A staccato dot asks for a detached note. It does not mean a louder note or a faster tempo. Release earlier while leaving the next attack on its written beat. The dot is placed above or below the notehead, unlike a duration dot placed to its right.
An accent asks for emphasis, commonly a stronger attack. A slur groups a connected phrase. These markings can coexist: you might emphasize the first note of a slurred phrase without making all its notes loud.
The detached example uses short synthesized notes. Its attacks stay on the same numbered beats. Actual staccato length depends on style and tempo; “half length” is a practice approximation, not a universal definition.
Stopped. Select a note with Next note, or play with sound.
Right hand. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little. Chord finger groups read from lowest note to highest. 4/4 · key C.
Bar 1. Right: C4 D4 E4 G4
Tempo: 60 quarter-note beats per minute. The count-in lasts 4 beats. Durations in the selected-note readout use quarter-note units. Tempo changes and Reset stop playback and select the first note. Audio starts only on request, plays once, and stops when hidden or off-screen. The tones are synthesized pitch guides, not a piano recording. A short release gap separates notes. Next note advances to the next attack in either hand. Held notes stay highlighted. There is no moving cursor. Start at low device volume.
Read the attack and the release separately
Look at the four quarter notes in Detached notes, same pulse. Their pitches are C4, D4, E4, and G4, with right-hand fingers 1, 2, 3, and 5. Each quarter note occupies one beat of the bar. The staccato marks change how much of that beat contains sound. They do not replace the quarter notes with shorter written values. You still arrive at D on beat 2, E on beat 3, and G on beat 4. Count the next beat after G even when its sound has already ended.
At 60 quarter-note beats per minute, each beat lasts one second. Imagine C sounding for roughly the first half of its second, followed by silence until D begins. That gives a detached result without changing any attack time. If you instead begin D as soon as you release C, the beat becomes shorter. The difference is measurable in the count even without a recording. Your spoken 2 should coincide with D, not arrive after it. The browser uses a shortened sound for this example, but that particular fraction is not a rule for all staccato playing.
Use the printed score to separate two questions before playing. First ask when the note begins, using its written value and its position in the bar. Then ask how it should end, using its articulation and the surrounding phrase. A quarter note with a staccato mark and a quarter note without one can begin at identical times yet leave different amounts of silence. Conversely, two detached passages can have different attack rhythms. Detached describes their separation, not the number of attacks per beat.
Try C and D alone while saying 1, 2, 3 at a steady pace. Give C a clear release before 2, then place D exactly on 2. On another attempt, shorten C further but keep D in the same place. Listen for the changed gap rather than trying to make the next note faster. If D keeps following the release instead of the count, speak the count without keys, then restore the two attacks. This tests a release decision without adding a new fingering problem.
Shape a phrase rather than each bar separately
Dynamic markings are relative: p means soft, mp moderately soft, mf moderately loud, and f loud. Crescendo means gradually louder; diminuendo means gradually softer. None specifies an absolute device volume. Begin at a comfortable listening level.
In the connected phrase, let the line grow toward G and settle on the final C. A slur covers the phrase. Keep the beat steady as the loudness changes. The audio varies its amplitude to illustrate a rise and fall, but synthesized tones are not a model of acoustic-piano tone or exact legato.
On your likely touch-sensitive keyboard, a faster key descent produces a stronger attack when touch response is enabled. Extra pressure after the key reaches the bottom does not shape that already-sounding note. If touch response is off or unavailable, practice release timing and phrasing first.
Stopped. Select a note with Next note, or play with sound.
Right hand. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little. Chord finger groups read from lowest note to highest. 4/4 · key C.
Bars 1–2. Right: C4 D4 E4 G4 | F4 E4 C4
Tempo: 60 quarter-note beats per minute. The count-in lasts 4 beats. Durations in the selected-note readout use quarter-note units. Tempo changes and Reset stop playback and select the first note. Audio starts only on request, plays once, and stops when hidden or off-screen. The tones are synthesized pitch guides, not a piano recording. A short release gap separates notes. Next note advances to the next attack in either hand. Held notes stay highlighted. There is no moving cursor. Start at low device volume.
Tell similar marks apart by their position and job
The staccato dots in the detached score belong above or below the notes. A duration dot belongs to the right of a notehead. Position matters because the two marks answer different questions. A duration dot changes the written time allocation. An articulation dot describes the treatment of sound within that allocation. Do not count every visible dot as an extra half beat. Identify which note the mark belongs to, then decide whether you are reading a duration or an instruction about sound.
