Welcome to Piano lesson number 6.
So this is my tackling along today
So today we are going to learn about dynamics and like loud, soft, stuff like that also like crescendo and decrescendo, which is basically describing loud to soft, soft to loud, and staccato and legato style playing.
Now, it is not really that complicated.
Okay so if you just stumble across this again, just go back to the first lesson and start from around. Also, this probably will be split up just like the other last 2 or 3. So I have noticed that a lot of people have been like seeing the second half of the video, like not seeing the first. So I am sorry that I cannot put it off together, but you too would not let me upload a ten minute long video over a ten minute long video. So I tried to apply to the permanent director, but they have not got back to me, so maybe if they do I do not know how everything works but I will figure it out later.
Dynamics
Basically, this is going to be, you see ff, f, mf, mp, p, pp. So, they are kind of like abbreviated for fortissimo, this is forte, mezzo forte, mezzo piano, piano, and pianissimo. They basically mean very loud, loud, moderately loud, moderately soft, soft, and very soft, kind of like---
Okay, to remember this, I think of, I teach my kids actually that “f”, think of “f” as like a fire cracker. Fire cracker is like (making a sound of fire crackers), it is like nice and loud in your face and everything, right? That is loud, so firecracker.
And “p” to get them to think that it is soft and tell them to think of a soft little sleeping puppy. So “p” for puppy. Just kind of sitting there and you are just like pat-pat, “oh you’re so soft and warm”. Just kind of curled up by a little blanket and you just like “ahh”. So yeah, you can think of that. That should probably help you.
So that’s ff, f, mf, mp, p, and pp. So those are the dynamics, I will show you on the piano what I mean by the different ones after. .
So now if you see these, I have written all these to kind of like explain it. But if you see these in music, it will be like “woooh” and it will be like--coz you’re going this way kind of just as you’re reading a book right? So you are starting off soft, so this is really small so think of it as soft and then its going bigger so it is getting bigger and louder. So it is going from soft to loud. So if you see that in sweet music, like if you see something over here and then its going “ksshhh”, it just means that they want you to be softer here and louder here. So they want you to gradually get bigger.
Now, the reverse of that is from going loud to soft. Sometimes though, they will be playing and you will be playing all soft and then you get really big and then you will die away. So they might have one of this going up and another one coming down.
This one getting louder, from going soft to loud, is called a crescendo. And loud to soft is called decrescendo. So that covers that.
So remember this is the bass clef and we got our 4/4 here and I am going to show you staccato versus legato style playing.
Staccato
Staccato looks like little kind of dot. They put little dots over the notes, that means that you want to play it to detached. Think of this little dots as popcorn, that’s what I think we’ll ask(?), that is just like “pop,pop,pop,pop” going across like every note is going to be kind of like popping off. Kind of like this, (piano playing), like that.
And legato usually is joined by a phrase, but if they do not have a staccato mark you can assume that it is legato. Although, different periods of music have different styles but that is a little too complicated to explain through this. So just assume that if there is no staccato sign and no like “mini rainbow” here, you are just going to play it legato, so all joined together. I will explain that at the piano pretty quick here.
This is legato, legato means smooth. Staccato means separate, okay? So you can kind of think of this as like chains. Think of this as the length and this is the length. So these two lengths are joined together.
Now the staccato, there is a length here, a length here, a length here but they are not actually joined, they are going to be separated. So the chain is not put together, so you are going to play them separately.
Now we go to the piano. Let us play the thing right over there, legato and staccato, I will show you the difference. We have a “C” going to a “D” and that is legato, and then it is going to be going “G, F, E, D” and those will all be on eight notes and staccato. So watch.
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