{{distinguish|Portamento}} {{Short description|Form of musical articulation}} {{Use shortened footnotes|date=May 2021}} '''Portato''' ({{IPA|it|porˈtaːto|}}; Italian past participle of ''portare'', "to carry"), also '''mezzo-staccato''', French '''notes portées''',{{r|Walls2001a}} in music denotes a smooth, pulsing articulation and is often notated by adding dots under slur markings.

Portato is also known as '''articulated legato'''.{{r|Blood2012}}

==Description== {{Image frame|content=<score>{ \override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f \relative c'' { b-.( c-. d-. b-.) } } </score>|width=140|caption=One type of portato notation, also used for staccato and flying spiccato.}}

Portato is a bowing technique for bowed stringed instruments{{r|Anon2001}} 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, Pierre Baillot (''L'art du violon'', Paris, 1834), gives two alternatives: a wavy line, and dots under a slur. Later in the century a third method became common: placing "legato" dashes (tenuto) under a slur.{{r|Walls2001a}} The notation with dots under slurs is ambiguous, because it is also used for very different bowings, including staccato and flying spiccato.{{r|Walls2001a|Walls2001b}} Currently, portato 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).{{r|Tsai2008}}

Portato is defined by some authorities as "the same as portamento".{{r|Kennedy1994}}

== See also == *Legato *Bariolage

==References== <references> <ref name=Blood2012>Blood, Brian. 2012. "[http://www.dolmetsch.com/musictheory21.htm Music Theory Online: Lesson 21: Phrasing & Articulation]". Dolmetsch Organisation (Accessed 19 December 2012).</ref>

<ref name=Anon2001>Anon. 2001. "Portato". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.</ref>

<ref name=Walls2001a>Walls, Peter. 2001. "Bow, §II, 3. Bowstrokes after c1780, (iii) Portato (It.; Fr. notes portées, louré)". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.</ref>

<ref name=Walls2001b>Walls, Peter. 2001. "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.</ref>

<ref name=Tsai2008>Tsai, Chia-Fen. 2008. "Articulation". ''The "Thirty Caprices" of Sigfrid Karg-Elert: A Comprehensive Study''. AAT 3325459. {{Full|date=July 2015}} {{ISBN|9780549808930}}.</ref>

<ref name=Kennedy1994>Kennedy, Michael. 1994. "Portato". ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music'', second edition, revised. Associate editor, Joyce Bourn. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-869162-9}}.</ref> </references>

{{Musical notation}} {{Violin family}}

Category:Articulations (music) Category:Italian words and phrases