The Complete Idiot''s Guide to Music Theory

216 Par t 5:Embellishing

A tie is made with a small curve, either above or below the note, like this:

Two identical notes tied together equal one long note.

Slurs

A slurlooks like a tie between two notes of different pitches, but really indicates

that the notes are to be played together as a continuous group. Although you

can’t play two different tones as a continuous note, you can run them together

without a breath or a space in between. This is called “slurring” the notes

together; it looks like this:

Lots of notes grouped together are played as a smooth phrase.

Often, wind instruments (trumpets, clarinets, and so forth) base their breathing

on the song’s phrases. They’ll blow during the phrase and breathe between the

phrase marks.

Bowed instruments (violins, cellos, and so forth) use phrases to time their bowing.

They’ll use a single, continuous movement of the bow for the duration of the

phrase; at the end of the phrase mark, they’ll change the direction of their bowing.

Two different notes tied together are slurred together.

There’s a subtle difference between two notes that are slurred together and two

notes that aren’t. The notes without the slur should each have a separate attack,

which ends up sounding like a slight emphasis on each note. The second of the

two slurred notes doesn’t have a separate attack, so the sound is much smoother

as you play from note to note.

Phrases

When you see a curved line above several adjacent notes, it’s not a slur—it’s a

phrase. You use phrase marks to indicate separate ideas within a longer piece of

music. When one idea ends, you end the phrase mark; when a new idea begins,

you start a new phrase mark.

The curved line

used in a slur is called a

slurmark.

Definition

Technically, a phrase mark

indicates that a passage

of music is played

legato—which means to

play smoothly.

Note