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Lesson 13: Playing legato, with no gaps

Link your notes to each other: the music moves on with no silence between them, all the way to Dvořák's New World theme.

What you'll learn

  • Hold a key until the next one sounds
  • Join all five fingers with no silence
  • Play the New World theme, legato
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The lesson, step by step

  1. Until now, you played each note on its own, with a small silence between them. Today you will learn to link them: the notes touch each other, and the music never stops. At the end, you will play a melody by Dvořák, all in linked notes.
  2. Listen to the difference. The same five notes, first detached, each one short with a silence after it, then linked, with no silence between them at all.
  3. The movement is simple: the next finger goes down at the moment the previous one comes up. The key is never released before the next one sounds. It is this passing from one finger to the next that links the notes.
  4. To begin, just two notes. Your thumb plays C and holds it until your index finger plays D. Listen first: C, D, twice in a row, without lifting your thumb before the D.
  5. Now all five fingers, going up and then coming down. Each note holds until the next one: C, D, E, F, G, then back down to C. Listen first.
  6. Your left hand learns the same movement. The little finger starts on the low C and climbs to the thumb, on G, with no gap between the notes. Watch first.
  7. Here is the first phrase of today's piece: the slow theme from Dvořák's New World Symphony. It fits entirely in C position. Listen first.
  8. The whole piece now: the same phrase a second time, then a third one that comes down to C. You play the complete melody, from start to finish. Listen to it once, then follow the falling notes.
  9. Well done, your notes now link to each other, and the music moves on without a break. In the next lesson you will learn the opposite: playing detached, with short, clean notes.

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