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I'm working on a piece where the volume is specified as fp. From what I can tell, this means "forte piano", which to me is meaningless. This is a piano piece, so:

1) Is it meaningless? 2) Do they perhaps mean that the upper voice is f and the lower voice is p? 3) Other options?

Dom
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Michael Stachowsky
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2 Answers2

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Forte, followed immediately by piano. On a wind or bowed string instrument, you can do this on a single note. On the piano, you can't change dynamics of a note once it's been struck, but you can play the first note forte and the following notes piano.

MattPutnam
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  • I think the main reason for writing "fp" as a single marking in a piano part is that "f" and "p" under two successive notes, with a small space in between, can look messy and untidy. As MattPutnam said, for other instruments you can change the dynamics within a single note. –  Jun 09 '17 at 17:07
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    On some pianos, one could apply the effect to a chord if no other notes were being played simultaneously by pressing the damper pedal partially, striking the chord, and pressing the damper pedal fully just as the keys are being released. The exact timing required may vary between instruments, but the dampers on many pianos can be used to reduce the volume of playing notes without cutting them off entirely. – supercat Jun 09 '17 at 19:30
  • @supercat - I posed a question a long time ago, about a similar, but not exactly the same technique with sustain pedal on piano, where the chord is struck, and the pedal pressed after the keys are released. It produces a sort of echo. Wonder if that's what is portrayed here. – Tim Jun 09 '17 at 19:51
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    @Tim: Dampers which are fully sitting on the strings will absorb energy pretty quickly. Dampers which are lightly brushing against the strings will absorb energy less quickly. Different pianos will behave somewhat differently, and I strongly suspect that the only good way to figure out the best technique for a given instrument will be to try a variety of techniques on the instrument and either have someone else or an audio recorder give feedback as to what techniques work best. – supercat Jun 09 '17 at 20:23
  • @supercat - the technique I try to explain is seemingly misunderstood,. It involves playing a chord/note with no pedal, then immediately after, pressing the damper pedal, before the strings of the piano have stopped vibrating. There is a sustain of all the strings that have been sympathetically vibrated by the original notes played. It works on all the pianos i have played over many years, so it's not dependent on particular instruments. It's an odd technique, so it seems, that not many players understand. – Tim Jun 09 '17 at 20:51
  • @Tim: I think I understand the technique you're describing. I would think precise details of optimal technique, however, would vary depending upon how quickly or slowly a piano's dampers react when a key is released. – supercat Jun 09 '17 at 21:35
  • @supercat - I omitted to say the note/chord has to be played sfortzando and staccato, released before the pedal is deployed. – Tim Jun 10 '17 at 05:36
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    This technique can also be done without the pedal, just with the fingers, but it's tricky and not as effective: strike a loud chord, release quickly, and immediately depress the keys again, just slowly enough that they don't strike the notes again. It has the advantage over the pedal in that it's selective: you can choose which notes to let go on ringing softly. But it's tricky. – Scott Wallace Jun 10 '17 at 20:21
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Forte Piano is not meaningless it means loud soft or hard soft. So it is to be played loud and then immediately soft. As performance indications go this is anything but meaningless.

Neil Meyer
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  • Which is all very well. But impossible to execute on some instruments.Please give more details. – Tim Jun 09 '17 at 19:47