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Portato
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portato [porˈtaːto] (Italian, past participle of portare, "to carry"), French notes portées (Anon.
n.d.), in music denotes a smooth, pulsing articulation and is often notated by adding dots under slur
markings.

Portato is also known as articulated legato (Blood 2012). It is a bowing

technique for stringed instruments (Anon. 2001), in which successive notes
are gently re-articulated while being joined under a single continuing bow
stroke. It achieves a kind of pulsation or undulation, rather than separating
the notes. It has been notated in various ways. One early 19th century writer, One type of
Pierre Baillot (L’art du violon, Paris, 1834), gives two alternatives: a wavy portato notation,
line, and dots under a slur. Later in the century a third method became
also used for
common: placing "legato" dashes (tenuto) under a slur (Wall 2001a). The
staccato and
notation with dots under slurs is ambiguous, because it is also used for very
flying spiccato.
different bowings, including staccato and flying spiccato (Walls 2001a; Walls
2001b).

Currently, mezzo-staccato is sometimes indicated in words, by "mezzo-staccato" or "non-legato";

or can be shown by three graphic forms:

a slur that encompasses a phrase of staccato notes (the most common), or

a tenuto above a staccato mark (very often), or
a slur that encompasses a phrase of tenuto notes (less common) (Tsai 2008).

Portato is defined by some authorities as "the same as portamento" (Kennedy 1994).

See also
Bariolage

References
Anon. n.d. "Notes portées" (redirect). Grove Music Online, edited by Deane Root. Oxford
Music Online (accessed 5 June 2016).(subscription required)
Anon. 2001. "Portato". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition,
edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Blood, Brian. 2012. "Music Theory Online: Lesson 21: Phrasing & Articulation
(http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory21.htm)". Dolmetsch Organisation (Accessed 19
December 2012).
Kennedy, Michael. 1994. "Portato". The Oxford Dictionary of Music, second edition, revised.

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Portato - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portato

Associate editor, Joyce Bourn. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN
0-19-869162-9.
Tsai, Chia-Fen. 2008. "Articulation". The "Thirty Caprices" of Sigfrid Karg-Elert: A
Comprehensive Study. AAT 3325459. ISBN 9780549808930.
Walls, Peter. 2001a. "Bow, §II, 3. Bowstrokes after c1780, (iii) Portato". The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell.
London: Macmillan Publishers.
Walls, Peter. 2001b. "Bow, §II, 3. Bowstrokes after c1780, (vi) Staccato". The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell.
London: Macmillan Publishers.

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