Fun Story: My director kept telling me and my tenor sax buddy to play softer. No matter what we did, it wasn’t soft enough for him. So getting frustrated, I told my buddy “Dont play this time. Just fake it”
Our Band Director then informed us we sounded perfect.
To my readers: “p” means quiet, “pp” means really quiet. I’ve never seen “pppp” before haha.
On the contrast, “f” means loud, and “ffff” probably means so loud you go unconscious.
I had ffff in a piece once and my conductor told me to play as loudly as physically possible without falling off my chair…
That piece was probably one of best ones I’ve ever played, if only because for once it was ok to blast.