Articulation

Using Breaks Between Tones

Achieving a legato connection between tones is not the only reason for paying particular attention to the timing of the release.

When a break occurs between two tones, an articulation or accent may occur on the second tone. The intensity of that articulation or accent depends on several factors, including the relative length of the two tones and the size of the break that separates them.

In general, longer tones receive an agogic* accent. A larger break “steals” from the first tone, and produces a relatively larger accent on the second. If the break is small, the first tone remains relatively long, producing little or no accent or articulation on the second tone.

* “An accent . . . effected not by dynamic stress or by higher pitch but by longer duration of the note.” --Reprinted by permission of the publisher from HARVARD DICTIONARY OF MUSIC, SECOND REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION by Willi Apel, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1944, 1969 by the Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College, © 1972 by Willi Apel. Pg. 24.