18-How to Play the Drums: Dynamics

This lesson is part of the series: Drumming Lessons: Beginner-Intermediate, Drumming Lessons: Basics through Advanced

In drumming, dynamics refers to how loud or soft we are playing. If music has lots of dynamics - that means it uses a wide range of volumes, from very soft to very loud. Music doesn’t have to use dynamics, but that would mean all the notes were the same volume. Usually music is more interesting if we use a wide range of dynamics. There are lots of different musical instructions to tell us what volume each note should be played at - some of them we might already know. For example we have already learnt about accents. Accents are dynamics because they tell us that the notes should be louder.

The musical terms we use to tell us how loud a group of notes should be played, are Italian words. We don’t usually write the whole word under the notes, as that would take up too much space on the page. Instead we use an abbreviation. All these different musical terms are provided. They are all made up from the two main Italian words for soft (piano, abbreviated with a 'p') and loud (forte, abbreviated by an 'f'). If we use two or three of the letter p or the letter f - this means that we need to play even softer or louder. We also use the letter m with the p or f. The m stands for mezzo - which is Italian for 'moderately.'

Piano and Forte aren't the only words that deal with dynamics in music. We also use terms to describe changes in volume: crescendo, refers to 'getting louder, and decrescendo refers to 'getting softer'. These aren't generally written out either, but Jim will review how they are denoted in sheet music.

This lesson is excerpted from a broader course available from www.begindrumming.com. The Begin Drumming course is a 100% comprehensive drumming course which takes you from absolute beginner to expert soloist without any gimmicky short cuts! Through a combination of video and written lessons, the course will teach you proper technique as well as how to read drum music.

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Let me introduce myself. My name is Jim McCarthy. I'm a drum clinician and teacher and have specialized in pure technique for many years. I consider myself still a student as well, because I have a passion for constantly learning. I learn every day when I watch other drummers, and I analyze what works and what doesn’t. Performing, Educating and Learning have been my life and my living for well over 20 years.

I've had a tremendously broad background in drumming. I've played in rock bands, orchestras, marching bands - everything from high-brow contemporary music to Latin American stuff.

I spent six years at university studying percussion performance full time, and I ended up with a...

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