Articulation

The way individual notes are attacked, joined and ended: picked, slurred, muted, staccato, accented or left ringing.

Two players can play the same notes at the same tempo and sound nothing alike because of articulation alone. It is carried by small physical choices: whether the pick touches the string or the finger does, how long the note is held, whether the previous note is damped, and how hard the first millisecond is. Notation only sketches it, which is why learning a part usually means copying a recording rather than reading it.

Example: the identical phrase played legato and then re-picked staccato reads as two different musical statements in the same key and tempo.

Articulation

See also