Technique 302 - Legato Vs. Staccato

Legato and staccato are techniques that speak to the duration, or the attack, of the note.  These subtle differences are yet another way to provide a lot of character to our playing. 

Staccato playing is where you have a sharp attack and you have very little note duration.  I like to think of staccato as “lightning strikes.” 

Legato is the opposite, where notes ring out for the entire duration of the note value - meaning they ring all the way until that note is taken over by another note. This obviously yields a very fluid and smooth sound. 

Legato playing is also a hallmark of super fast lead players like EVH, who use this technique to fly through scales faster than they could if they were to pick each note. 

Try this with some distortion and you’ll see how much faster you can go, especially if you spend a lot of time doing the hammer-on and pull-off exercise we learned earlier in the course. 

Of course, the goal is to not play just one way, but to be able to play more staccato or more legato when and where it makes the most sense for you. 

Mess around with it and good luck!