Sudden dynamic shifts during a held note

Hi all. How can I achieve a sudden dynamic shift during a whole note, like so?

I’d rather not make the whole note into two tied half notes because I’m trying to keep with the idiosyncrasies of early Classical style, so in this case tying two half notes together seems a bit… pedantic. But I’ll do it if I have to…

You can input dynamics at any position, including within long or tied notes, by showing the note input caret (press Shift-N) and positioning the caret where you want to input dynamics, then input the dynamic(s) as normal. If you double-click the staff halfway along those bars, the caret should appear at that position straight away.

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Oh great thank you!!! I always do my note input first, then dynamics on a separate pass, so using the Note Input caret didn’t even occur to me :sweat_smile:

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Ant did a short tip video along these lines - if you haven’t come across these #TipsTuesdays, do have a look through, there’s often something useful in there for everyone!

(In your example, you could of course also select the dynamics from the staff above and use Edit>Paste Special>Duplicate to Staff Below.)

I do not know how your players are arranged (as far as player parts will appear) but, if it were me, I would mark the forte marks on the lowest staff as f sub. or f subito to suggest what the other parts were doing at the time.