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Ties, Slurs, and Dots

Transcript (doc)

Ties and Slurs

In music notation, curved lines are used for both slurs and the ties. The slur connects notes of different pitch. It indicates that the notes are to be connected smoothly with no break between them. A tie is a curved line that connects notes of the same pitch. It indicates to sustain the sound continuously through the total duration of all the notes tied together.
Here are several examples of slurs. Note that when more than two notes are slurred, the first and last note might be the same. Because the notes in between are different, it is still a slur..
In a tie, think of the second note being "tied" to the first, indicating to hold the pitch of the first note for the duration of the first note plus the duration of the second. Ties often go across a bar line.
These examples are taken from a SonicFit worksheet. Similar questions are on the quiz for this tutorial. Identify each arched line as a slur or a tie. Pause the video for extra time to answer the questions. The slur will now turn red, leaving the ties black.

Dotted notes

A dot after a note is short-hand for a tied note that is half the duration of the first note.
Lets consider the dotted half note.
The given note value is the half note. Half of a half note is a quarter note. The dot on the half note represents a tie to a quarter note. If the quarter note is getting the beat, then the half note would be 2 counts, and the quarter note would be one count, making the dotted half note 3 counts.
The given note value is the half note. Half of a half note is a quarter note. The dot on the half note represents a tie to a quarter note. In common time, the half note is 2 counts, and the quarter note is one count, making the dotted half note 3 counts.
Put another way, dots add half of the value of the note which they follow. Lets consider again a half note in common time.
The half note gets 2 beats, and half of 2 beats is 1 beat, so adding 1 to the original 2 makes 3 beats.
In Common Time, a dotted quarter note is 1 and ½ beats: that’s 1 for the quarter note and ½ for the dot. Dots also occur on rests. Here is a dotted quarter rest. Dots will be further illuminated in the video on “slurs, ties, and dots”. Here, we have just introduced the dotted half and dotted quarter notes in common time.
The timeline of note values is a helpful reference to understand dotted note durations. Here are beat durations of all of our notes in common time. Note that the dotted half note is 3 beats, right between a half note and a whole note, and that the dotted quarter note at 1 ½ beats is right between a quarter note and a half note.
Count singing with slurs only changes the phrasing of the music- connect notes under the slur to each other like this (sing example).
In count singing, when you encounter a tie, you treat it the same way as if the tie wasn’t there. When writing counts, put a dash to connect the tied counts. When singing on words, the tied note would just be sustained from the previous note. In this case, the tied note is on beat 2, and the eighth note after it is on the and of two. (Sing example).
In this example, the first two notes could be combined into a dotted quarter note. It is treated the same way- sing the dot on beat two, and the following eighth note on the and of two.
When you encounter a dotted note, it may be helpful to convert it to a tied note. In this example, The first note begins on beat 1 and lasts all of beat 1. The next available beat is beat 2. The second note starts on beat 2 and it lasts for 1 ½ beats. That would be all of beat 2 and the first half of beat 3. It may help to look at the dotted note rewritten as a tie to see this. The first of the two eighths, the one that is really the dot on the previous note, goes at the beginning of beat three, and the second eighth goes on the and of 3.
It may be helpful to draw beams to represent full beats. The second note lasts all of the second beat, plus half of beat 3 for the dot. The next available metric placement is the and of three for the following eighth.
You may now test your comprehension of this material by taking the quiz for this video.