How to Play a Crescendo on One Note
On a piano you can't technically make one held note grow. So a hairpin on one note asks you to project the sound, with a little pedal and a little more time on that note. That makes it the more important note in the phrase.
A student played Schumann's Melodie for me in my live lesson in May. They thought they had it under their fingers and wanted to talk about where to go next. First the camera had to be flipped, because they were "a little bit upside down". Then they played it through, and afterwards I said: "You make good progress, I must say."
Then we came to one long note with a crescendo and a diminuendo printed on it, on the note itself. I didn't tell them what to do with it. I asked first: "Have any idea what it could mean, how you can do that?"
A Hairpin on a Held Note
A hairpin is the wedge-shaped sign for crescendo or diminuendo, and here there are both, one opening and one closing. Over a group of notes the piano can follow it, because each note can be played a little stronger, or a little softer, than the one before.
The student answered from their own score: "I mean, it is poco crescendo, so it should be like a subtle change, right?" But the sign I was showing them sat on one long note, so I asked again: "Yeah, but this on the note. How can it be on the note? What do you think Schumann meant by this?"
That was when the student said: "Oh, I actually didn't see that one."
Can You Crescendo on a Piano?
Over several notes, yes. On one held note, no. My answer to the student was: "Yeah, but on a piano we can't technically do this." The marking asks for something the instrument can't do the way it is written.
Played like the notes around it, it is just one more note in the phrase.
Projecting the Sound
"In a piano, it means that we project the sound." That was the rest of my answer, and there are two small ways to do it:
- A little bit of a pedal on the note.
- A little bit more time: "it gives a little bit more time to hear."
So the extra time is there for hearing the note: "to hear" is how I put it.
Later in the same exchange I put it in two short lines: "It makes the note more important. A little bit lingering on the note." That is what the pedal and the time are for.
In my live lesson in December, a student had asked me how to get a sound like a bell. My answer had a little pedal in it too: "It's a combination, a little bit of the pedal."
Then I shared my screen with an exercise and said: "I like this, like a bell, to project the sound … it really resonates." And: "It's more like … very gentle, like a bell."
About the pedal in that exercise: "It's a pedal together. When you do this without the pedal, you get staccato." And then: "I wouldn't do it too fast. Take your time. This is really for making sound."
Another student asked me in a live lesson about playing in a concert hall. Part of my answer was: "When I play at home, I always try to project the sound also."
To a student in February I said: "With the pedal you can do … to project the sound a little bit. Because when you can play like this, but then you can also play it a little bit, give it more air, the sound."
All of it stays a little.
How much is a little? Your ear judges that, the way it judges the pedal elsewhere in a piece; I go into letting the ear decide on the pedal in another post.
Schumann's Melodie, Op. 68 No. 1
The Melodie is the first piece in Schumann's Album for the Young, Op. 68.
A moment after the "good progress", I said about the piece itself: "It's not an easy piece, it's hard to play … It's actually more difficult than what it appears to be." The student knew; they had just told me they needed to work more on the last part.
You don't need this piece to use what follows. Any piece with a hairpin on one note asks the same question, and the Melodie is only where it came up in that lesson.
Try this
Take the Melodie (Op. 68 No. 1), or any piece with a hairpin on one note.
- Play the phrase as you do now, and listen to that note.
- If it sounds like the others, add a little bit of pedal on it.
- Linger a little on it, then continue with the phrase.
- Listen again: is it now the more important note?
The second step only starts if the note sounds like the others. If it doesn't, leave out the pedal and go on to the third.
The third step has two halves. After the little stay on the note, continue with the phrase.
Asking one question about one note is the kind of listening I mean in my post on asking one specific question of what you just played.
Check the Edition
It is easy to miss. Why the student hadn't seen it came out a little later: "My score says poco crescendo." Their edition printed a poco crescendo in that place, not the hairpin on the note. My answer: "But this should be originally on the note."
That changes what you play. Poco means a little, and a poco crescendo spreads a little growth over several notes; the hairpin on the note is about that one note.
The student said, "I'll write it down, actually," and I said: "Yeah, you can write it down." In your own score, that means you see it every time you reach that bar.
An edition can print something different from what the composer wrote. How I tell the composer's markings from an editor's is in another post of mine.
In short
Find the held note with the hairpin, listen to it, and give it a little pedal and a little more time until it is the note that matters in the phrase. Then let the phrase go on.
Where It Shows Up
Wait for the note to grow, and the hairpin stays on the paper. Project it, and the listener hears what Schumann meant.
In live coaching we work on markings like this, in the pieces you bring. Find one in the piece you're playing now, and play it for me. We try it together.
