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I just saw this yesterday in an older trombone method book. I was wondering what the consensus is about how to interpret this in playing. Are the notes to be "slightly articulated"? Or separated while still maintaining the flow of the phrase?

Wikepedia suggests the former.

Any thoughts?

I'm not a wind player, but I'll bite.

I've come to think of staccato as having to do with how you stop the note, not so much about how you start the note. How about slurring to the second note and then stopping the air with the tongue?

This brings up another question... I had a trombone player tell me that they never really slur. Even when slurs are marked they slightly articulate so that it doesn't sound like glissando constantly. This must be unique to trombone since the slide will always need some time to move.

I'm mildly dyslexic and at first glance thought it said potato.

Anyway, I've seen this notation before and was told by a friend who does a lot of orchestration that it's primarily used for strings, but some wind instruments can approximate the effect. Of course, that's just one person's take on it.

Phil

Look here:

http://music.stackexchange.com/question ... d-staccato

Often in Mozart piano music you see this (staccato notes with "slurs") which is more of a phrasing indication where the notes are played for their full value (as if soured) but a tiny space between the notes is introduced. You can think of them as dashes with dots if that help (I.E. full value with a tiny staccato type pause but without accenting the staccato so the phrase is still connected in a legato sense but has a more elegant execution. Bad piano teachers have a very hard time describing that. All they need to do is play it for the student to understand, but again, bad teachers are often bad players and they may not understand the concept. The key thing is to not disturb the evenness of the phrase with overly accented staccato.

In traffic it might look like this... mind the lorry and the pedestrians.

I got the impression that Portato was a string articulation. In response to your suggestion, I'm not just talking about a pair of slurred notes where the second is staccato. I'm talking about a more than two notes and multiple staccato markings under a longer legato phrase.

I play trombone. And your friend is not entirely correct. Trombones can slur some pairs of notes. Not to get too weedy, but here's how it works.

A trombone has roughly 8 or so pitches in one position (depending on the player's range). They follow the harmonic series, so lower pitches are further apart and get closer together as you go up. Lowering the slide by one position drops those pitches by a half-step. If the two slurred notes are within the same "register"-- i.e. the pitch of a specific harmonic and all the related notes produced by moving the slide in or out - then you have to lightly tongue notes within that same register to hide the slide movement.

But a significant number of natural slurs can occur by crossing to a register above or below. When done right, a listener can't tell the difference between a natural slur and the carefully tongued one. This light-tonguing interrupts the air about as much as a valve or rotor would. And speaking of a rotor, trombones with triggers provide more non-tongued slur options.

Sorry for that diversion. I don't get to talk trombone very much.


PHIL O: You say potato, I say Portato.

MLS: Your definition was more what I was "intuiting". And that is how I described it to the student, while making it clear that I was merely guessing and would need to consult the experts. Thanks. That's well worded and very clear.

Thanks all.

Who's MLS... LOL

Thanks, I know what you meant. MIDI Life? Seriously?

Sorry for that diversion. I don't get to talk trombone very much.

In 9th grade, I had a band teacher who played the 'bone. He often stopped rehearsal to teach the section how to do slurs properly. Thanks for taking me back.

Here's the Wiki for Portato

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portato

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Who's MLS... LOL
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I have no idea what I meant. I'm relatively certain I didn't mean "MIDI LIFE STYLES" of the rich and famous.

Mike, I saw the wiki entry (which is where I got the term), but it seems to differ from Mr. Style's definition. Wiki says don't separate them, but articulate them, and MLC's description says introduce a tiny space. I suppose they aren't really mutually exclusive. It sounds like the composer really wants the performer to express this ambiguity with great precision, to detach the notes, but still keep them joined. Smooth and connected, but not extra smooth and not truly connected.

Perhaps I should just say "remove the slurs and dots and play non-commitally".

The music is a reference point for interpretation. For every "precise" way of playing something there is an equally valid "interpretational" way of playing that thing another way. In most of the piano music I play that uses that notation (a lot in Mozart!) I see this in the slow movements. It's quite common. I think of it as a legato phrase where the continuity comes from precise control over the consistent volume connecting the notes, along with a "breathy" interpretation of the phrase. It's hard to put into words, and that's a good thing.

That is very helpful, indeed.

I go along with what MLC said about staccato being in the context of overall legato PHRASING.

I play many winds (except brasswinds), but not many strings (primarily double bass, and occasionally cello). No formal training, unlike with winds, so I've had to learn through my own research.

What I see most often, is people equating detache bowing of strings with portato playing in winds. This comes up in many sources but doesn't mean it's the final word. I think about this now and then but am not convinced.

I suppose if one gets back to these articulations being in the context of legato phrasing, it makes sense, as all of these articulations essentially leave the phrasing and dynamics untouched but affect mostly note length and note attack (to a lesser extent).

Articulations that would NOT be considered part of legato phrasing would be things like sforzando, tzigane (well, actually, that's debatable based on context), and probably certain crescendos and decrescendos. Yet each of those may have some comparisons in note attack to staccato or portato/sustain.

Pizzicato is a funny one, because it means something different for upright bass than the other strings. For upright, it does NOT involve plucking strings with two or more fingers. Possibly this is due to the stronger influence of the Viol family background for that instrument. This is true for both jazz and classical as far as I know.

In Bach's time, notation was almost just a way of defining the basic structure, like a jazz chart that people blow over for their solos.

Things got ever more formal as composers sought more control over the performance of their works and as music itself went from rich royal hosts to a more varied source of benefactors and a broader and more public audience.

So, by the early twentieth century, there was almost no room left for personal expression or interpretation, in some works.

Another example is piano pedaling, which was always left to the discretion of the performer, until maybe the Impressionist period where it so closely defined very specific intent and mood at each point and thus was marked in the scores.

Regardless, some performers and conductors choose to ignore what they want to, and no one's going to put them in jail for that, revoke their license, or change the royalties equation -- even if they add music or ideas of their own to the basic work.

Fascinating stuff!

I suppose in any context, I could ask, "Has this been performed?" (As opposed to something from a method book), does the interpretation that I hear from recordings make musical sense to me? And most importantly, "What does the music itself suggest?"

Your point about a composer wanting to micromanage the interpretation of their notation is fascinating. I've been there with some things I've made where I have some specific ideas about which notes should be short and how long some notes should be. It's because SOME phrases exist in my imagination quite complete and I so enjoy hearing them do that particular maneuver.

Thanks all for your input. Truly fun.

mhschmieder wrote:In Bach's time, notation was almost just a way of defining the basic structure, like a jazz chart that people blow over for their solos.

Now we're playing in my ballpark... LOL ...don't even get me started.