Piano Video Lesson: Are Staccatos Accented?

Welcome to LivingPianos.com, I'm Robert Estrin. Today with the question, are staccatos accented? You see the little dots in your music, and you know to play short or detached.

But does that mean you also articulate it with an accent? Well, there are different markings for accents. You have the little kind of sideways triangle, and you also have a sforzando, like a strong accent, for example, in Ballade. It starts off of Burgmüller with staccatos, and then you do have sforzandos coming, like this.

So there you can hear the nice crisp staccatos and the accented sforzando. But what about other instances where there are just staccatos, should they be accented? Well, the answer to that is sometimes. There are sometimes where indeed staccatos are an indication to play with some emphasis.

But there are often times where it's exactly the opposite.

Good examples of that are when you have two -note slurs. Two -note slurs where the first note is articulated with some energy, particularly when it's on the beat, and then the ands are light. For example, in the Allegro of Mozart, he wrote when he was like four years old or something like that. You're probably familiar with it. I'm going to play it, and I'm going to articulate the two -note slurs by playing the second note of each slur as staccato, and you end up with a light staccato like this.

So you notice the staccatos are actually very light.

Imagine if those staccatos were articulated with energy.

It gives a syncopated feel to the rhythm, which is not at all what a two -four time should be. One and two and one and two and. Generally, the strong beats are on the beats and off beats are lighter, except in instances where syncopation is happening, like in Gallywag's Cakewag.

Now there's a time when accents are on staccato notes and off the beat, and this can happen, but most often staccatos are light, particularly when there are two -note slurs. Remember to accentuate the beats and the off beats, or the second note of the two -note slur should be light, and the way to achieve this is by using a down -up motion. I've talked about how a staccato, as I demonstrated in Ballade, is simply a up -down motion of the wrist. Well, a two -note slur is the same thing, except it's delayed. So for example, the beginning of the Mozart Allegro, the first note, just simple down and up.

Nothing can be simpler, right? Then when you have the down -up for the two -note slur, it's a down on the slurred note, up on the staccato note, and that naturally gives you the energy on the slurred note and makes the staccato note light.

So once again, the first staccato note and then the two -note slur, down -up.

And that's how you achieve a light staccato even when going quickly, and that is something you should consider in your music. It's all about context.

Weak beats should be de -emphasized, and you can do this with the wrist with two -note slurs. Try it in your music and see how it works for you. Again, Robert Estrin here at LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource. Lots more videos to come. Thanks for joining me.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/are-staccatos-accented/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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