Hairpin

Wedges under the notes

In its section on transitions the building block Dynamics describes how the crescendo and decrescendo often appear as opening or closing hairpins under the notes. The crescendo, it says, is often the strongest build-up of tension in music, because the ear experiences the swelling as an increase of energy and urgency. The decrescendo brings calming, withdrawal or dying away.

For both, the symbol library stresses an even course: with the crescendo the linear course matters, with the decrescendo that the note neither vanishes nor stands still before the end.

Examples

Piano

• Sonata facile, 1. Satz: Allegro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K. 545 · piano · 4 pages

  Already in bars 3 and 4 there are short hairpins under the melody: an opening one in bar 3 and a closing one in bar 4, each over a few notes. They shape the phrase like an arc of breath.

Song

• Als die alte Mutter Antonín Dvořák, op. 55 No. 4 · voice and piano · 3 pages

  On page 3, around bar 38, there are several hairpins together with “cresc.” and f, before “dim.” follows in bar 43 and pp in bar 45. The hairpins here lead a long arc: first swelling to the f, then falling back to pp.

Hairpin or word?

The same movement can be written as a hairpin or as a word: “cresc.” and “dim.” are used for longer stretches, the hairpin for short or precisely bounded ones. In the examples above you find both ways of writing side by side. The length of the hairpin shows when the change ends.