Daily drill exercises to help with dynamic shapes?
Posted by HS assistant on 10/7/2026, 10:04 am
Hey all,
I teach high school second band and do a daily drill that focuses on sameness of tone, color, shape etc on long tones and intervals, like many of us do. I feel like my kids to a good job on these fundamentals of matching and controlling all that in various registers. This translates well to our music in marching or concert band as far as balance and blend.
The problem I'm running into is they struggle to communicate dynamic shapes and phrasing, no matter how much I remind them of dynamics, circling crescendo/decrescendo, forte pianos, etc. It all sounds very safe and stale. My theory is I may be emphasizing "sameness" so much in daily drill that they are simply just carrying that into the music.
Any thoughts on this? Does anyone have an exercise they like to use in daily drill that incorporates dynamics/phrase shapes? My kids are strong enough players that they can still play with characteristic sounds at the piano and forte ranges...I just can't get them to do the contrast like it needs to be.
Hope that all makes sense. Thanks any input
Re: Daily drill exercises to help with dynamic shapes?
I don't have an exercise for this in our daily drill.
For fp, I have had success doing some version of the following: 1. Play the note as a whole note, at the "top volume" for that note. 2. stop. 3. Play the note, as a whole note, as the "minimum volume" for that note. (address tone, intonation, etc.) 4. stop. 5. Play the two whole notes, in succession, and make them sound the same in volume as the previous two examples. 6. stop. 7. Play the forte note as an eighth note, and the piano as the remainder of a whole note. 8. Further adapt to the context of the actual music.
I do the same thing for crescendi, etc. 1. play the passage at the starting dynamic 2. play the passage at the ending dynamic 3. start at the starting dynamic, and end at the ending dynamic. 4. "cheat" by always playing a little softer at the beginning of a crescendo.
Having numbers for your dynamic levels is helpful but from your description it sounds more like you just need to find a way to get the kids to actually play at those levels. My kids always know "what" to do, but always feel they did more than they actually did.
Re: Daily drill exercises to help with dynamic shapes?
