Articulation marks, holds and pedal markings

The dot sits at the notehead, on the side away from the stem. The note keeps its place in the rhythm but sounds for only part of its value — often about half, though style and tempo decide how short. The time it gives up becomes silence.

Staccato is about length, not volume: a staccato note is not automatically quieter, or accented. Its opposite is legato, smooth and connected, usually shown with a slur; between the two sits tenuto, full length.

It is staccato taken further. In some music, though — notably the Classical period, Mozart and Haydn among it — a wedge or stroke can mean a firm, accented staccato rather than simply a shorter one. The period and the edition matter.

Tenuto means 'held'. It asks you not to shorten the note at all — useful among detached notes — and often adds a gentle emphasis. Written together with a staccato dot it asks for something in between: separated, but not short.

The accented note stands out from those around it, usually through a stronger attack, and the music then carries on at the same dynamic. Like other articulations it sits at the notehead.

An accent marks a single note. A decrescendo hairpin has a similar shape but stretches across several notes and changes the volume gradually.

Marcato means 'marked'. It is usually written above the staff whatever the stem direction. In jazz and big-band parts it often also implies a short, punchy note — a convention of that style rather than a rule everywhere.

On a wind instrument, notes under a slur are played in one breath without tonguing; on a string instrument, in one bow; on the piano, joined by the fingers with no gap. Long slurs over whole phrases, often called phrase marks, show the shape of a line more than a technique.

A curve joining two notes of the same pitch is a tie instead.

How much longer is not fixed — it is not 'twice as long'. The performer, or the conductor in an ensemble, decides from the style, the tempo and the moment. The beat stops while the note is held, and the music then resumes.

A fermata can sit over a rest (a held silence) or over a bar line (a pause between sections). In Bach's chorales it often marks the end of a phrase more than a long hold.

The comma takes its time from the note before it, so the rhythm barely pauses; string and keyboard players treat it as a small lift. The caesura — // , nicknamed 'railroad tracks' — is a complete break: the music stops, then continues. Like a fermata's, its length is left to the performer.

While the pedal is down, the dampers lift off the strings and every note keeps ringing after its key is let go. Many modern editions use a bracket line instead: down at the start, a notch where the pedal is lifted and pressed again, up at the end.

These marks belong to the right pedal. Una corda (the soft pedal, on the left) and tre corde (release it) are separate instructions.