Lesson 15: Slurs and Legato Playing
- Play a group of notes under a single tongue, with no break between them.
- Play a lyrical melody in which the fingers carry the music.
A slur is a sentence. The notes are the words.
A slur over a group of notes asks you to tongue only the first; the rest happen by finger movement alone over continuous air. This is the recorder's equivalent of bowed legato, and it transforms a melody from a sequence of arrivals into a single phrase.
Play the line twice: too on every note, then too only on the first note of each beat with the rest slurred.
Each pair is one tongue, two pitches — the fingers must move precisely on the second eighth or the pair smudges.
Play: a lyrical melody
The melody below is built almost entirely of stepwise motion. The slurs — one per phrase — turn it from an exercise into a song.
Tongue only the first note of each four-note phrase; let the fingers carry the rest.
Now play these
- Go Tell Aunt Rhody
- Every phrase under a single slur.
- Silent Night
- Two-note slurred groupings throughout.
- Molly Malone
- Long, slurred phrases — one breath per line.
When you can play four-eighth-note slurs without smudging, and Aunt Rhody sounds genuinely different slurred than tongued, move on to Lesson 16.