Salford Piano Studio
A tie connects two notes of the same pitch.
It is mostly used to hold a note onto the next bar.
Therefore, we do not play the second note, the two notes merge into one longer note.
It looks like this:
As you can see above, the note is held for 5 beats.
It is written as Semibreve (4 beats) + crochet (1 beat)
Similarly, if we’re in 3/4 time and wanted to hold a note for 4 beats, we would need to use a tie to carry us to the next bar.
Example
In his Cello Sonata No. 3, Beethoven uses ties to carry the last beat of the bar.
Since we can’t use a minim with only 1 beat left in the bar, the only solution is to use a tie.
