Tip: How to access more dynamic levels during playback

Dorico
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Have you ever listened to Dorico playback a passage and thought that a dynamic marking of f made the passage a little too soft but ff made it a little too loud? I will show how to access thirteen dynamic levels between ppp and fff, and how to immediately go from one level to another.

Dorico assigns a numerical level to each dynamic marking as shown in the following table:

Dynamic │ Level
────────┼──────
  ppp   │  -3
  pp    │  -2
  p     │  -1
  mp    │  -1/2
  mf    │   1/2
  f     │   1
  ff    │   2
  fff   │   3

When playback is started from the beginning of a flow and no dynamic marking is given, the initial level is zero (halfway between mp and mf).

If you select a note and enter poco f in the dynamics popover, Dorico increases the current dynamic level by 1/2. For each additional f you enter in the popover, the level increases by an additional 1/2. You can enter poco followed by more than six fs to increase the level by more than three, but only the word poco will appear in the score or part. For an extreme example, to go from ppp to halfway between ff and fff, you could enter poco fffffffffff in the popover.

If you select a note and enter poco p in the dynamics popover, Dorico decreases the current dynamic level by 1/2. For each additional p you enter in the popover, the level decreases by an additional 1/2.

Of course, entering poco followed by more than one p or f in the popover is not meant to be performed by real musicians, but to provide greater control over the loudness of Dorico’s playback, and such intensity markings can be hidden using the properties panel.

In case you were wondering, replacing poco with piu or meno changes the level with each p or f by one, and replacing poco with molto changes the level with each p or f by two.

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Thanks John, that’s a problem I often have.

This will help a lot.

Is poco f something that real musicians will generally recognise (I didn’t)?

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It’s a marking I have seen, but I can’t find an example at the moment.

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“poco f” is occasionally seen and it’s not uncommon in the repertoire — this example is from Martinů (“Sinfonietta La Jolla”):

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I’ve found it to be most useful with instruments that are inherently “strong/loud” (trumpets, cymbals, lots of high energy overtones) — poco f communicates “play strongly, but be mindful of the surroundings/context; don’t overdo it”. Like the cymbal accent here: even if it’s a “solo”, it shouldn’t be too loud. But marking it “mf” would likely leave it too subdued.

But it’s definitely a “Catch-22” dynamic. If you’re wondering if you should use it or not, then the answer is no.

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Am I correct in understanding that ‘true neutral’ level zero can be accomplished both by meno p and meno f?

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meno p increases the dynamic level by one.
meno f decreases the dynamic level by one.
meno mp increases the dynamic level by 1/2.
meno mf decreases the dynamic level by 1/2.

How to change to a dynamic level of zero (halfway between mp and mf) depends on what the current level is. If the current level is mp, then meno mp will change to zero, but meno p will change to mf.

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Ah, they aren’t absolute, got it.

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I am returning to this topic to add to the original post, where I showed how to access thirteen dynamic levels between ppp and fff, and how to immediately go from one level to another. What that post did not cover was how to use a gradual dynamic to go from one level to another.

The original post showed that dynamic changes can be made by using absolute dynamics shown in the table in that post, and by using relative dynamics which typically start by entering poco in the dynamics popover followed by a string of one or more ps or fs. When using a relative dynamic to immediately go from one level to another, the change in level is relative to the current dynamic level. However, when using a relative dynamic to specify the level at the end of a crescendo or diminuendo, the change is relative to level zero (halfway between mp and mf).

For example, to immediately go from p (level -1) to halfway between f and ff (level 1 1/2), you could enter poco fffff, because increasing the dynamic level by 1/2 five times would go from the current level of -1 to 1 1/2. But to crescendo from p to halfway between f and ff, you would need to enter poco fff at the end of the crescendo, because increasing the level by 1/2 three times would go from level zero to 1 1/2.

Applying this information covers every case except when a gradual dynamic should end at level zero, because there is no absolute dynamic which corresponds to level zero and no relative dynamic which does not change the level. This case is sufficiently complicated to need a separate post.

