Adding slurs

A slur is a curved line joining notes for phrasing — play them smoothly connected, as one musical gesture, regardless of their pitches.

Creating a slur

Select a range and press F4 S (Ornaments tab) to slur it end to end immediately, or select just the start note to enter spanner mode and pick the end point yourself. See Creating spanners for the full mechanic, shared with hairpins, trill lines, and octave shifts.

Not the same as a tie

A slur can look like a tie, but they mean different things. A tie only ever joins two notes of the same pitch, to extend how long one note sounds — it’s a direct toggle (F1 L) with no end point to pick. A slur can join notes of different pitches, for phrasing, and doesn’t change how long anything sounds. If you’re trying to hold a note’s pitch across a barline or beat group, you want a tie — see Entering notes.

Tips

• A slur is purely notational — it doesn’t change playback duration, only how the phrase is marked for a performer.