In music notation

Musical notation

Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...

, a tie is a curved line connecting the heads of two note

Note

In music, the term note has two primary meanings:#A sign used in musical notation to represent the relative duration and pitch of a sound;#A pitched sound itself....

s of the same pitch

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

, indicating that they are to be played as a single note with a duration equal to the sum of the individual notes' note value

Note value

In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the color or shape of the note head, the presence or absence of a stem, and the presence or absence of flags/beams/hooks/tails....

s. A tie is similar in appearance to a slur

Slur (music)

A slur is a symbol in Western musical notation indicating that the notes it embraces are to be played without separation. This implies legato articulation, and in music for bowed string instruments, it also indicates the notes should be played in one bow; and in music for wind instruments, that the...

.

The tie shown at right (in blue) connects a quarter note (crotchet) to a sixteenth note (semiquaver), creating a note 5/4 as long as a quarter note, or five times as long as a sixteenth note—there is no single note value

Note value

In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the color or shape of the note head, the presence or absence of a stem, and the presence or absence of flags/beams/hooks/tails....

 to express this duration. However, in some cases one might tie two notes that could be written with a single note value, such as a quarter note tied to an eighth note (the same length as a dotted quarter

Dotted note

In Western musical notation, a dotted note is a note with a small dot written after it. The dot increases the duration of the basic note by half of its original value. If the basic note lasts 2 beats, the corresponding dotted note lasts 3 beats...

). This might be because:

• A barline is between the notes
• The second note begins a metric grouping
  Metre (music)
  Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
  
  , falling on a stressed beat
  Beat (music)
  The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...
  
   of the meter. This change in notation (choosing the tie rather than the longer note value
  Note value
  In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the color or shape of the note head, the presence or absence of a stem, and the presence or absence of flags/beams/hooks/tails....
  
  ) does not affect performance, but it makes the music easier to read.

Several notes in succession can be tied together. Such a succession can also be part of a larger, slurred phrase, in which case, ties and slurs must be used simultaneously and distinguishably.