Music notation glossary · Articulation
Legato and slur
play smoothly connected
In the score
What it means
A curved line over notes of different pitch: they are connected without a new attack. It looks like a tie but means something else — a tie joins notes of the same pitch.
Articulation
The curve over several notes: they run into each other without a break, each note sounding until the next one starts. Only the first note under the curve is attacked; on strings that means one bow stroke for all of them, on wind instruments a single tongue at the start.
Related pages
Anotona does this for you
Photograph a page of sheet music or play the melody — Anotona finds the key, engraves the notes and transposes them into any other. Free.
See AnotonaEvery note on this page is computed, not typed in — following the rule that also makes F# major spell its seventh degree E#, not F.