Usually I find it is difficult for a student to understand the concept of legato as opposed to staccato. However, I have one older student, about 16 years old, who doesn't seem to have a problem with it. In fact, his fingers tend to overcompensate by allowing "bleeding" in between, almost as if the pedal were down. It's incredibly annoying to hear him play a passage with several notes getting stuck behind. I'm not sure what to do to help him fix this. The only thing I could come up with was having him practice scales and such as stacatto, so he could hear the opposite extreme, then try to play them legato, properly. Hasn't seemed to make much of a difference. Help?

What a lovely quote from Thoreau.

Well, do I dare utter this ....

You could tell him to take up organ.

You're student is finger pedaling. Scale practice should help, but not staccato, but rather very slow, deliberate playing where one finger is released the moment the new tone sounds.

By the way, there are times we do want a little bleeding of the sound, so he needs to develop real control. Immediate release, release momentarily after the next tone sounds, held half way through the next tone, etc.

Yes I understand that sometimes there is a need for bleeding tones, but there is no method to his madness, it's just a sloppy mess the whole way up and down. I feel like otherwise his scales would sound much better because he knows the notes and fingerings, they just don't come together in a lovely sounding way. Usually the scales he is very familiar and comfortable with, such as C Major, sound much cleaner and neater.

Thanks for your suggestion, I will try having him discipline himself more during practice by playing slowly and deliberately.

Does he happen to play a stringed instrument? A pianist friend of mine told me he could always identify violinists learning piano (me, in this case) because string players are told to hold their fingers down until they need to be moved. If he is, understanding the difference might help him adjust.

Interesting observation. One wonders, though, why the confused mess of sound he would be making by finger pedaling wouldn't alert him to his own problem. String players are noted for having a very good ear, no?

That is interesting Michael. I also noticed that toejamfutbol herself is also a guitarist, where we have still another action.

Legato means that the notes flow into each other, with no break between when one ends and the other starts. Staccato means that there is a break between the end of one note and the start of the next, so that each note sounds a bit shorter than its actual value because of that break.

On violin, the bow moves continuously and finger changes create the new notes, for legato. The bow is responsible for staccato. In voice we have to stop and start the voice to create staccato, so the breath is the bow.

Guitar is sort of percussive like a piano: you pluck the string like a hammer strikes a piano string, but the string continues vibrating because there are no dampers. So if you pluck one note after the other, you'll get legato. For staccato, you would have to break the vibration with the finger or hand, using it as a damper.

With piano, the sound is produced by launching the hammer at the moment that the hammer strikes the string. If you let go of the key, then a damper falls to cut off the sound. So the sound starts when you press the key, it continues as long as you keep the key down because you prevent the damper from cutting the sound, and it stops when you release the key. Therefore you control legato/staccato by timing when one key is released and the next key is pressed. If the first key is still down when the second key is pressed, then the two sounds blend together into legato: though they will "bleed" if the timing is wrong.

It would be fun to experiment in slow motion with timing the release of one key and pressing the next to see what effects one gets. I've also read about touching and releasing the key quickly, as though it were a hot potato and you were afraid of burning yourself,for a sharp staccato.

He doesn't play any other instrument that I know of. And I'm pretty sure he's aware of how sloppy it sounds, I just don't think he really cares or sees it as much of a problem. I guess that's half the battle, getting him to actually care.

Thanks for the input guys!

I often use that illustration for my younger kids when teaching them staccato! Problem is, they tend to think that if the key is hot, they had better jerk their hand back as far away as possible as soon as they strike it.

I can relate to your student. I was doing this when practicing chordal positions. My instructor interpreted it as inability to properly perform legato. But actually, I just liked the sound, particularly in the treble. Sounded like bells.

Once my instructor insisted that I perform legato the way you like it, I didn't find it difficult. But i still like the other sound.

Hop

Maybe it isn't quite that simple? I'm thinking there is a time lag.

I play a precisely timed quarter note. To end it, I lift my finger. But my finger must travel a finite distance before the damper falls, and there is a small mechanical delay built into the damper action. So I really have to start ending the note early.

Then I wait a precise quarter rest, and play another note. Again, the key must travel part way down before the hammer strike, so I have to start beginning the note early.

And to time it correctly, I have to hear what I'm doing. I believe hearing yourself play is a learned skill, and not easily learned at that.

If there is too much going on, there no way a beginner is going to hear how much blur is caused by fingers overlapping. Too much probably means both hands. If he plays one hand at a time maybe he can hear well enough to control the finger pedal.

Or, there's always organ! Good suggestion.

Because we are not good listeners. Our mind hears what we want to hear, not the sound coming into our ears. We have to be trained to do that. Which is why many teachers play examples of difficult passages or problems for students, both correctly and incorrectly, in an effort to get the students focusing like razor beams.