Dynamics, articulation and form
Legato
Legato means connected: each note sounds until the next one begins, with no gap between them. In written music it is shown by a slur, a curved line over a group of notes.
A slur is a curved line over several different notes. Every note under it is played smoothly: the finger leaves one key only at the moment the next is pressed. The sounds flow into one line, like a phrase sung in one breath.
Do not confuse a slur with a tie. A tie joins two notes of the same pitch into one longer sound — the second is not struck again. A slur joins different notes, and each of them is struck, only without a gap. The word legato may also be written out without a slur, as an instruction for a whole passage.
The opposite of legato is staccato: short and detached. On the piano legato comes less from the pedal than from the fingers: the weight passes from one key to the next, as in walking.
What it sounds like
Legato sounds like a singing voice: one unbroken line in which the notes melt into each other.
Where it is taught: the studio’s interactive textbook, chapter 13, “Ties, rests and the pickup” and chapter 17, “Dynamics and articulation”.