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At a high volume.
Appears in English directions (loud, very loud, loud and broad), printed below the staff with dynamics or above it in character phrases, and holds until the next dynamic. The signs f and ff are far more common in print.
Plain-English forte, rarely needed when f and ff exist. Use the word for a quality the sign cannot give — loud but not harsh, loud and ringing — or in music for non-specialist performers. Loudness is relative to instrument and register: a flute in its low octave played loud is still soft against brass.
Loud is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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