mental logic, but it is how dynamics for them come to be understood. This explanation is one good reason why so many bands in festivals are constantly being told to extend their dynamic levels, particularly into the quieter ranges of piano and pianissimo.

So, I started to bring to students’ attention that the entire range of dynamics as compared to their effort is NOT linear. Just because one end of the spectrum takes more effort does NOT mean that the other end automatically takes less effort. The relationship is more “U” shaped, and not linear.

So, now students come to understand that the dynamic range that requires the least effort on their instrument is about a Mezzo-Forte. If they play louder, this will require more effort on their part, but also if they play softer, this will require more effort on their part. They just need to understand that it is a different kind of effort to achieve those piano and pianissimo levels!

This definition has served me well for students for most of my career. Yet, I still found that some students often stopped playing the very soft piano and pianissimos. Usually, this was because of just “forgetting,” “laziness,” or just too many things to keep in mind while playing. I get that. We are all human, after all. So, then I was presented with a new definition of dynamics for students, and this helped to make a difference.

A New Definition of Dynamics

This is another one of the great ideas that came to me from someone else that is worth taking note of. This idea comes from Dr. Robert Taylor, Professor of Music and Director of Bands at the University of British Columbia School of Music. Rob Taylor is a truly gifted musician and conductor and is worth following if you have not already done so.

In this new definition of dynamics, students are asked to use their ears to balance the band's sound. Now I love this definition of dynamics because as a young student in public school, I remember being told to “balance the sound.” What bothered me is that I was not told what to balance it with. What are the things that I am supposed to compare? As a student, that was too vague to deal with and was not successful.

In Rob Taylor’s plan, students will compare the sound that they create on their own instrument versus the sound that the entire band creates. While you might think that the band will completely dominate the students’ sound in their ears, the opposite is true because their instrument is so much closer to them. Therefore the students can hear much more of themselves as compared to everyone else. In fact, you can remind students that they will hear plenty of their own sound due to bone conduction through their body, and this also helps overcome the sheer volume of sound created by an entire band.

So now, students will balance in their ears the amount of sound that they are creating on their instrument versus the amount of sound that the rest of the band is creating. The students will now have to actively listen to make sure they keep the levels of “me vs. them” the same. This will be the band's Mezzo-Forte level.

There are a couple of great benefits of using the above definition as a mezzo-forte. First, this kind of definition for dynamics means that students will come to understand that they need to be listening while they are playing their instrument. Every experienced musician knows this to be true of course, but beginning students sometimes forget that this active listening must never cease while they are making music.

This new definition of a mezzo-forte also has an overt definition of what to listen for. I have often been frustrated when I was younger by teachers or conductors who would shout at us to “Listen!” without telling us what to listen for! As an illustration of this problem, I found when I was teaching intonation to students throughout my career, lights would turn on, and smiles would happen when I showed the students directly what the sound conflict waves were that we are trying to avoid with better intonation. For a good illustration of this, see the article Digital Tuners in Concert Band.

Once the students understood about the conflict tuning waves slowing down as the pitches became closer together, these students then knew EXACTLY what to listen for. Most often, then, I found it easier to deal with intonation issues when the students themselves knew what to listen for. They taught me that it was no longer an issue of motivation to listen, but knowledge about what to listen for!

Many times students who are just learning the basics of music need to be shown what to listen for in different settings. Beginners will not know how to ask for help, as the problem may not be understood in words for them yet. If you are using Rob Taylor’s dynamics system, be sure to take the time to explain to students that they should be comparing what they hear of the amount of sound from their own horn vs the rest of the band. This is their mezzo-forte.

Now sometimes students are blasting so loud that they cannot hear other musicians while they play. This will often happen in first-year bands with students on saxes or brass. This system will help those students temper their playing right away. At the same time, some students, particularly flute and clarinet players, will play so softly that they cannot hear themselves when they play in the band. Their objective has been to hide under the band, and now they must learn to “balance it in their ears.” Both of those groups benefit greatly here.

Now that you have understood mezzo-forte, here is where this new dynamics system gets fun. You can then ask the students to play you a forte by creating in their ears 10% more of their sound versus the band sound. Remember, though, that the band sound is getter stronger as well, so they must blow more to be 10% louder than the newly created stronger band sound! You can try this a couple of times to make sure they are all getting there.

Now to create a Fortissimo, students will need to create their sound in their ears at 20% louder than the sound of the rest of the band. They are going to find that this requires significantly more effort, as the total band sound has increased substantially, and they must balance this in their ears.

Another major benefit of using this definition of dynamics is that those stronger dynamic levels will be more pleasant to listen to. These new levels will be created with everyone in the band supporting them as they should. Under the old definition of dynamics, students that liked to hide under the band would not contribute much to that larger forte and fortissimo. To compensate, the others who often liked to play out too strong would over-compensate to the point of making their tone strident and unpleasant. In this system, everyone has a new definition that they must achieve, and it makes the strong levels so much more acceptable.

