Tie

A curved line joining two notes of the same pitch, meaning the first note is held for the combined duration.

A tie is used when a note needs to last longer than any single written value, or when it must be held across a barline. It looks like a slur but behaves differently: a slur tells the player to play the second note without picking, while a tie means the second note is not played at all. Rests can be tied to notes and notes to chords, and reading ties wrongly produces either a clipped phrase or an unwanted extra attack.

Example: A note held from the end of one bar into the beginning of the next, with no new pick stroke, is written as two notes joined by a tie.

Tie

See also