How to Sing with Dynamics: Mastering Loud and Soft Singing

Intro

Vocal power isn’t just about turning up the dial—it’s about control, balance, and science. Let’s break it down.

Welcome to The Voice Science Podcast, where we dive into the science behind all things singing and teaching. Here, you’ll learn how the voice works and discover practical tips to train it more efficiently. I’m Drew and I’ll be your guide for this exciting episode about Mastering Loud and Soft Singing.

In today’s episode, we’re taking a look at the science and application of vocal intensity, more commonly called dynamics.We’ll break down what intensity is, how to control it, and a few myths about singing loud. 

But real quick, if you have questions about this episode or questions about the voice and singing in general, we’d love to hear from you. You can reach out to us on our website at voicescience.org/contact/. We’ll reach back out with an answer, answer your question in a future episode, or both.

Okay, Let’s get started!

Definitions and Anatomy

The intensity of your phonation is determined by a large number of factors but the three most important are subglottal air pressure, the mass and tension of the true vocal folds, and the geometry of the vocal tract. We’ll start with subglottal air pressure.

Subglottal air pressure is the air pressure below the true vocal folds. Simplified the vocal folds are closed during exhalation causing pressure to build up below them, when this pressure reaches a specific threshold the vocal folds are pushed apart allowing the subglottal pressure to reduce, and the vocal folds close, repeating dozens to over a thousand times per second! You can learn more about phonatory threshold pressure in our episode “Why Your High Notes Crack: The Science of Phonatory Threshold Pressure”. Increasing subglottal air pressure above phonatory threshold pressure causes the true vocal folds to travel farther apart during each open phase, this increase in amplitude can make you louder. Big emphasis on can. An increase in breath pressure can also cause changes in tonality to be breathy or pressed which may not be desirable.

The second primary driver of intensity is the mass and tension of the true vocal folds.

We measure the mass by the level of contact in the true vocal folds during phonation. A louder sound will have a deeper level of true vocal fold contact. To illustrate this depth of contact, put your hands together, palms facing. This high level of contact results in an increased level of subglottic air pressure which produces a loud sound.

In contrast, a softer sound has a shallower level of fold contact. Using your hands again, palms facing, only make contact with the lateral edges of your pointer fingers. This reduced level of contact will produce a lower level of subglottic air pressure resulting in a softer sound.

All one needs to do is clap your hands in the positions suggested, and the proof is there: more fold contact equals a louder sound; less fold contact equals a softer sound.

The third major contributor is the geometry of the vocal tract. That’s just a fancy way of saying the shape of your vocal tract. We just covered Ring and Twang in our last episode “Ring and Twang: The Secret to a Powerful, Resonant Voice”. Check it out to learn more about this one.

One other contributor to how we perceive volume levels in singing is pitch frequency. Higher pitches are perceived as being louder to the human ear; it’s a super cool evolutionary trait to ensure that our brains perceive screaming babies and children. This works out great for sopranos, it’s less great for basses.

Exercises

Three exercises for mastering dynamics.

One. Sing an octave scale starting on a comfortable note, you can sing on a vowel, solfège, numbers, or whatever you’d like. Start singing comfortably soft, like a mezzo piano. The goal is to ensure the lowest and highest notes are the same intensity. Because higher frequencies are perceived as louder and most singers have a natural tendency to sing louder as the pitch increases anyway, it will get more challenging as you ascend the scale. In our first episode “Unlocking Breath Support: Sing Powerfully Without More Air” we discussed some breath support exercises that may be helpful here.

For the second exercise, we are going to sing ascending and descending scales again, but only five-tone scales this time. Pick a comfortable low note to start on. We want the whole exercise to be in a chest voice or thick fold production. The goal of this exercise is to stay in this thick fold and keep the dynamic soft. Move up a half step after each time, it will get more and more challenging to sing softly and maintain thick folds. When it gets too challenging, go back down and then come back up.

The final exercise for today is one of the greatest exercises for control of dynamics, the messa di voce, or mass of the voice. Pick a note and a vowel, when in doubt an F on the vowel /ae/ is an excellent choice. Starting as softly as you can phonate well, slowly crescendo, increasing the intensity. When you reach a strong phonation slowly reduce the intensity back to where you started. Ask yourself a few questions: Did I return to the same dynamic level I started at? And was it smooth or were there obvious gear shifts? Both of these are likely to be challenging when you are first starting. Keep practicing until you can return to the same intensity each time and have smoothed out all of the register shifts.

For all three of these exercises, it can be super helpful to record yourself and listen back. Most people don’t love listening to themselves, but our ears can play tricks on us while we are singing.

Myths

Often, well-intentioned singers will assume two things control the volume level of their singing, namely more air and more effort.

As mentioned earlier, singing louder is made possible by an increased level of subglottic air pressure resulting from the higher level of true vocal fold contact. But this is entirely different from the notion of blowing copious amounts of air at the folds to increase volume. All that increased airflow will only make the necessary level of fold contact harder to maintain. When all that excess air fails to deliver the desired result, a singer can be tempted to increase effort as a last result, which will likely lead to overwork resulting in a constricted, pressed, forced sound, commonly known as yelling or screaming. This will yield a louder sound, but not the one desired.

The second myth is that you need to sing loudly. In certain situations where you are singing without electronic amplification in a large room an increase in loudness is necessary. But for most contemporary commercial music, the focus should be on producing a healthy sound and allowing the microphone to do its job.

Recap

So let’s wrap it up.

Vocal dynamics—how loud or soft you sing—aren’t just about breath or effort. They’re shaped by subglottal air pressure, the mass and tension of your vocal folds, and the shape of your vocal tract. We also touched on how pitch can affect how loud something seems, even when it’s not.

We went over three exercises to help you master control over your dynamics:

1. Octave scales to balance intensity across pitch range,
2. Five-tone scales in chest voice to build control at soft volumes,
3. And the classic messa di voce for smooth, controlled crescendos and decrescendos.

And finally, we debunked a couple of common myths—more air and more effort aren’t the answer. In fact, they can get in the way.

Outro

If you found this helpful, we’d love for you to share it with a fellow singer or teacher. And if you have questions, head over to voicescience.org/contact—we’d be happy to answer them directly or even feature your question in a future episode.

Thanks for listening to The Voice Science Podcast. Until next time—stay curious, stay consistent, and keep singing smart.