23 dynamics signs
Checked October 2026

Crescendo Symbol

Copy the crescendo symbol, a hairpin that opens, or paste a dynamic such as 𝒇 for forte.

Crescendo Symbol

𝆒CrescendoU+1D192Ready to copy

23 dynamics signs. Tap any value to copy it.

23 dynamics signs. A character and its name both copy the character. A code copies the code.
Character	Name	Code point	HTML
	U+1D192. Unicode's name: Musical symbol crescendo. The hairpin that opens to the right: grow louder. A character of the Musical Symbols block, so a device with no music font shows an empty box. No Alt code, key or HTML name.
	U+1D193. Musical symbol decrescendo, the hairpin that closes toward the right: grow quieter. Diminuendo and decrescendo are near-synonyms, and this one sign serves both.
	U+003C. The keyboard stand-in for a crescendo hairpin: the same two lines opening to the right, at Shift and comma on the U.S. layout.
	U+003E. Its mirror image, the plain-text stand-in for a decrescendo.
	The written abbreviation of crescendo, the Italian word for increasing.
	Short for diminuendo, diminishing: the written way to ask for a gradual drop in volume.
	U+1D487. Forte, loud or strong, as a bold italic letter from the block of mathematical letters: a stand-in for the music character of the same shape.
	U+1D491. Piano, soft or quiet, in the same bold italic.
	Made of U+1D48E and U+1D487: mezzo forte, moderately loud.
	Made of U+1D48E and U+1D491: mezzo piano, moderately quiet.
	Made of U+1D487 twice: fortissimo, very loud.
	Made of U+1D491 twice: pianissimo, very quiet.
	Made of U+1D494, U+1D487 and U+1D49B: sforzando, suddenly very loud, on one beat only.
	U+1D191. Unicode's own forte. Added with the other music characters in Unicode 3.1 (2001).
	U+1D18F. Quiet, as engraved: the sign whose doubling makes pianissimo.
	U+1D190. The m of mezzo, which is always followed by a forte or a piano.
	Made of U+1D191 twice: fortissimo in true music characters.
	Made of U+1D18F twice: pianissimo in true music characters.
	Made of U+1D190 and U+1D191: mezzo forte.
	U+1D190, then U+1D18F: moderately quiet.
	U+1D18C. The r of rinforzando, reinforced: a sudden increase that covers a phrase.
	U+1D18D. The s of subito, the letter that opens sfz.
	U+1D18E. The z that closes sfz and rfz.

Next step ♭, ♯ and ♮ with their codes

How it works

The crescendo symbol is the hairpin that opens, 𝆒, U+1D192; the one that closes, 𝆓, is the decrescendo symbol. A device with no music font shows them as empty boxes, so plain stand-ins are listed beside them.

Read the full guide

Hairpins and their words

A crescendo symbol is two lines opening rightward: grow louder. The decrescendo symbol closes to the right, and since decrescendo and diminuendo mean roughly the same, it is the diminuendo symbol too. In words: cresc. and dim.

Forte, piano and mezzo

𝒇 is forte, loud, and 𝒑 is piano, soft. Mezzo forte, 𝒎𝒇, is moderately loud and mezzo piano, 𝒎𝒑, moderately quiet. Fortissimo is 𝒇𝒇 and pianissimo 𝒑𝒑. These rows are bold italic letters; the music characters for f, p and m come last.

Music dynamics signs have no Alt code, HTML name or key: they are copied, or entered by code point.

Questions and answers

What is the forte symbol?

A bold italic f. As a music character it is U+1D191, Musical symbol forte; the letter 𝒇 is a stand-in from the mathematical letters. Forte means loud or strong, and the fortissimo symbol, ff, means very loud.

What is the pianissimo symbol?

pp: the piano sign twice, meaning very quiet. In music characters that is U+1D18F two times; in letters, 𝒑𝒑. A single p, piano, means soft or quiet.

What are the mezzo forte and mezzo piano symbols?

mf and mp. Mezzo forte means moderately loud and mezzo piano moderately quiet. The music symbol for mezzo, U+1D190, is the m, and a forte or a piano sign follows it.

Is there a forte symbol alt code?

No. Both Alt code tables stop far short of the music characters and of the bold italic letters. A forte sign, like a crescendo or decrescendo symbol, is copied and pasted.