Compare a plain quarter, a dotted quarter, and a staccato quarter in thought before returning to the score. The plain quarter allocates one beat. The dotted quarter allocates one and a half beats because its dot adds half of one. The staccato quarter still allocates one beat, though the key releases sooner. If the next note follows directly in each written rhythm, it begins after one, one and a half, and one beats respectively. The silent part of a staccato beat remains counted time, even without a printed rest.
A slur is another instruction about connection rather than a new note value. In the connected example, its curve groups different pitches into one phrase. It cannot be a tie merging them into one sustained pitch, because C, D, E, G, F, E, and C are different notes. Each needs its own attack. You can connect successive keys where comfortable, but you still change pitch at every written onset. Holding all the earlier keys down would accumulate a chord, not produce the intended single melodic line.
An accent, when present in music, asks for emphasis at an attack. It does not instruct you to shorten the following beat. Nor does a slur demand that every attack have equal loudness. Keep these categories separate when reading a more crowded score. Duration determines the time available, articulation concerns connection or separation, and dynamics concern relative strength. The two examples here let you investigate these categories with familiar pitches rather than decode several new symbols and new hand positions at once.
Follow the connected phrase across its bar line
Read A connected phrase with a gentle rise as a seven-note route. Bar 1 has C4, D4, E4, and G4, all quarters. Bar 2 has F4 and E4 as quarters, then C4 as a half note. Its fingering is 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 3, 1. The last C occupies beats 3 and 4 of bar 2. There are eight beats but only seven attacks. Keeping that distinction clear prevents the held ending from becoming an extra repeated C or an omitted final beat.
The highest pitch, G, arrives on beat 4 of bar 1. The line then falls to F on the next downbeat. That makes the bar line a particularly useful test. If you pause there simply because a new bar starts, you interrupt the move away from G. Count 3, 4, 1, 2 while playing E, G, F, E. The arrival on F should follow G by the same one-beat interval that separates the other attacks. The score's visual division organizes counting; it does not insert breathing time.
The suggested rise toward G is an interpretation of this phrase, not a law that higher pitches must always be louder. Here you can give the succession C, D, E, G increasing relative strength, then let F, E, C settle. Compare that with making every note equally soft. Both attempts should preserve the same pitches and beat lengths. The difference you seek is the direction of the phrase. Do not change the device volume between attempts, because that would change the whole example rather than the relation among its notes.
The p at the beginning and mp at bar 2 are relative dynamic indications. They are not calibrated loudness measurements. A phrase can begin softly, rise within that region, and continue moderately softly at the next marking. The audio supplies a simple rise and fall through its note amplitudes. It does not demonstrate every possible nuance of a pianist's performance. Use it to locate the high point and hear the fixed attack rhythm, then make your own controlled comparison at the keyboard without treating the synthesis as an exact tone target.
At the keyboard
Play the detached example twice at the same tempo, checking that shortened notes create silence rather than earlier next attacks.
Play the connected phrase softly, then moderately softly. Avoid lifting the shoulder or fixing the wrist to make a louder sound.
Shape a rise and fall while counting aloud. Record yourself if convenient; listen separately for timing and dynamics.
When you add a bass later, aim to hear the melody clearly over it. A thick accompaniment should not automatically become louder than the tune.
Change dynamics without adding unwanted accents
The little finger plays G at the high point, while the thumb plays both the first and final C. Those assignments can complicate a dynamic comparison. A note that sounds stronger may reflect an unintended attack rather than the phrase you planned. First play the seven pitches with an even, moderate dynamic intention. Listen for a sudden jump at either thumb C or the little-finger G. Then add the rise and fall. This separates an intentional high point from an isolated uneven note that happens to occupy the same place.
On a touch-responsive keyboard with the relevant response enabled, differences in key descent can change the attack. After the note begins, pressing harder on an already-bottomed key does not make that attack grow. The final half-note C is a useful demonstration. Give it a soft beginning and hold for two beats. You cannot turn that one attack into a crescendo merely by increasing pressure afterward. Phrase shaping here mainly comes from choosing the relative strength of successive attacks and controlling when each key releases.
If your instrument produces much the same attack regardless of how you play the key, do not conclude that your timing experiment failed. Touch response may be unavailable or disabled. Without changing unfamiliar settings, compare connected and detached releases instead. Their difference remains meaningful even with fixed attack loudness. The page cannot identify your instrument's current configuration. Model confirmation and its manual belong before any device-specific adjustment. Neither the printed p nor the browser's audio amplitude tells you what setting your physical keyboard currently uses.
