How to play legato on piano

What legato is, and the slur sign

In legato playing each note lasts right up to the start of the next one. There’s no silence between them, as there would be in staccato, and no overlap, where two notes sound together and blur. The result is a line that seems to flow.

In the music, legato is shown by a slur: a curved line over or under a group of notes. Everything under the curve is played joined. Don’t confuse it with a tie, which looks similar but joins two notes of the same pitch into one longer note. A slur covers different notes; a tie covers the same note twice.

How to play legato: the handover

The basic movement is simple to describe. As one finger lets its key rise, the next finger takes its key down, at the same moment. Not before, or the notes overlap; not after, or there’s a gap. Think of it as handing the sound from one finger to the next.

What makes it feel natural is weight. Let the relaxed weight of your arm rest on the finger that’s playing, then pass that weight across to the next finger as it plays, the way you shift your weight from foot to foot when you walk. The finger that has finished doesn’t need to lift high; it just releases, and the key rises by itself. If you’ve read piano hand position, this is the same arm weight, moving sideways from finger to finger.

Try it with two fingers first. Put 2 and 3 of your right hand on D and E. Play D, then pass to E, and back, slowly, a few times. Watch the keys if it helps: one should be rising as the other goes down, like a seesaw.

Fingering makes legato possible

You can only join two notes if you have a free finger for the next one while the last is still down. Within a five-finger position that’s easy. Beyond it, you need to plan:

• Thumb under. To keep going up in the right hand past the 3rd or 4th finger, the thumb passes under the hand and takes the next key while the other finger is still holding its note.
• Finger over. Coming back down, a finger crosses over the thumb, again joining the two notes without a gap.
• Finger substitution. While a key is held down, you swap the finger on it for another without letting the key rise. Hold a note with 3, slide 1 onto the same key, then take 3 away: the note never stopped, and 3 is free for what comes next. Organists use it all the time; pianists use it in slow, singing music where no other fingering joins the notes.

So legato starts before you play, when you choose the fingering. If a passage keeps coming out with a gap in the same place, the cause is usually a fingering that leaves no free finger there. Piano finger numbers covers how to choose one.

Listen to the end of each note

A piano note starts loud and fades as it’s held. This is the main reason legato on the piano is an art rather than a mechanism. If you play the next note as loudly as the last one started, it sticks out, because the last note had faded by the time you reached it. A line played like that sounds like a row of separate bells.

Instead, listen to how loud each note has become just before you leave it, and play the next one to match. That makes the line sound continuous. Then shape it: let a rising line grow a little and a falling one ease off, the way a voice would. Listen especially for the thumb. It’s the heaviest finger, and a bump each time the thumb plays is the most common flaw in a legato line.

Finger legato and the pedal

The sustain pedal can also join notes, by letting them ring after your fingers have left. It’s essential for joining chords that the hand can’t connect on its own, and a lot of piano music needs both. But the pedal joins everything, including notes you didn’t want to hear together, and it can hide the fact that your fingers are leaving gaps.

Learn finger legato first, without the pedal, until a melody sounds joined on its own. Then add the pedal for colour and to connect what the fingers can’t. How to use the sustain pedal explains how to change it cleanly.

How to end a slur

The last note under a slur is usually played a little lighter than the one before, and released a touch early, so that the phrase breathes before the next one begins. A short slur over two notes is the clearest example: the first note goes down with the arm’s weight, the second is lighter as the wrist rises gently and lifts the hand off the key. Teachers often call it “down, up”.

Exercises for legato playing

1. Two-note slurs. Pairs of neighbouring notes, C–D, D–E, E–F and so on: down on the first, up and off on the second. A minute per hand.
2. Five-finger legato. The phrase in the picture above, slowly, listening for every join. Then the left hand an octave lower, with 5 4 3 2 1 2 3 4 5. Two or three times each hand.
3. Slow scales. One octave, very slowly, listening only for gaps and bumps where the thumb passes under. See how to practise scales.
4. Legato thirds, later. Two notes at once in one hand, both joined to the next pair. It’s hard and needs careful fingering, so leave it until single-note legato is easy.

Common faults

• Lifting early. A tiny gap before each note, often because the finger lifts high to prepare. Keep the fingers close to the keys and release only as the next note plays.
• Holding too long. The last key is still down when the next one plays, so the two overlap and blur. Listen for it, especially going down a scale.
• An accent on every note. Each note pushed into the key separately. Think of the line, not the notes, and let the weight pass rather than drop on each finger.
• A collapsing wrist. The wrist sinks as the hand reaches for the thumb or the 5th finger. Keep it level and let the elbow carry the hand sideways.

Legato takes patience because it’s about listening as much as moving. Ten slow minutes, hearing every join, will do more than an hour of playing through.