Staccato marks notes as what?

• A. Legato
• B. Staccatissimo
• C. Detached
• D. Staccato

Answer: (C)

Articulation marks tell you how long and how smoothly notes should be played in relation to each other. When you see a staccato mark, the note is meant to be played short and separated from the next one, giving a crisp, detached feel. The symbol—a small dot above or below the note—primarily signals this brief, separated quality. So the effect described by staccato is best called detached.

Legato would be the opposite—a smooth, connected flow. Staccatissimo is an even more extreme, ultra-short version of detached, and the marking itself is called staccato, not the resulting character.