Play Loud and Soft with This Christmas Carol

The upcoming holiday season gives us an opportunity to play a traditional Christmas carol, How Great our Joy, (from Cyberhymnal.org) and practice alternating between loud and soft playing at the same time. This is a traditional German carol, with words translated into English by Theodore Baker (1851-1934). The Cyberhymnal.org site provides a score, words, and a midi rendition of this music.

The refrain is a good opportunity to practice loud and soft playing, indicated here by the written dynamics mf for mezzo-forte (medium strong) and p for piano (soft). By the way, the instrument named the piano was originally the piano-forte, a keyboard that could play both soft and loud. Earlier keyboards such as the harpsichord could only play at one level of loudness.

The melody is in the image at the top of this article. Click on the image to enlarge it and print it out. Perhaps you have heard this melody before. The loud and soft are important features of the song, beginning with the refrain (which begins half-way through). Think of the soft sections as an echo. First play loud, and then as soft as you can for the echo part marked p.

The normal level of loudness for a musician is mf or mezzo-forte. That is the level we play at without thinking. Dynamics (loud and soft) that you may see in music will range from ppp (very very soft) to fff (very very loud) with mp (medium soft) and mf (medium loud) right in the middle. There is no m (medium) dynamic by itself. Very few musicians can actually play this many dynamic levels. I suggest practicing this carol with a normal level for the mf and as soft as you can for the p. But it is not really important how loud or soft you play, the important thing is to contrast the two. The whole soft section should be at the same soft level, regardless of which notes are being played.

A further way to develop playing loud and soft is to practice holding notes (called long tones). First start at your normal level of mf and slowly get softer until no sound comes out of your instrument. Then start on the same note and increase as loud as you can. You will notice in both of these that it is hard to keep a good level of sound and keep the pitch level (not go sharp or flat in your sound). Move up a note and do this again. I suggest doing this exercise for five or six notes, then stopping. If you will practice this exercise once a day for a week, you should notice a great improvement in your ability to play loud or soft.

The next step in practicing loud and soft would be to practice a scale at mf, then play the same scale as soft as you are able, and then as loud as you are able. You will notice that some notes play soft easily, while others may be more difficult. In the same way, playing very loud will be easy on some notes, but others will be hard to sustain.

After doing the various loud and soft exercises, you will notice that you will be able to play the carol with the echo sections very easily, and your tone and pitch will also improve.