Eleanor Lawrence had a wonderful exercise (perhaps derived from Tabuteau) to help us increase our dynamic range. The exercise is as follows:
- Be careful to keep the pitch the same at all these dynamics
- At quarter note = 60, on, let's say a D2, one plays a good healthy forte for a whole note
- After a slow, controlled inhalation, play a mezzo forte
- Then, ditto the breathing, a mezzo-piano
- Then a piano
- Then reverse it, going from piano to forte
Once you have an idea of what you need to do to produce that note @ those dynamics you "connect the dots" & do it as a decrescendo/crescendo. You can then reverse the process by starting @ the piano dynamic moving to forte on whole notes & then as a crescendo/decrescendo.
You then try different notes in different tessiture (I think that's the plural for tessitura - if you don't know the word, look it up).
The next step involves going from FF to PP & PP to FF. One tries always to increase the range of the volume from loud to soft & visa versa.
I've also found this exercise to be a great one to use in coaching ensembles to help them obtain a greater dynamic range.
