Articulation and dynamics, the layer of the score that is neither pitch nor duration
How a note is attacked and at what intensity; the signs that say so on the staff, the few that cover almost everything at first, and why a chart does not write them.
The staff says which note and for how long. It does not say how: whether the note is attacked dry or joined to the next, whether it sounds loud or soft, whether it grows or fades. That is the score's third layer, articulation and dynamics, and half a dozen signs read almost everything that turns up in early pieces.
Articulation: how the note begins and ends
Articulation says what happens at the note's edges.
Slur — the arc over notes of different pitches. It says: play them joined, with no separation, in a single gesture. Not to be confused with the tie, the same arc between identical notes, which adds durations; here the notes are different and the arc only joins.
Staccato — the dot above or below the note. It says: short, separated from the next, with silence before the next one comes in. The written note still counts the same in the bar; what changes is how much of it sounds.
Tenuto — the horizontal line. It says: hold the full value, right up against the next, with a slight weight.
Accent — the greater-than sign. It says: this note louder than its neighbours.
The four combine and contradict each other on purpose: a slurred phrase with an accented note in the middle, a staccato passage with a tenuto at the end. It is the musical equivalent of punctuation and emphasis in speech.
Dynamics: at what intensity
Dynamics are written with abbreviated Italian letters, and the scale is short:
- pp — pianissimo, very soft
- p — piano, soft
- mp — mezzo-piano, moderately soft
- mf — mezzo-forte, moderately loud
- f — forte, loud
- ff — fortissimo, very loud
The letters hold until the next marking. Between them, two signs say the intensity changes gradually: the crescendo, which opens like a long less-than sign, and the decrescendo or diminuendo, which closes. A crescendo from piano to forte over four bars is as precise an instruction as a note; it just has no number.
Play that passage four times: piano, forte, crescendo and decrescendo. The notes do not change; the music changes entirely.
The ones that cover almost everything
For a beginner, four signs handle most scores: the slur, the staccato, the p and the f. The rest are learned as they appear, and they appear with a name you can look up on the spot.
Articulation and rhythm
Articulation and rhythm blur into each other on purpose in reading. A staccato crotchet sounds like a quaver followed by a rest; a tenuto quaver sounds almost like a crotchet. What the score writes is the value; what you hear is the value plus the articulation. Whoever transcribes by ear has to decide whether to write "quaver and rest" or "staccato crotchet", and both are right; the second says more about the intention.
What to take from here
Articulation is how the note begins and ends — slurred, short, sustained, accented; dynamics are at what intensity, in letters that hold until the next one, with crescendos and decrescendos between them. Four signs cover the beginning, and the chart does not write them because the genre and the recording say them. It is the layer that separates playing the notes from playing the music.