Dynamic marks... Works?

I just downlaoded the score attached to this post: https://musescore.org/en/node/66156#comment-304096

This file very definitely has a crescendo that appears in measure 24, directly on top of the chords "C E Am". As I said before, though, while it *appears* to be in measure 24, it is actually attached to measure 22. And, while it *appears* to start at the beginning of the measure and extend to the end of the measure, it is actually only one note long. You can see this by double clicking the crescendo and seeing when the beginning and ending handles are attached. The beginning handle is attached to the first note of measure 22, and the end handle is attached to the second note of that same measure.

It appears you tried stretching it out with the mouse, and also dragging it from measure 22 to 24, but the mouse is only for fine adjustments, not for changing the actual range of the lines. It is very important to attach markings to the correct notes in order for them to play correctly. And in the case of crescendos, you have to attach both the beginning and ending to the correct notes - you can't simply stretch it out with the mouse. You have to follow the methods described in the Handbook: https://musescore.org/en/handbook/hairpin-0. Either select the range first then press the shortcut, or add the line from the palette then use Shift+Left/Right to change the end point(s).

As for the difference between mf and ff, maybe it's a little too subtle for you to be able to hear through whatever speakers you are using. Also, notice that you have attached some dynamics to the vocal part, others to the piano part. By default, dynamic markings affect only the part to which they are attached, although you can override this in the Inspector. There are many places therefore where your dynamics are out of sync - one part mf the other ff, etc. Not sure if that's deliberately, but it's probably contributing to why you don't hear a difference overall.

So, just to convince yourself it really is working, how about if add a "ppp" to both parts at the beginning of the score, then an "fff" to both parts in the next measure. I guarantee you will hear the difference. Then you just need to sort out which dynamics you want to apply to which parts and be consistent about it.

Also make sure crescendos and diminuendos are created properly, as described in the Handbook, and with clear dynamic markings before and after so MuseScore can tell how much change you want. For instance, the crescendo I mentioned that appears to be in measure 24 but is actually in measure 22 - the dynamic marking at the beginning is "mf". MuseScore then attempts to figure out how loud you want it to get, but the next dynamic it finds for that part is the "mf" in measure 28. So even though you wrote a crescendo, you didn't tell MuseScore - or the human musicians who may eventually read this score - how big a crescrendo you want. Humans might guess, but MsueScore doesn't - it relies on you to tell it explicitly. Either by adding another dynamic marking at the end of the crescendo, or using the Inspector to tell MuseScore exactly how much of a change you want to the MIDI velocity of the notes (on a scale from 1 to 127).

BTW, if you want all your dynamics above the staff, instead of dragging them one by one, simply set it that way in the style settings. Enter a dynamic, right click it, Text Style, and change the "Vertical offset" to how ever many staff spaces above the staff you want them to default. Now all dynamic marks will go there by default rather than below the staff. Since you have already entered lots of dynamics, you might right click one, Select / All simialr elements, then Ctrl+R to reset them to the (new) default position.