The dynamical solar atmosphere

High resolution space and ground-based telescopes made it clear that one of the most fundamental characteristics of solar atmosphere is that it is dynamic, showing stationary and non-stationary motion on all time and space scales. Dynamical changes in the solar atmosphere are rather difficult to interpret given the presence of the magnetic field and the high-degree of ionization of the plasma. After all, the magnetic field is the quantity which controls the dynamics, stability, and thermal state of the plasma. The present contribution aims to review some fundamental knowledge on plasma dynamics in the solar atmosphere with special emphasis on coronal seismology, i.e. the science which is using the observable dynamical changes in the solar corona to infer quantities that cannot be measured (structure and magnitude of the coronal magnetic field, scale-heights, density filling factors, etc.).