Legato on repeated and moving notes

[breezybellows]

My teacher gave this to me as a legato exercise. it's a neat technique to play legato when a two part melody moves around with one note staying the same. The technique is to release the repeated note while holding the moving note a little bit longer. then when the new now is played, the repeated note which was previously released should come down along with it. For example, if you're playing C and E together followed by a E and G, you first release the E while holding on to the C. Then you'll slur (regular legato) into the G (from C) while starting to play the E at the same time you start to play the G. This sounded counter intuitive at first. one would assume that the repeated note be interpreted as a tied note and hence be continuously played. but that would drown out the melody change.

 

[dak]

Pet peeve of our ensemble conductor. Yes, makes a difference. There are also sometimes slurred single repeated notes which aren't tied. You need to look at the context to distinguish this from properly tied notes; sometimes the typesetting also makes a difference, assuming the typesetter knows what they are doing. Using different fingers in succession on the same key/button helps in making the gap as minimal as possible without having it disappear.