From Zero to Mozart
Stage 3Score symbolsLesson 7 of 46 · Reading

Getting louder, getting softer

A single letter sets a level. To change the level while you play, the page gives you two tools: a word — cresc., dim. — or a shape, the hairpin.

The word and the shape

  • cresc. (crescendo, "growing") — get louder. Often trailed by a dashed line: cresc. _ _ _ _ — showing how far the growth runs.
  • dim. (diminuendo) or decresc. (decrescendo) — get softer, the same way.
  • The hairpin: two lines that open < toward the loud end and close > toward the soft end. It sits under the staff, stretched across exactly the notes it applies to.

The hairpin carries more information than the word: its length tells you over how many notes to spread the change, and where it ends tells you where you're aiming — the loudest point of a <, the quietest of a >.

Hear it

76 bpm
A hairpin opening across all eight notes: start soft on the low D, arrive loud on the high D. The growth is spread evenly — a little more sound on every single note, not a jump at the end.
76 bpm
A closing hairpin — the same line coming down, fading from loud to soft. End it genuinely quiet on the low D, not just 'a bit less'.

Slow growth — poco a poco

84 bpm
'cresc. poco a poco' — bit by bit. The growth is stretched across all four bars, so almost nothing happens from one note to the next; you only notice the change bar to bar. A short hairpin means the opposite: do it now.

Try it

Try

Play the four-note rise D–E–F♯–G on the D string. Give each note a hair more bow speed than the one before — same weight, just faster travel. Four small increases add up to a crescendo you built, evenly, rather than a loudness you flipped on at the top.

The usual mistake

Saving the whole change for the last note — three quiet notes and then a loud one is not a crescendo, it's a step. Spread it. Second: ignoring where the hairpin ends — that point is the target, and if you peak early you've nowhere to go. Third: reading a long closing hairpin > as an accent. An accent > sits on one note; a diminuendo hairpin stretches across several. Check how wide it is.