Explaining a sign is not the same as playing it. fp means strong at first, then immediately soft; Klavissimo does not yet perform this separately. sf, sfz, sffz, fz and rfz emphasise a note or chord: Klavissimo plays them like an accent and scores them like an accent. The volume afterwards stays as it was. Morendo, smorzando and perdendosi change the volume, not the tempo automatically. Fermatas lengthen playback and "In tempo": a note or rest under a fermata lasts twice as long, the last sound of the piece or section two and a half times as long. If you hold it shorter or longer, Klavissimo scores from your next note onwards, up to three seconds beyond the planned hold. Fermatas that end at different times in different voices are not lengthened. Single-note and unmeasured tremolos are not yet performed.
Texts such as cresc., cres., molto cresc., dim., dimin. and dimin: e poco change the volume when the next dynamic instruction is a suitable dynamic mark: louder for crescendo, softer for diminuendo. Without that target, or if a hairpin comes first, Klavissimo adds no new change in volume. An active hairpin or a hairpin starting within one quarter note before or after the text takes priority. A hairpin ending does not block the text on its own. Molto adds no extra amplification. With dynamics scoring enabled, the supported change also counts towards assessment on a velocity-sensitive MIDI instrument; on-screen keys are not assessed for velocity.
Klavissimo plays back dynamics and articulation using the supported score markings — and, in "In tempo" mode, scores how you handle them yourself.
At “morendo”, “smorzando”, “smorz.” and “perdendosi”, playback gradually becomes softer. A running hairpin or connected chain of hairpins finishes first. A following softer dynamic mark sets the target; an equal level keeps the progression flat. Before a louder mark, the level falls by one step, then the mark takes effect at its own position. Without a further instruction, the volume falls by one level by the end of the piece. A new dynamic instruction ends this progression.
What Klavissimo plays back
While playing through and in the accompaniment, score dynamics from ppp to fff, crescendo/diminuendo hairpins and cresc. text, plus articulation — staccato, staccatissimo, tenuto, accents (including marcato) and legato slurs — actually sound different, not all at the same volume anymore.
Good to know:
Grace notes, the small notes in front of a main note, sound just before the beat while playing through and in the accompaniment; the main note stays on the beat. If there is no room before it, for example at the start of the selected section, it sounds on the beat and the main note follows straight after. Arpeggios, chords with a wavy line in front of them, sound broken: from the bottom up, the lowest note on the beat, all notes ending together; with a downward arrow, from the top down. If the wavy line spans both staves, it is a single sweep across both hands. In "Note by note", the other hand's accompaniment plays only the main note and strikes chords all at once. Trills, mordents and turns are played out too. A trill starts on the main note, alternates quickly with the note above and ends on the main note. A mordent plays main note, note below, main note; an inverted mordent does the same with the note above. A turn circles the note: note above, main note, note below, main note; an inverted turn starts with the note below. In a delayed turn the main note sounds first for a while, and the turn follows at the end of the note. How fast depends on the tempo you practise at. If the note is too short for it, only the main note sounds. A two-note tremolo, two notes or chords meant to alternate rapidly, is played as an even alternation in time: in semiquavers with two tremolo beams, in demisemiquavers with three. The first note or chord starts, the alternation ends exactly with the printed note value, and the keys light up as it plays. Only the written notes and chords are scored, each once at its own time. If you play an ornament, its notes do not count as extra notes, and in "Note by note" they do not count as mistakes. The same applies to arpeggios and tremolos. If you roll a chord marked with a wavy line, its start is what counts: the upper notes may come later, as long as you roll it not much more slowly than in the playback. In a two-note tremolo, one attack per note or chord counts; the alternations in between are not extra notes. In "Note by note", a further tremolo alternation does not count as a mistake. If a turn or a trill starts on the note above, that first note usually counts as the start of the note; the same goes for a grace note you play on the beat. Only if this would lower your timing score overall does the main note stay the start. Upper and lower mordents begin on the main note, so for them the main note is always the start. In exercises and pieces with ornaments, the result card in "In tempo" mode also shows whether you played each ornament and where a neighbour note was wrong; this does not count towards the overall score. In "Note by note", an ornament note that is also the next note no longer moves you on. How fast you trill and how many notes the trill has does not matter for this. Intermediate attacks in two-note tremolos overlap slightly for a more connected sound; the written notes used for scoring stay unchanged. The tremolo beams between the notes are visible in the score.
The four controls in the player ⚙
In the player ⚙, the "Dynamics" section controls playback: the "Score dynamics" switch plus three 0–200% sliders — "Dynamic contrast", "Accent strength" and "Downbeat emphasis" (100% = neutral).
How the scoring works
Scoring only happens in "In tempo" mode — and relative to your own playing, not absolute: Klavissimo checks whether your pp actually sounds quieter than your mf, whether a crescendo actually gets louder (a diminuendo quieter), whether an accent stands out from its neighbouring notes, and whether staccato is short enough — or tenuto long enough. How loud you play in absolute terms doesn't count — every digital piano reports key velocity differently.
Without a real MIDI piano: the on-screen keyboard
If you play via the on-screen or computer keyboard instead of a real MIDI piano, there's no real key velocity — every keystroke arrives at the same fixed volume. Klavissimo then honestly leaves out levels, crescendo/diminuendo and accents instead of scoring them wrongly, and scores only articulation (staccato/tenuto) — that relies on timing alone, not on key velocity. The result card says so in a line of its own. If your instrument always sends the same key velocity, Klavissimo treats it like the on-screen keyboard.
The "Rate dynamics & articulation" switch
Whether scoring happens at all is decided by the "Rate dynamics & articulation" switch in the player ⚙, right next to "Score pedal strictly". The presets set it automatically — off in Play mode, on in Learn mode — but you can override it individually any time. Under /einstellungen → Instrument, the "Dynamics scoring" row shows at a glance whether it's currently on or off; you change it in the player ⚙. In the exercises of the "Dynamics and articulation" module, Klavissimo always scores the markings in "In tempo" mode, even when the switch is off. That is why these exercises open in "In tempo": "Note by note" does not measure loudness. If you pick "Note by note" there yourself, Klavissimo remembers it for that exercise.
The result card
With the switch on, your result gets its own "Dynamics & articulation" card with a score from 0 to 100 — depending on what the piece offers, with lines on levels (e.g. "pp → mf: clearly separated" or "not separated" when two levels come out equally loud for you), crescendo/diminuendo, accents and articulation. The overall score from accuracy and timing stays untouched — just like the pedal, this is its own, additional block. If you keep the pedal held down while playing, staccato or tenuto underneath it can't be judged — those notes aren't scored, and the card shows that (e.g. "5 of 6 hit (+2 not rated under pedal)"). In the exercises of the "Dynamics and articulation" module, the card also counts towards mastery: an exercise there only counts as mastered when the overall score reaches at least 80 and dynamics at least 70 points. If Klavissimo cannot measure loudness, for example on the on-screen keyboard or with an instrument without touch sensitivity, the overall score counts alone. The card always says why.
Good to know:
Two honest limits: if the piece carries neither dynamic nor articulation markings, no card appears at all — there's simply nothing to score. And legato isn't scored (yet), even though it's already audible while playing back.