Gedämpft

As Printed on a Score

Printed over brass parts (muted) and over drums (muffled with a cloth or damping device), often in parentheses or with immer (“immer gedämpft”). It lasts until offen, ohne Dämpfer or another instruction.

Also spelled: gedaempft

How Composers Use It

On trumpets and horns gedämpft means muted; for horns it is not the same as gestopft (hand-stopped), though both darken the tone. On drums it means a muffled, dull sound — the sound of the military funeral march, which is how Mahler uses the side drum in his Fifth. Say which instrument is meant and, for drums, how to muffle if it matters.

Example

Mahler, Symphony No. 5, first movement (Trauermarsch), Kleine Trommel, m. 102: “gedämpft” — the side drum muffled within a funeral march.

Related Terms