Pianississimo

What it means

Pianississimo, notated as ppp, designates the most extreme level of the soft side as usually prescribed. It lies below pianissimo and marks, in most works, the lower limit.

As on the loud side, the formation follows no strict logic of language: the number of letters stands for the degree. In the music of the late nineteenth and the twentieth century, pppp and more are also found; such markings say less about a measurable value than that the utmost is meant here.

Here too it holds: the tone must remain audible. Where ppp tips over into silence, the marking has missed its mark — for actual vanishing there are markings of their own, such as al niente.

In the notation

The sign ppp stands below the staff, for vocal parts above the text, and applies until the next marking. It appears at the goal of long reductions, at movement endings, and in sections that are to sound from a distance. Often further instructions on manner of playing stand alongside it, for instance mutes or a changed bow position.

Musical use

Extremely soft levels belong to the orchestral music of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in which large scorings open up a wide dynamic range. They stand at endings, in transitions, and where the sound, as it were, steps back out of the room. In chamber-music scoring they are rarer, because the available range is smaller.

It is notated as ppp. It stands at the edge of audibility and demands great calm in the body and precise control of tone production.

Performance practice

Look for the limit in the room, not on the instrument: what carries in the practice room is lost in the hall, and vice versa. Keep breath, bow, or touch deliberately controlled; at the smallest volume, the effort of attention is greatest. Check the intonation separately, for it suffers most here. And coordinate within the ensemble, so that everyone means the same limit — otherwise a voice unintentionally stands out.