The course › Unit 1: Discovering the piano
Lesson 6 of 72 · Playing soft, playing loud, and your first concert
The piano’s real name is the pianoforte: the instrument that can play soft (piano) and loud (forte). Before it, the harpsichord always played at the same volume!
In sheet music, p means soft and f means loud. These are called dynamics.
Tip: To play loud, don’t tense your fingers: let the weight of your arm drop into the key. To play soft, press the key slowly, as if you were stroking it.
Play the group asked for with the right dynamics. With a MIDI keyboard, the app checks how hard you press the keys.
A bit of everything you’ve learned in this unit.
Tell a story with dynamics: start piano, like a lullaby… build up little by little to forte… and end very softly. Still on the black keys!