Now, go back to the Mezzo-Forte one more time, which is that balanced sound again. From there, ask the students to play a Mezzo-Piano by blowing 10% LESS of their sound in their ears as compared to the total band sound. Remember that the entire band will sound softer now, so all musicians will need to individually come down to get under the total band sound.

Next, you can ask your students to create a Piano level of sound by blowing their sound 20% LESS in their ears than the entire group's sound. You might find now that your band has just played a true piano dynamic for the first time!

Now if that piano level did not sell you on this system, try asking your students to now play for you a Pianissimo. The students will hear 30% less of their sound versus the band’s sound, but since the band's sound has dropped substantially, the students individually will need to drop even more to get underneath that level.

When I heard my students do this for me the first time, I got shivers from one simple pitch played at a true pianissimo level! I was now ENTIRELY sold on Rob Taylor’s definition of dynamics! I encourage you all to give this a try with your students and am confident that you will find the same result that I did.

A Few Final Thoughts

I experienced this new definition of dynamics late in my teaching career. I tried to integrate it into my work with students as much as possible, but I could tell that this concept was going to take some reinforcing. Of course, every teacher knows that any new concept presented to students will need some reinforcement to maintain learning. But I felt that this was going to take some reinforcing for ME so that I consistently came back to this concept to reinforce it again with my students.

Once you become convinced of the value of this definition system, I encourage you to find a way to come back to it often. For example, you could use it with some warm-up exercises with your students so that it kind of becomes “baked into” part of their daily reinforcements. Then, anytime you find their playing is going dynamically flat again, you can trot this system out and they should immediately respond.

A great benefit of this system is that without even working at it too hard, you are now teaching music students some listening skills for when they are playing in a large group. This is bound to rub off on better intonation and timing amongst the band’s musicians just because the students are now actively engaged in listening. Soon you will find that students have created a new habit of listening in their playing or just strengthened one that was already there.

I would also encourage you to extend this dynamics system to the various sections of the band. For example, have the clarinet section play a particular passage at a given level, and then ask them to adjust their dynamics using these definitions. You will rapidly find that the third parts come out stronger and the lead parts back off to let the harmony parts come out some. Placing these kinds of section sounds into the band as a whole will also help the band become more transparent, meaning that you can better hear all of the parts being played.

If you have a mathematical mind, this dynamic system will make a lot of sense to you. Now students will be able to develop a better understanding that sound levels are not linear. In the beginning, students often want to think of “playing loud sounds takes more effort and playing soft sounds takes less effort.” This will result in only Mezzo-Fortes and above, and will completely vaporize any soft dynamics.

Here is a better mathematically-based logarithmic description of sound levels. Humans speak at roughly 50 decibels of sound pressure as a normal speaking voice. When we need to project further, we will push and create more like 60 decibels of sound pressure. Many folks misunderstand by thinking that this is something like 20% louder since 10 decibels of difference over 50 decibels must be 20%. In fact that 10 decibels of difference is now 10 TIMES louder!

Then people misunderstand again when they think that going another 10 decibels louder up to 70 decibels would be another 10 TIMES louder for a total of 20 times louder. In fact, it is now 100 TIMES (10 X 10) louder, which is quite significant. Humans begin to lose hearing above 80 decibels if sustained for a long period, as this is now 1000 TIMES louder than a typical speaking voice! Imagine being in a rock band of the 1970s when playing loud was all the rage, and bands were being measured for how much sound they produced. I remember some groups reporting in the ear-crushing 110-decibel range! This is a walloping one million times louder than a normal speaking voice!!

The solution, of course, is to not spend too much time above 80 decibels, and certainly not too far above 80 dB as the ear-damage time becomes shortened dramatically the farther you climb that scale. The real answer comes in getting those true pianos and pianissimos using this new definition of dynamics for concert bands. There is no need to play massively loud if your band can now create that great expressive range using extreme soft dynamics. This is what so many festival adjudicators are asking for, and this system will give you the tools to create exactly that.

I encourage you to try Dr. Robert Taylor’s definition of dynamics with your students if you have not already used it. I would also be interested in hearing back any comments you might have after doing so. I expect this system will help your students to continue to grow as musicians and you will be thrilled with the results.

Ed Dumas is a retired band director who taught his entire career in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows School District. Ed is now living with his lifelong partner Laurie, and their little dog Sprocket in Parksville, BC.  Ed & Laurie also work as Mid-Island reps for Tapestry Music while enjoying making music in retirement.

You can find Ed’s other writings for the MusicED Blog at: https://www.tapestrymusic.com/news.aspx

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