Avoid trying to obtain a louder note by fixing the wrist or holding a rigid position. This text cannot assess your movement remotely. Keep the experiment within comfortable playing, and stop if discomfort appears rather than treating it as a musical requirement. For diagnosis, reduce the task to two comfortable notes, E and G, with fingers 3 and 5. Compare equal attacks with a modestly stronger G at the same tempo. Restore the whole phrase only when you can hear the intended difference without adding a pause before G.
Listen for one cause at a time
The detached score and the first bar of the connected score use exactly the same four pitches and fingers. That gives a useful controlled comparison. Play the first bar once with the detached treatment and once connected, keeping a similar dynamic level. Do not also add the rise toward G yet. Otherwise you would change both release and loudness, making it harder to identify what caused the different result. The printed scores remain the references for their different articulations; no extra song display is needed.
Now keep the connected treatment and compare an even dynamic intention with the suggested phrase shape. Count aloud on both attempts. If the shaped version takes longer before G or after it, you have changed timing as well as dynamics. Flexible timing can be a later interpretive choice, but it would obscure this experiment. Return to a spoken beat and ask whether G can become a modest high point without arriving late. Then ask whether the final C can sound settled while still receiving its full two counted beats.
Use the detached example to compare note length at two counted tempos while keeping the rhythm proportional. At 60 quarter-note BPM, each slot lasts one second. As an initial experiment, sound roughly half that slot and leave the rest silent. At 80 BPM the slot lasts three quarters of a second; half of it is three eighths of a second. Keeping the original half-second sound would now fill more of the shorter beat. These fractions are an illustration, not prescribed staccato lengths. Listen for the amount of separation within the beat and decide whether the phrase still sounds detached, without moving any next attack earlier. The same physical release delay need not produce the same articulation at a new tempo.
A useful diagnosis describes an audible event rather than calling the whole phrase unmusical. You might notice that D begins early after a detached C, that F arrives late after the bar line, or that the final C sounds abruptly louder than E. Those observations imply different next attempts. Keep D on the spoken 2, connect the G-to-F counting boundary, or compare E-to-C attack levels. Changing one identified relation gives you evidence about the cause. Repeating the complete phrase with no listening question leaves those separate problems mixed together.
Exercises and readiness checks
Do not move the next attack
If you shorten a staccato quarter note, should the next note begin early?
Hint
Release time and the next onset are separate.
Worked answer
Check the written music
Right hand. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little. Chord finger groups read from lowest note to highest. 4/4 · key C.
Finger numbers identify the hand’s planned route. Read the relevant passage alongside the worked answer; these are the same pitches and durations used by playback.
No. Start the next note on its written beat. The early release creates a gap inside the original time slot. Moving the next attack forward would accelerate the rhythm instead of changing articulation.
Distinguish the two dots
How does a staccato dot differ from the dot that made a dotted quarter longer?
Hint
Look at the dot’s position relative to the notehead.
Worked answer
Check the written music
Right hand. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little. Chord finger groups read from lowest note to highest. 4/4 · key C.
Finger numbers identify the hand’s planned route. Read the relevant passage alongside the worked answer; these are the same pitches and durations used by playback.
The duration dot sits to the right and adds half the note’s value. The staccato dot sits above or below and asks for a detached sound. They have different jobs; a dotted note can even carry a separate staccato mark.
Phrase without slowing every bar
What should grow and settle in the connected example, and what should remain even?
Hint
Separate the dynamic shape from the pulse.
Worked answer
Check the written music
Right hand. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little. Chord finger groups read from lowest note to highest. 4/4 · key C.
Finger numbers identify the hand’s planned route. Read the relevant passage alongside the worked answer; these are the same pitches and durations used by playback.
Let the melody’s loudness grow toward its high point and soften toward the final C, while the beat remains even. A small phrase-ending breath can be intentional, but arbitrary pauses at every bar line break the line. Practice steady timing first before adding flexible timing.
These studies were written for this course. Reference audio is synthesized, with no microphone input or automatic grading. The scores use locally generated VexFlow notation and remain available offline. Long scores have a printable view; no pedal is required to use the lesson.
References and scope
MusicTheory.net lessons provide further explanations of notation, rhythm, and chords. Open Music Theory is a longer reference. The keyboard diagrams, exercises, and rock-style study here were made for these lessons. The Beethoven example uses a public-domain melody, transposed to C, not a modern published arrangement.
Casio CT-S300 product information is the reference for the likely instrument. The lessons do not depend on a particular button sequence, USB connection, or automatic accompaniment.