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If you enter a crescendo or diminuendo and do not specify an absolute or relative dynamic at the end of that gradual dynamic, the level changes by one. You can alter the amount of change in level for a gradual dynamic by adding a modifier using the dynamics panel in the right zone in write mode. If you enter a gradual dynamic without an ending dynamic and click the poco or molto button under Gradual Dynamics in the dynamics panel, the level changes by 1/2 or two, respectively. Note that using the Prefix or Suffix property to enter poco or molto in the lower zone does not alter the amount of change in level.

For example, to gradually change from p to level zero, simply enter a crescendo. To gradually change from mp to level zero, enter a crescendo and click the poco button in the dynamics panel. To gradually change from pp to level zero, enter a crescendo and click the molto button.

To gradually change from level -1 1/2, -2 1/2 or -3 to level zero, two crescendos are needed: a crescendo and a poco crescendo to go from level -1 1/2 to zero, a molto crescendo and a poco crescendo to go from level -2 1/2 to zero, or a molto crescendo and a crescendo to go from level -3 to zero. To have the level changes caused by two consecutive gradual dynamics be cumulative, go to Library > Playback Options > Dynamics > Humanize and uncheck the option Reset dynamic level for short consecutive gradual dynamics of same direction.

By opening the dynamics editor in the lower zone, you can see the effect of using relative dynamics with or without gradual dynamics. By carefully adjusting the height of the dynamics editor, three horizontal lines will appear in the editor representing dynamic levels of -3, 0 and 3. The following example demonstrates a gradual dynamic change from level -1 1/2 to zero using two crescendos:

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In order to make the overall dynamic change linear, the unmodified crescendo takes two thirds of the duration of the dynamic change, and the poco crescendo takes the remaining third.

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If being able to access 13 dynamic levels between ppp and fff is not enough, how about having access to 25 dynamic levels! I just discovered that entering poco mf in the dynamics popover increases the current dynamic level by 1/4, and entering poco mp decreases the current level by 1/4. In the following example, the first note has a dynamic marking of ppp and each of the following 24 notes has a marking of poco mf for a total of 25 dynamic levels between ppp and fff:

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To access one of the 12 additional dynamic levels, use the techniques in posts 1, 8 and 9 of this topic to make an immediate or gradual dynamic change to a level close to the desired one, and then enter poco mf or poco mp at a subsequent rhythmic position to change the dynamic level by the final 1/4. Note that two different rhythmic positions can be as close as the duration of a 1024th note.

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I must admit to being a bit bemused by the entire thread, although clearly some will find it helpful and I appreciate the time and effort involved and find your approach interesting. Like others, I find all the time that I need to modify the dynamic from the written level so I simply go into the key editor and draw it in. The dynamics level in itself may only have a small number of steps depending on the sampled levels and sometimes, there are noticeable jumps from one dynamic level to the next. To fully control dynamics, you nearly always need to use a secondary controller which controls the pure volume as opposed to the dynamic – often this will be set to CC11 to allow gradual changes within the note. It’s not uncommon that even the lowest library dynamic will be too loud on its own if you really want to fade to al niente for instance. This is less of an issue with a largely modelled library like NotePerfomer but is very much present using standard sample libraries.

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I agree.

My experience is slight in the digital balancing world, but there seems to be a growing number of users who fail to grasp how approximate dynamics are in real world notation:

  1. With live performers, marked dynamics will be tweaked to suit the acoustic of the performance space. My local amateur orchestra has a surplus of well-meaning 2nd violins, but a shortage of basses, so the former need to dial it back (p needs to be pp) and the latter need to play out (p is rarely less than mf)
  2. With digital creators, dynamic balance must be tweaked between different libraries (after all, none was created with reference to any other). And often even within a single library.
  3. No digital library (perhaps with the exception of NP?) was created with the expectation that it would ever have to interpret notation.

Dorico does provide some useful tools to help, but you need to get into the weeds on expression maps and have a lot of patience (more patience than I have!)

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