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I am unsure. Say you are in common time. You have a half note tied to a quarter note with a dot aove it, followed by another quarter note with a dot above it. How is that measure articulated?
Or another example would be four four time and you have half noted thirds tied to a quarter noted third with a dot above and then a lone quarter note third. How is that played?

Thanks for your help.

Sometimes it's easier to talk about these questions if you post an example, however, I'll give it a try. Let us know if this isn't really what you're asking, but I'm detecting two different issues here. The rhythm is straightforward: the half note tied to a quarter note is held for three beats and the remaining quarter note makes up the fourth beat of the measure.

The dots above the notes have nothing to do with this basic counting (if the dots appeared to the side of the notes you would have a different issue). Above the notes, the dots mean staccato or detached. With a dot over the two quarter notes, it suggests releasing the tied quarter note just a bit before the fourth beat starts to create a slight space or detachment between the third and fourth beat. Likewise, the last quarter note is released just a little early to create a space before the next measure.

If a note is tied to another note, without a staccato dot above it, then you just hold the second note for its time value, this is a regular tie. However, if a note is tied to another note that is staccato, then this is a slur, and the second note is played staccato.

Confused.

You can't have a staccato note as the second note in a tie.

Sure you can. It happens fairly frequently.

Staccato means the note ends early. It doesn't have to affect the beginning of the note, though sometimes it does. You have to figure out what the composer meant.

(This is not a good marking because it's confusing to read - but it is certainly written often enough.)

As david_a notes, this is flatly incorrect. I am not at home right now, but if it helps I can post a couple of examples from Gardner Read's Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice (2nd ed.) later.

There is (or at least there is supposed to be) a slight difference in the placement of the tie mark and a slur: "Though the tie-mark and the slur appear identical, the tie almost touches the note-head center, while the slur of necessity is set somewhat above or below the note-head" (Read, p. 110). This distinction is subtle and you cannot always depend on a particular publisher following all the rules, so caution is advised in this area. But tied notes with different articulation marks are very common and, in my opinion, not always particularly confusing.

Its like the palmetto pimento passages. That is not a staccato but like a dot glissando.

Okay I meant portamento passages maybe.

I assumed that you originally meant that the half and quarter notes in your first example were at the same pitch (because you used the word "tied"). Talking about glissandos makes me wonder if I jumped to a wrong assumption about this. Is it possible to post a scan of the measures in question?

Portamento notation using a little "o" (not a solid dot) over a note is usually seen in string notation, where it indicates a glissando or portamento to a harmonic. I don't know what it might mean in a piano context.

(I just hate being stumped on notation questions!)

An example in the right edition would be in Sonatina op 55 no 3, Kuhlau and about the 32nd and 33rd measure. Oh did I say the half note and the quarter note are the same note/pitch? I hope so. I have to call it a night and check in tomorrow. Thanks.

I found an old Schirmer public domain edition of this on imslp.org, but I didn't see the example you describe in half and quarter notes. I did find this in the first movement:



If this is along the lines you are asking, then my original answer was correct. The half-note third in the RH is tied to an eighth-note third followed by three other eighth-note thirds (the first of which just repeats the tied third). The dots are staccato marks and indicate that a brief rest should be added AFTER each dotted third (without changing the rhythm of course).

The dot over the tied eighth-note third corresponds to the dotted eighth note in the LH, so the RH and LH should release their notes together here when creating the detached sound. Also, the half-note third has an accent mark indicating that it needs to be emphasized when it is first played.

Thanks everyone. Packa that was what I was thinking of, variations of the example you scanned for me. I guess but you are saying the right hand isn't articulated just lifted quickly to in stacatto or portamento way at same time as left hand and are you saying that? I guess that is why I thought the tie was there. I see variations of this everywhere and my knowledge isn't about knowing how to fix this.

I would say that staccato means a SHORTENED sound rather than always a SHORT QUICK sound. A staccato mark over an eighth or sixteenth note certainly suggests a quick "grace-note-like" sound production, especially at fast tempos. But dots over longer notes like quarter notes or at slower tempos may just be somewhat shortened and detached but without the quick "jabbing" sound you may be imagining. That is the case with the tied notes in the example. You still hold the tied notes for ALMOST their full duration.

I understand staccato differently. I give up. Thanks for help.

Hello Linda
I have the Kuhlau Sonatina Book 1. Although I am not to Op.55, #3 yet. In looking at measures 32 & 33 I expect my teacher to have me hold the b&d in the right hand through the half note and come up and off early on the tied eighth note to have a staccato feel.... and then play the remaining 3 eighth notes stacatto. hope this helps

Okay thanks, I think that is what Packa said too... But with the remaining 3 eighth notes just short of full time-portamentoish. Now to try it out in real time.

Yes. And the reason for lifting early in the RH is to allow that staccato eighth note in the LH to really stand out as a short detached sound that establishes the feel for the three following staccato eighth notes in the RH.

Just to clear up some possible confusion: portamento is different from portato. In the case where you are playing something staccato but not really short, just detached, that is portato. Portamento is when you slide from one pitch to the next (not literally possible on the piano as this is different than a glissando).

The distinction with portato is certainly true, but portamento is sometimes, although much more rarely, used as a synonym for appogiatura, which is obviously possible on a piano (e.g. see the entry for "portamento" in The Oxford Companion To Music).

Which I do not see in the musical example provided, unless I missed something coming in late to the discussion.