On Feb 15, 2006, at 6:17 AM, dhbailey wrote:
I've read similar information concerning Tchaikovsky. Personally I've never even understood the difference between pp and ppp.
For me, pp is the softest you can reliably play on, say, the piano. ppp is the softest clearly audible note in whatever space you're playing in. Big difference!
Similarly, ff is the loudest note of most acoustic instruments, fff for the brass, most percussion, and a few others. ffff can be acheived on large tamtams and amplified instruments, but is not often to be inflicted on defenseless audiences.
Historically, the dynamics filter has gotten finer and finer over time. At first there were just p and f. The rest were gradually added in the order ff, pp, mf, fff, mp, ppp. At each stage, the difference betw. adjacent levels got narrower. I basically agree with David Fenton that more than 8 or 9 different levels are impossible for the ear to distinguish.
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
