Music notation glossary · Note values
Tie
two notes become one
In the score
What it means
A curved line between two notes of the same pitch: the second is not struck again but added to the first. This produces lengths that have no symbol of their own, and notes that sound across the barline.
Tie and slur
Two identical notes with a curve between them: only the first is played, and it goes on sounding until the second would have run out too. Four heads stand in the picture, three sounds are heard. This is needed wherever a duration cannot be written as a single note value — which happens more often than you would think.
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.