Types of strokes. How to play staccato, Legato and non Legato

In the previous lessons, you have already learned how to sit correctly at the piano (link) and got acquainted with its device (link). Now the most pleasant part is the contact with the keyboard.

At first glance, there is nothing difficult about putting your hand on the piano. But in fact, even at this stage, there may be errors that are better to eliminate immediately. To avoid deflection of the fingers, place the handle in the center of the palm, thus forming a dome of the hand. This is the most correct and natural position of the hand to play the piano. By our nature, we tend to use our fingers either straight or completely bent, but when playing the piano, it is important that each finger is a bridge of three phalanges. It is also necessary that your fingers rest well on the keys so that you can not immediately remove your hands from the keyboard.

A very common mistake when setting the thumb is to try to play it with the phalanx. The first finger should be placed directly on the pad and produce sound with a small part of it.

Now let’s talk about strokes. The most popular touches on the piano are:

Legato (legato) — connected
When playing this stroke, it is important to control that one note flows into another smoothly, without holes. The most important Legato technique is padding, which allows us to play Legato, for example, scales where there are more notes than fingers.

non Legato — non legato) – not connected
As a rule, at the beginning of training, students play non legato. This stroke is more accentuated and less coherent, so at first it is given a little easier than Legato. The keys are pressed and released in such a way that there are very small pauses between notes. Note that the on keys are too jerky.

staccato — staccato
This stroke implies that you should play each note clearly, abruptly and sharply. The finger strikes a note and immediately releases it. This technique is useful to play various sketches, scales and strokes.