All 23 dynamics signs

Start here 8

Cresc., the abbreviation The written abbreviation of crescendo, the Italian word for increasing.
Crescendo U+1D192. Unicode's name: Musical symbol crescendo. The hairpin that opens to the right: grow louder. A character of the Musical Symbols block, so a device with no music font shows an empty box. No Alt code, key or HTML name.
Decrescendo U+1D193. Musical symbol decrescendo, the hairpin that closes toward the right: grow quieter. Diminuendo and decrescendo are near-synonyms, and this one sign serves both.
Dim., the abbreviation Short for diminuendo, diminishing: the written way to ask for a gradual drop in volume.
Greater-than sign U+003E. Its mirror image, the plain-text stand-in for a decrescendo.
Less-than sign U+003C. The keyboard stand-in for a crescendo hairpin: the same two lines opening to the right, at Shift and comma on the U.S. layout.
Mathematical bold italic small f U+1D487. Forte, loud or strong, as a bold italic letter from the block of mathematical letters: a stand-in for the music character of the same shape.
Mathematical bold italic small p U+1D491. Piano, soft or quiet, in the same bold italic.

Show all 23 dynamics signs (15 more)

Dynamics in bold italic letters 5

Fortissimo Made of U+1D487 twice: fortissimo, very loud.
Mezzo forte Made of U+1D48E and U+1D487: mezzo forte, moderately loud.
Mezzo piano Made of U+1D48E and U+1D491: mezzo piano, moderately quiet.
Pianissimo Made of U+1D491 twice: pianissimo, very quiet.
Sforzando Made of U+1D494, U+1D487 and U+1D49B: sforzando, suddenly very loud, on one beat only.

Music characters, may be an empty box 10

Fortissimo, music characters Made of U+1D191 twice: fortissimo in true music characters.
Mezzo forte, music characters Made of U+1D190 and U+1D191: mezzo forte.
Mezzo piano, music characters U+1D190, then U+1D18F: moderately quiet.
Musical symbol forte U+1D191. Unicode's own forte. Added with the other music characters in Unicode 3.1 (2001).
Musical symbol mezzo U+1D190. The m of mezzo, which is always followed by a forte or a piano.
Musical symbol piano U+1D18F. Quiet, as engraved: the sign whose doubling makes pianissimo.
Musical symbol rinforzando U+1D18C. The r of rinforzando, reinforced: a sudden increase that covers a phrase.
Musical symbol subito U+1D18D. The s of subito, the letter that opens sfz.
Musical symbol z U+1D18E. The z that closes sfz and rfz.
Pianissimo, music characters Made of U+1D18F twice: pianissimo in true music characters.

How this list was compiled: Names, and the code points they belong to, are checked against UnicodeData.txt, version 18.0.0 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/UnicodeData.txt), and printed in sentence case. Notes that begin Unicode's note quote NamesList.txt of the same version (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/NamesList.txt); the version a character was added in is from DerivedAge.txt (https://www.unicode.org/Public/18.0.0/ucd/DerivedAge.txt), block names are from Blocks.txt, and the years are from https://www.unicode.org/history/publicationdates.html. Alt codes are from the code page 437 table (https://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/PC/CP437.TXT), the PC graphics table for codes 1 to 31 (https://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MISC/IBMGRAPH.TXT) and the code page 1252 table (https://www.unicode.org/Public/MAPPINGS/VENDORS/MICSFT/WINDOWS/CP1252.TXT). Option keys are those of the U.S. keyboard layout as CLDR records it (https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr/blob/release-42/keyboards/osx/en-t-k0-osx.xml); other layouts differ. HTML entity names are from https://html.spec.whatwg.org/entities.json. LaTeX macros are listed only when LaTeX's own fontdef.dtx, ltoutenc.dtx or utf8ienc.dtx (https://github.com/latex3/latex2e/tree/develop/base) or the amssymb source (https://ctan.org/pkg/amsfonts) defines them, matched to a code point through unicode-math-table.tex (https://github.com/latex3/unicode-math). Compose sequences are from the X.org en_US.UTF-8 Compose file (https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/lib/libx11/-/blob/master/nls/en_US.UTF-8/Compose.pre). The music characters are those of the Musical Symbols block whose Unicode name holds CRESCENDO, FORTE, PIANO or MEZZO, with the rinforzando, subito and z beside them, found by a search of UnicodeData.txt; two newer hairpins with a ring are left out. What each dynamic means, the hairpins and their shapes, the abbreviations cresc. and dim., and that decrescendo and diminuendo mean roughly the same: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_(music), read on 2026-10-03 and restated in this site's own words. The letter rows are made of mathematical bold italic letters, a stand-in chosen by this site. The order is this site's own choice. Licence: own work (facts from the Unicode Character Database, Unicode License v3, and from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0, restated in this site's own words; aliases and notes marked as Unicode's are quoted from NamesList.txt, Copyright © 1991-2026 Unicode, Inc., https://www.unicode.org/license.txt)