IT non legato articulation common Support my free tools
- Abbreviation
- non leg.
How is non legato played?
Give successive notes a perceptible separation while avoiding the clipped brevity normally associated with clear staccato. The phrase literally negates legato and often occupies an intermediate region between legato and staccato, with notes kept relatively full; no fixed percentage of written value is implied. Mezzo staccato and portato can overlap in some teaching traditions but are not universal synonyms. The words or non leg. provide a textual direction rather than one dedicated symbol, and unslurred notation may invite non-legato performance in some styles without making it a universal default.
How does non legato sound?
Clearly separated notes that still sound full and weighted, lighter than a continuous line but heavier than crisp staccato.
In context
Non legato means not connected. ABC Musiknotation, Lehrklänge and Phantes independently expand non leg. as the complete phrase; Brigham Young University’s organ pedagogy describes the audible break as smaller than staccato. The established middle-ground description is retained without turning it into a fixed duration, universal alias or automatic reading of every unslurred passage.